{"title":"For better or for worse: differential effects of the emotional valence of words on children's recall.","authors":"Johanne Belmon, Magali Noyer-Martin, Sandra Jhean-Larose","doi":"10.1080/02699931.2025.2451814","DOIUrl":"10.1080/02699931.2025.2451814","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Recent research has revealed the widespread effects of emotion on cognitive functions and memory. However, the influence of emotional valence on verbal short-term memory remains largely unexplored, especially in children. This study measured the effect of emotional valence on word immediate serial recall in 4-6-year-old French children (<i>N</i> = 124). Results show a robust effect of emotional valence on recall performances and recall errors. More precisely, we observed a facilitating effect of the positive valence of words: it allows better performance and causes few recall errors. On the contrary, the data indicated a disruptive impact of negative word valence: the latter causes very low recall performance and is associated with a high proportion of recall errors. These findings add new evidence of the influence of emotion on children's verbal short-term memory. Our results are discussed in relation to current semantic and attentional explanations of the emotional enhancement of memory.</p>","PeriodicalId":48412,"journal":{"name":"Cognition & Emotion","volume":" ","pages":"1362-1373"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143014328","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Cognition & EmotionPub Date : 2025-09-01Epub Date: 2024-12-04DOI: 10.1080/02699931.2024.2434149
Tiffany Doan, Stephanie Denison, Ori Friedman
{"title":"Up and down: counterfactual closeness is robust to direction of comparison.","authors":"Tiffany Doan, Stephanie Denison, Ori Friedman","doi":"10.1080/02699931.2024.2434149","DOIUrl":"10.1080/02699931.2024.2434149","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>People often think about how things could have been better or worse. People make these upward and downward comparisons in different situations and with differing emotional consequences. We investigated whether the direction of counterfactual comparisons affects people's judgements of counterfactual closeness. In four preregistered experiments (N = 2,142), participants saw vignettes where agents lost or won a luck-based game. In Experiments 1, 2, and 4, participants judged counterfactual closeness in two ways: if a counterfactual outcome almost happened, and if it easily could have happened. These judgments were affected by different factors, but did not substantially differ based on the direction of comparison. In Experiments 3 and 4, participants predicted agents' emotions - whether losers would be sad, winners would be happy, and whether both would be surprised by the outcome. Emotion predictions showed similar patterns regardless of whether agents lost or won. Participants predicted stronger emotional reactions when the prior probability of the counterfactual outcome was high rather than low, though this effect was somewhat stronger when agents lost. Together, these findings join recent work in suggesting that Almost and Easily judgments tap into distinct forms of counterfactual closeness, and also suggest this distinction is robust to the direction of counterfactual reasoning.</p>","PeriodicalId":48412,"journal":{"name":"Cognition & Emotion","volume":" ","pages":"1301-1311"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142773804","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Cognition & EmotionPub Date : 2025-09-01Epub Date: 2024-12-06DOI: 10.1080/02699931.2024.2438078
Yelim Hong, Megan G Klinginsmith, Laura E Quiñones-Camacho
{"title":"Children's executive functions predict their preferences for emotion regulation strategies.","authors":"Yelim Hong, Megan G Klinginsmith, Laura E Quiñones-Camacho","doi":"10.1080/02699931.2024.2438078","DOIUrl":"10.1080/02699931.2024.2438078","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The development of emotion regulation (ER) in early childhood is shaped by the development of cognitive skills, particularly executive functions (EF). However, it remains unclear whether specific types of EFs differentially predict ER strategies across various emotional contexts. The current study aimed to explore the association between children's EFs (e.g. attentional control, inhibitory control, and cognitive flexibility) and children's cognitive vs. behavioural ER strategies preference for sad, fear, and anger contexts. Participants were 78 8- to 12-year-old Latine or part-Latine children (50% female, low- to middle-SES category) recruited in Southern California. Across sadness, fear, and anger contexts, greater reports of cognitive ER strategies were predicted by higher attentional control and being female. However, no significant association was found between children's EFs and their reports of behavioural ER strategies. Specifically, in events triggering sadness (as opposed to fear or anger), higher attentional control predicted a greater report of cognitive ER strategies, whereas lower attentional control predicted a greater report of behavioural ER strategies. Our findings offer valuable additional insights into the existing literature, highlighting the link between children's increased EF skills, their higher preferences for cognitive ER strategies, and their reduced reliance on behavioural ER strategies.