The present study investigated the impact of task-irrelevant emotional images on the retention of information in spatial working memory (WM). Two experiments employed a delayed matching to-sample task where participants had to maintain the locations of four briefly presented squares. After a short retention interval, a probe item appeared and participants were required to indicate whether the probe position matched one of the previously occupied square positions. During the retention interval, task-irrelevant negative, positive, or neutral emotional pictures were presented. The results revealed a dissociation between negative and positive affect on the participants’ ability to hold spatial locations in WM. While negative affective pictures reduced WM capacity, positive pictures increased WM capacity relative to the neutral images. Moreover, the specific valence and arousal of a given emotional picture was also related to WM performance: While higher valence enhanced WM capacity, higher levels of arousal in turn reduced WM capacity. Together, our findings suggest that emotions up- or down-regulate attention to items in WM and thus modulate the short-term storage of visual information in memory.

中文翻译：

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工作记忆维持的情感调节：积极和消极情绪的作用

本研究调查了与任务无关的情感图像对空间工作记忆（WM）中信息保留的影响。两项实验采用了延迟匹配样本任务，参与者必须保持四个简短呈现的方块的位置。经过短暂的保留间隔后，出现一个探针项目，参与者被要求指出探针位置是否与先前占用的方形位置之一匹配。在保留期间，呈现与任务无关的消极、积极或中性的情绪图片。结果显示，参与者在 WM 中保持空间位置的能力存在负面影响和正面影响之间的分离。相对于中性图像，负面情感图片会降低 WM 容量，而正面图片会增加 WM 容量。此外，特定情绪图像的具体效价和唤醒程度也与 WM 表现相关：虽然较高的效价增强了 WM 能力，但较高水平的唤醒反过来又降低了 WM 能力。总之，我们的研究结果表明，情绪会上调或下调对 WM 中项目的注意力，从而调节记忆中视觉信息的短期存储。