The role of encoding processes in the temporal compression of negative events in episodic memory

Episodic memory allows us to mentally travel back in time to relive past events in vivid detail (Tulving, 2002). However, memories are not exact records of the past, but rather summary representations of events (Conway, 2009). Consequently, the time required to remember an event is generally shorter than the actual duration of the past episode (Faber & Gennari, 2015; Jeunehomme et al., 2018), a phenomenon that has been referred to as the temporal compression of events in episodic memory (Jeunehomme & D’Argembeau, 2019, 2023). While recent studies have shed new light on this phenomenon (for review, see D’Argembeau et al., 2022), the specific characteristics of an event that influence its temporal compression in memory remain poorly understood. One dimension that could play a major role in this regard is the emotional value of the event, given the well-established effects of emotion on memory (Holland & Kensinger, 2010; Phelps, 2004; Talmi, 2013). In a recent study, we investigated whether temporal compression rates differ when remembering negative and neutral events (Colson et al., submitted). The results showed that the duration of mental replay of videos, relative to the actual video length, was significantly longer for negative videos than for neutral ones, demonstrating that negative events were less compressed in memory. Our goal is to determine the contribution of mechanisms occurring during the initial encoding of the event in the effect of emotion on the temporal compression of events. The specific role of encoding processes will be assessed using a divided attention paradigm. A within-subject design will be employed: participants will view and mentally replay negative and neutral videos. In half of the trials, a concurrent auditory discrimination task will be presented during video viewing (Talmi et al., 2007). As a result, participants will be presented with two types of trials: divided attention trials (presence of the auditory discrimination task while viewing the video) and full attention trials (no concurrent task is introduced), for both negative and neutral videos. We will assess whether the difference in memory compression rates between negative and neutral videos is affected by the divided attention manipulation. References: Colson, C., Panneels, G., D’Argembeau, A. Negative emotion reduces the temporal compression of events in episodic memory. Manuscript submitted for publication. Conway, M. A. (2009). Episodic memories. Neuropsychologia, 47(11), 2305–2313. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2009.02.003 D’Argembeau, A., Jeunehomme, O., & Stawarczyk, D. (2022). Slices of the past: How events are temporally compressed in episodic memory. Memory, 30(1), 43–48. https://doi.org/10.1080/09658211.2021.1896737 Faber, M., & Gennari, S. P. (2015). In search of lost time: Reconstructing the unfolding of events from memory. Cognition, 143, 193–202. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2015.06.014 Holland, A. C., & Kensinger, E. A. (2010). Emotion and autobiographical memory. Physics of Life Reviews, 7(1), 88–131. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.plrev.2010.01.006 Jeunehomme, O., & D’Argembeau, A. (2019). The time to remember: Temporal compression and duration judgements in memory for real-life events. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 72(4), 930–942. https://doi.org/10.1177/1747021818773082 Jeunehomme, O., & D’Argembeau, A. (2023). Memory editing: The role of temporal discontinuities in the compression of events in episodic memory editing. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 49(5), 766–775. https://doi.org/10.1037/xlm0001141 Jeunehomme, O., Folville, A., Stawarczyk, D., Van der Linden, M., & D’Argembeau, A. (2018). Temporal compression in episodic memory for real-life events. Memory, 26(6), 759–770. https://doi.org/10.1080/09658211.2017.1406120 Phelps, E. A. (2004). Human emotion and memory: Interactions of the amygdala and hippocampal complex. Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 14(2), 198–202. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.conb.2004.03.015 Talmi, D., Schimmack, U., Paterson, T., & Moscovitch, M. (2007). The role of attention and relatedness in emotionally enhanced memory. Emotion, 7(1), 89–102. https://doi.org/10.1037/1528-3542.7.1.89 Talmi, D. (2013). Enhanced Emotional Memory: Cognitive and Neural Mechanisms. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 22(6), 430–436. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721413498893 Tulving, E. (2002). Episodic Memory: From Mind to Brain. Annual Review of Psychology, 53(1), 1–25. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.53.100901.135114