Date of Award

5-2025

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

College/School

College of Humanities and Social Sciences

Department/Program

Psychology

Thesis Sponsor/Dissertation Chair/Project Chair

Akina Umemoto

Committee Member

Joshua Sandry

Committee Member

John Paul Wilson

Abstract

Working memory (WM) is known as a limited capacity cognitive system responsible for keeping a small amount of information in mind over a short period of time. WM is primarily studied using a change detection task with simple objects, but this method can often be insufficient in determining how emotional content can impact WM capacity (WMC). Given the understanding of WM and the gap in literature, this study aimed to test how well emotional stimuli are remembered in WM. Specifically, the current study investigated whether participants remembered emotional information (negative versus neutral content) differently, and whether individual tendency towards ruminative thinking style played a role in these relationships. Thirty-nine participants completed a modified change detection task, where on each trial, participants were briefly shown a display containing emotional images to remember, and after a brief delay, they were asked to decide whether the image presented was the same or different as the previous display of images. Participants also completed the Rumination Response Scale which assessed their tendency to ruminate, and were placed into high rumination and low rumination groups based on a median split. Results demonstrated that, contrary to our hypothesis, participants had higher WMC when remembering neutral versus negative images. Further, rumination groups (high versus low) did not affect WMC at either emotional condition. Given the emotional content of the images and task modification, the task may have engaged not only WM, but also long term memory. However, results should be interpreted with caution given the study lacked statistical power. Nevertheless, the current study suggests that emotional content plays a role in WMC, which may suggest a reduced WMC for negative compared to neutral images.

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