The influence of emotional prosody on dual-process recognition

This study investigated the influence of emotional prosody on memory within a dual-process recognition framework. While emotional events are generally better remembered, it remains unclear if emotional prosody specifically enhances memory during recognition. In Experiment 1, a modified Remember/Know paradigm assessed the emotional enhancement of memory effect of emotional prosody and its role in dual-process recognition. Experiment 2 utilised a divided attention task paradigm to explore whether this memory enhancement stems from regulation of attentional resources. Results from Experiment 1 and single-task conditions of Experiment 2 revealed an emotional enhancement of memory for happy and sad prosodies. Specifically, emotional prosodies (i.e. happy and sad tones paired with neutral words) led to recollection, but not familiarity. However, under divided attention task conditions in Experiment 2, the memory enhancement effect of happy and sad prosodies disappeared, suggesting that this effect is dependent on the attentional resources available at encoding. This study confirms emotional enhancement of memory effect of emotional prosody during recollection retrieval and reveals this effect originates from increased attentional resources allocation to emotional stimuli during encoding.