EXPERIMENTAL AMNESIA INDUCED BY EMOTIONAL ITEMS

Tulving described an effect of retrograde amnesia in a free-recall tas k of word lists, produced by inserting items having priority in recall . Other authors confirmed the amnesic effect without giving instructio ns for priority both in recall and in recognition tasks. The effect wa s explained by Tulving as a premature termination of encoding processe s. The similarity between these experiments and the researches aimed a t reproducing amnesia by emotional trauma led us to hypothesize that t he two phenomena might be due to the same functional mechanisms. We ha ve organized a free-recall task of word lists into which emotional ite ms were inserted. Our aim was to verify whether with these experimenta l conditions Tulving's results would be reproduced. The obtained data show amnesic effects in free recall; nevertheless, they do not seem to confirm closely the experimental hypothesis. Lastly, changes in prima cy and recency effects produced by emotional items are analyzed.