</p>","PeriodicalId":48412,"journal":{"name":"Cognition & Emotion","volume":" ","pages":"1312-1328"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12141594/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142789765","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Cognition & EmotionPub Date : 2025-09-01Epub Date: 2025-06-19DOI: 10.1080/02699931.2025.2520390
Kent C Berridge
{"title":"The emotional life of animals.","authors":"Kent C Berridge","doi":"10.1080/02699931.2025.2520390","DOIUrl":"10.1080/02699931.2025.2520390","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>How can emotional reactions be measured in creatures that cannot verbally describe their feelings, such as animals? Many answers have been given to this question in the history of psychology and neuroscience, and Paul and Mendl offer a thoughtful review and analysis in the theory section of this issue. In my commentary, the merits of various definitions of emotion based on different criteria are compared. These definitions use measures ranging from verbal reports to stimulus-elicited affective reactions, instrumental working for rewards or avoidance of punishments, and triangulation approaches.</p>","PeriodicalId":48412,"journal":{"name":"Cognition & Emotion","volume":" ","pages":"1210-1215"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12228532/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144327213","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Cognition & EmotionPub Date : 2025-09-01Epub Date: 2024-12-06DOI: 10.1080/02699931.2024.2434153
Kirsi Peltonen, Jaakko Tammilehto, Marjo Flykt, Mervi Vänskä, Peter Kuppens, Guy Bosmans, Jallu Lindblom
{"title":"Adverse childhood experiences and emotion dynamics in daily life: a two sample study.","authors":"Kirsi Peltonen, Jaakko Tammilehto, Marjo Flykt, Mervi Vänskä, Peter Kuppens, Guy Bosmans, Jallu Lindblom","doi":"10.1080/02699931.2024.2434153","DOIUrl":"10.1080/02699931.2024.2434153","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Research suggests that adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) can have life-long consequences on emotional functioning. However, it is unclear how ACEs shape the dynamic features of everyday emotions. In the current preregistered study with two adult ecological momentary assessment samples (<i>N</i>s = 122 and 121), we examined the linear and curvilinear associations of ACEs with daily emotion dynamic features. We expected ACEs to show linear associations with a higher baseline level, variability, and inertia of negative emotions, as well as a lower baseline level of positive emotions. Moreover, we expected ACEs to show U-shaped curvilinear associations with the variability of negative and positive emotions. The results did not support our hypotheses. Instead, ACEs showed an inverted U-shaped association with the baseline level and variability of negative emotions. Furthermore, ACEs also showed a U-shaped association with the baseline level of positive emotions and a linear association with higher variability of positive emotions. However, all associations were present in only one of the two samples. Our study underscores the critical need to incorporate a broad spectrum of ACEs in research samples to adequately capture their developmental consequences and the role of ACEs in contributing to the baseline level and variability of daily emotions.</p>","PeriodicalId":48412,"journal":{"name":"Cognition & Emotion","volume":" ","pages":"1250-1270"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142789760","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Cognition & EmotionPub Date : 2025-09-01Epub Date: 2024-11-19DOI: 10.1080/02699931.2024.2428787
Oksana Kanerva, Tuomo Häikiö, Helmi Päällysaho, Johanna K Kaakinen
{"title":"Impact of awe on topic interest and recognition memory for information in planetarium films.","authors":"Oksana Kanerva, Tuomo Häikiö, Helmi Päällysaho, Johanna K Kaakinen","doi":"10.1080/02699931.2024.2428787","DOIUrl":"10.1080/02699931.2024.2428787","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>We investigated the impact of situational awe on topic-specific interest and recognition memory for information presented in immersive planetarium films. Adult participants (<i>N</i> = 131) were recruited among science centre visitors who were going to view one of the films shown in the science centre's planetarium. Participants responded to questions about prior knowledge, topic-specific interest in the film and background information before