McNeely, Heather2006-07-282006-07-2819991999http://hdl.handle.net/10012/453The goal of this series of studies was to determine if neurophysiological reactivity to emotionality would be misinterpreted as a feeling of familiarity when encountered during a source monitoring task. Reactivity was expected to increase frequency of source errors, as well as increase amplitude of the late positive component (LPC) of the event-related potential (ERP), for emotionally salient new words. A large body of ERP and memory literature was replicated. In addition, the anticipated results of emotionality were found in two experiments. Behaviourally, emotionally salient new words were more likely to be mistakenly "recognized" at test than were either new neutral words or new words belonging to a non-emotional category, animal words. This effect was also noted electrophysiologically. Emotionality elicited a generally distributed positivity that began early and was maintained over the entire recording epoch. In contrast, ERPs to previously studied words were positive during the LPC and declined dramatically into a late negativity. ERPs to animal words were predominantly negative with a brief posterior positivity during the LPC. These findings indicate that word emotionality is a potent source of salience, having an impact on behavioural and electrophysiological response distinct from the effect of previous occurrence and also distinct from a categorical effect. It was anticipated that even greater reactivity to emotional salience would be observed in older adults, as decreased attentional capacity due to aging would make older adults more vulnerable to the influence of automatic sources of salience. However, in experiment three, older adults exhibited increased frequency of source errors and increased LPC amplitude, not to emotionality, but to new animal words. These findings have important implications for understanding memory attributions, and suggest that the LPC may not reflect recollective processes per se, as is the current interpretation in the literature. Rather, the LPC may more aptly be considered an index of relative stimulus salience. The present findings indicate that what captures attention and determines relative stimulus salience depends on the goals of the individual as well as the context in which information is encountered.application/pdf6300597 bytesapplication/pdfenCopyright: 1999, McNeely, Heather. All rights reserved.Harvested from Collections CanadaDoctoral Thesis