The Role of Conscious Recollection in Recognition of Affective Material: Evidence for Positive-Negative Asymmetry

Abstract

The process-dissociation procedure developed by Jacoby (1991) was used to assess the relative roles of recollection and familiarity in recognition of affectively positive and affectively negative stimuli. The procedure involves two phases of word encoding and a third (recognition) phase, during which some participants are told to ignore information from an earlier phase. Failure to ignore the information is taken as evidence of a low recollective component in the recognition decisions. Results showed that the role of recollection was lower in recognition of positive items than in recognition of negative items, suggesting that positive-negative asymmetries in stimulus impact, such as those discussed by Taylor (1991), can be extended to the components of recognition memory. A valence-based difference in the magnitude of the recollective component also suggests a solution to the “puzzle” about affect and recognition memory described by Ortony, Turner, and Antos (1983), who reported an “unpredicted and puzzling asymmetry” such that affectively positive stimuli consistently produced a lower correct rejection rate than negative stimuli did. © 1996 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.