viewing one of the three planetarium films. After the film, they completed the topic-specific interest scale, epistemically-related emotion scales, situation-specific awe scale, critical thinking disposition scale and a recognition task of the film contents. The results showed that during viewing planetarium films participants experienced awe, but the strength of this emotion varied among films. Additionally, situation-specific awe was strongly associated with another epistemic emotion, namely surprise. As for the recognition task performance, awe decreased error and nonsense detection, and increased false recognition of inferential statements. Finally, awe was found to substantially increase topic-specific interest. These results present evidence that awe has potential to prompt individuals to become more interested in science-related topics.</p>","PeriodicalId":48412,"journal":{"name":"Cognition & Emotion","volume":" ","pages":"1340-1350"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142677325","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Cognition & EmotionPub Date : 2025-09-01Epub Date: 2025-02-25DOI: 10.1080/02699931.2025.2469101
R Gerald Monkman, Leonard Faul, Julia Maybury, Sandry M Garcia, Jane Chung, Haley Echols, Nicole K Koziol, Samantha E Williams, Jessica D Payne, Elizabeth A Kensinger
{"title":"Different effects of emotional valence on overt attention and recognition memory.","authors":"R Gerald Monkman, Leonard Faul, Julia Maybury, Sandry M Garcia, Jane Chung, Haley Echols, Nicole K Koziol, Samantha E Williams, Jessica D Payne, Elizabeth A Kensinger","doi":"10.1080/02699931.2025.2469101","DOIUrl":"10.1080/02699931.2025.2469101","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Extensive research has revealed enhanced attention and memory for emotional relative to neutral content. Amongst emotional information, valence effects can also arise: negative information often is preferentially attended and remembered relative to positive information, although the opposite valence effect can also occur. Little research has examined how valence effects in attention relate to valence effects in memory. This is the open question we addressed in this study, by tracking the eye gaze of 53 participants (ages 18-64) while they viewed scenes composed of an emotional (positive or negative) or neutral object superimposed on a neutral context and then tested their memory the next day. Emotional (positive or negative) objects were gazed at longer and recognised better than neutral objects. Amongst the emotional objects, there was a different effect of valence on attention and memory: positive objects were gazed at longer than negative objects while recognition memory was better for negative than positive objects. These valence effects were not modulated by age, and the attentional and mnemonic effects of valence were not correlated. These results suggest a dissociation in the mechanisms supporting valence effects on attention and memory.</p>","PeriodicalId":48412,"journal":{"name":"Cognition & Emotion","volume":" ","pages":"1396-1404"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143504452","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Cognition & EmotionPub Date : 2025-09-01Epub Date: 2025-06-21DOI: 10.1080/02699931.2025.2520391
Rainer Reisenzein
{"title":"What does appraisal theory suggest about animal emotions?","authors":"Rainer Reisenzein","doi":"10.1080/02699931.2025.2520391","DOIUrl":"10.1080/02699931.2025.2520391","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>In my commentary I expand on the theory-based approach to animal emotions by examining what appraisal theories of emotions suggest about them. I argue that if we assume that core appraisal mechanisms of humans - I focus on the appraisals of motive-congruence and unexpectedness - plus the mechanism underlying the generation of adaptive action goals by appraisals, are innate, then we are implicitly committed to assuming a much larger set of innate components of the human mind. These components include a propositional belief-desire representation system, complete with a basic vocabulary and likely a basic set of beliefs, as well as mechanisms for desire-derivation, action selection and action execution, and a set of basic motives. Because these innate components of the mind are candidates for trans-species continuity, appraisal theory suggests that at least closely related species, and possibly all mammals, share a subset of emotions with humans. Other animal species likely possess nonpropositional analogues of appraisal mechanisms that generate emotion-analogue states. At the same time, even shared \"propositional\" emotions are expected to show substantial differences between humans and nonhuman animals due to several uniquely human adaptations. These include a far greater number and much more complex concepts, the existence of natural language, and cultural transmission.</p>","PeriodicalId":48412,"journal":{"name":"Cognition & Emotion","volume":" ","pages":"1216-1226"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144340493","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Cognition & EmotionPub Date : 2025-09-01Epub Date: 2024-12-10DOI: 10.1080/02699931.2024.2434156
