The Relationship between Emotion and Working Memory Performance

Abstract

Working memory is modelled as multi-sectional, making possible reference to its need of updating and the limited capacity. Emotion is the intrinsic cognitive process divided into pleasure or displeasure outcomes, and can both be a factor to the memory or a result of memory. The manipulation of emotional stimuli in working memory can somehow increase ones abilities of updating and expanding the capacity. Anxiety is the negative result of emotion regulation, which contributes to a poor performance on working memory tasks. A negative assocation was found between these two aspects. On the contrary, the emotion regulation ability can be improved through training of the working memory. It was concluded that there is a possible correlation between working memory and emotion, whilst the direction may be unclear to some extent. Future research should examine the specific dirctions of this relationship more comprehensively. This review can provide some guidance to future internveiton studies and pactices regarding emotion and working memory in children at schools.