Journal of Fake Psychology, 2014, 1(1), 1-2 The Effects of Mood on Memory for Neutral Information Matthew E. Ryan and Addison S. Gates University of Southeastern Nevada In this study, positive and negative moods were induced in people to examine their memory for math equations. Positive moods were induced by watching a 10 minute clip from a stand-up comedy routine and negative moods were induced by having people journal for 10 minutes about their personal experiences with death. The results showed that negative moods led to significantly better memory for math equations than positive moods, and this finding was true for both males and females. These results suggest that mood can indeed influence memory, even for abstract materials. Previous studies have shown that a person's mood can influence performance on a long- term memory task (eg., Ryan & Gates, 2005). For example, people who are in depressed moods are more likely to remember life events that were sad than life events that were rated as happy. This was true even when the moods were rated by the individual or an outside rater who was uninvolved in the event (Miller, Rodriguez, & Patterson, 2007). What makes this result even more striking is that the opposite pattern has also been demonstrated. That is, people who were currently happy had an easier time recalling memories that consisted of happy experiences than sad experiences (Gates & Ryan, 2008). Baxter and Cantor (2006) supported this finding by also showing this pattern when examining a sample of older adults and a sample of adolescents. Together, these findings are consistent with concepts related to state dependent memory (James, 1992). State dependent memory refers to the fact that memory is typically better when the body is in the same chemical or emotional state at learning and recall. It is important to note that this concept is distinct from similar concepts that involve the environment, such as environment matched learning (Barnes, 1988). One issue with the previous research that has been conducted is that all of those studies that have explored the effects of mood on memory have used people's own experiences. The problem here is that life experiences are commonly associated with an emotion, such as happy or sad. Also, even if a life experience is not immediately associated with one of those emotions, it can later be labelled by an individual retroactively as consisting primarily of one of those emotions. Experiment This leads to the idea that is explored in the current study. Specifically, does mood affect long-term memory for neutral information? In this case, we selected information that is considered to be abstract, as opposed to concrete. Math equations are clearly abstract, and hence, would be considered to be neutral information. In the experiment, we used a repeated measures design and had the same people memorize math equations while either in a happy or a sad mood. Based on past research, there were two possible outcomes considered. First, because there is no emotion associated with math equations, then there may not be an effect of mood. This is because neither mood would match the information. The second possibility was that a sad mood would lead to better memory performance because math equations may possibly lead to negative feelings, such as anxiety (Thompson, Tran, Miller, & Sternberg, 2001). Participants Method Sixty-four undergraduates were recruited from the University of Southeastern Nevada. Half of the participants were male and half were female, with a mean age of 21.8 years. All Journal of Fake Psychology, 2014, 1(1), 1-2 participants received credit in their psychology courses in exchange for participating. Materials and Procedure All of the participants completed two sessions of memorizing math equations: one while in a happy mood and another while in a sad mood. The order of the moods was counter- balanced across participants so that half completed the happy condition first and the other half completed the sad condition first. The happy condition was created by having participants watch a 10 minute clip of Bill Maher, a humorous political commentator and left-wing author, performing stand-up comedy. The sad condition was created by having participants write a journal entry for 10 minutes about a death of a loved one from their life. After the 10 minute mood induction, participants were presented with a set of 20 math equations and were given 10 minutes to memorize as many as possible. After the memorization session was over, participants then had up to 10 minutes to write down as many equations as possible. Equations were only scored as accurately recalled if they were complete and included no errors. After recall, they moved on to the second mood induction and completed the same memorization and recall process with a different set of 20 math equations. Results A paired sample t-test was used to determine whether memory performance was different in the happy and sad conditions. The mean scores on the memory task are displayed in Figure 1. As can be seen, there was better recall performance in the sad mood condition (M = 5.30, SE = 0.47) than in the happy mood condition (M = 4.81, SE = 0.72), p < .05. Discussion The goal of this study was to further explore the effects of mood on memory. The results Equations Recalled 2 2 Sad Happy Figure 1. Mean number of equations recalled in the sad and happy mood conditions. showed that people recalled more math equations when they were in a sad mood than a positive mood. This finding is consistent with the second hypothesis that, because some people have negative thoughts about math that sometimes invoke anxiety, that they would recall more math when in a sad mood. These findings have implications for theories relating mood to long-term memory. In particular, the results support the state dependent memory view (James, 1992). In addition, this study also has important educational applications. Specifically, instructors may want to change the tone or mood of their classrooms so that students are in a negative mood while learning math. References Barnes, V. E. (1998). When the environment affects long- term learning. Journal of Memory & Psychology, 32, 128-154. Baxtor, B. N., & Cantor, T. P. (2006). Aging and mood effects on memory. Memory Studies, 4, 28-36. Gates, A. S., & Ryan, M. E. (2008). Why people should be happy, not sad. Emotions and the Brain, 18, 241-243. James, H. (1992). State dependent memory. Chicago: Mind Publishers. Miller, J., Rodriguez, R. J., & Patterson, K. M. (2007). Rating one's own emotions vs. others' emotions. Methods of Experiments, 42, 423-426. Ryan, M. E., & Gates, A. 5. (2005). Mood and memory: What do people remember? Emotions and the Brain, 15,118-127. Thompson, LA, Tran, T., Miller, C. M. P., & Sternberg, C. J. (2001). Associating emotion with math. Math & Emotion, 16, 180-188.