Brain activations were measured during the presentations of negative (unpleasant) and neutral pictures in a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study. After this initial presentation, the participants were shown some of the previously shown pictures as well as new pictures. The researchers then evaluated the relationship between amygdala (a brain area important for processing emotion) activation and memory performance (how well they remembered the negative, unpleasant images). Amygdala activity scores are on the y-axis and emotional memory persistence (or how long negative emotion memories last) is on the x-axis. The graph below shows the results of the study. The correlation analysis produced: r=0.679, p=0.009.