Chi Fung Chan, Gilad Feldman
{"title":"The link between Empathy and Forgiveness: Replication and extensions Registered Report of McCullough et al. (1997)'s Study 1.","authors":"Chi Fung Chan, Gilad Feldman","doi":"10.1080/02699931.2024.2434156","DOIUrl":"10.1080/02699931.2024.2434156","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>McCullough et al. [McCullough, M. E., Worthington, E. L., & Rachal, K. C. (1997). Interpersonal Forgiving in Close Relationships. <i>Journal of Personality and Social Psychology</i>, 73(2), 321-336.] demonstrated that in situations of feeling hurt by an offender, empathy towards the offender is positively associated with forgiving the offender, which in turn is positively associated with conciliatory behaviour and negatively associated with avoidance behaviour. In a Replication Registered Report with a Prolific US online sample (<i>N</i> = 794), we conducted a replication of Study 1 from McCullough et al. (1997) with extensions manipulating empathy to determine causality and measuring revenge motivation adopted from McCullough et al. [McCullough, M. E., Rachal, K. C., Sandage, S. J., Worthington, E. L., Brown, S. W., & Hight, T. L. (1998). Interpersonal forgiving in close relationships: II. Theoretical Elaboration and Measurement. <i>Journal of Personality and Social Psychology</i>, <i>75</i>(6), 1586-1603]. We found that empathy was positively associated with perceived apology (<i>r </i>= 0.45[0.35,0.55]) and forgiveness toward the offender (<i>r </i>= 0.64[0.56,0.70]), and forgiveness was positively associated with conciliatory motivation (<i>r </i>= 0.51[0.41,0.59]) and negatively associated with avoidance motivation (<i>r </i>= -0.51[-0.59,-0.42]) and revenge motivation (<i>r </i>= -0.43[-0.52,-0.33]). Manipulating empathy, we found that participants who recalled situations in which they felt strong empathy towards the offender rated higher forgiveness compared to participants recalling situations with low empathy or compared to control (<i>d </i>= 0.60-0.62). Overall, this was a successful replication of the findings by McCullough et al. (1997; 1998) with the empathy model of forgiveness receiving strong empirical support. Materials, data and code are available on: https://osf.io/fmuv2/. This Registered Report has been endorsed by <i>Peer Community in Registered Reports</i>: https://doi.org/10.24072/pci.rr.100444.</p>","PeriodicalId":48412,"journal":{"name":"Cognition & Emotion","volume":" ","pages":"1227-1249"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142802465","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Cognition & EmotionPub Date : 2025-09-01Epub Date: 2025-02-17DOI: 10.1080/02699931.2025.2459849
Claire M Growney, Tammy English
{"title":"Perceived demands associated with emotion regulation strategies among young and cognitively diverse older adults.","authors":"Claire M Growney, Tammy English","doi":"10.1080/02699931.2025.2459849","DOIUrl":"10.1080/02699931.2025.2459849","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Emotion regulation (ER) is viewed as a cognitively demanding process, with strategies varying in demands. Individuals may prefer strategies perceived as lower in cognitive demands, and selecting low-demand strategies may be particularly adaptive for those with limited cognitive resources. We examine how ER strategies differ in perceived cognitive demands and how perceived demands predict strategy selection and well-being among regulators of varying age and cognitive status. Young adults (aged 21-34, <i>n </i>= 66), cognitively normal older adults (CN; aged 70-83, <i>n </i>= 90), and older adults with mild cognitive impairment (MCI; aged 70-84, <i>n </i>= 60) reported perceived demands and use of ten ER strategies. As expected, early-acting strategies (e.g. situation selection) were generally viewed as less demanding than later-acting strategies (e.g. masking). Younger adults reported higher cognitive demands and effort requirements compared with CN older adults. For younger adults and CN older adults (but not those with MCI), strategies perceived as less demanding were used more. Older (but not younger) adults who perceived ER to be more demanding experienced poorer well-being. Age-related differences in perceived cognitive demands suggest ER perceptions may change with gained life experience. However, MCI may create ER difficulties by interfering with one's ability to select easier to implement strategies.</p>","PeriodicalId":48412,"journal":{"name":"Cognition & Emotion","volume":" ","pages":"1384-1395"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12353151/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143442290","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}