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An intriguing possibility is that the emotional re-experience after the

presentation of the story stems (both after 30 minutes and 7 days) was related to the subsequent explicit recall of the story endings. It is at least theoretically possible that

68 participants may have automatically (and silently) recalled the story endings, while listening to the story stems, or while they considered providing the self-report ratings of emotions after the story stems. To test this hypothesis a set of correlations were

performed between the re-experience of the target emotion after the presentation of the story stem and the subsequent recall accuracy. The analyses were carried out for each negative emotion (anger, fear, sadness) after 30 minutes and 7 days from the first presentation (see Figure 6).

Figure 6. The correlations between the re-experience of the target emotion after the presentation of the story stems and the subsequent recall of the story endings.

As shown in Figure 6 A., after 30 minutes, the correlations between the emotional experience ratings after the presentation of the story stems and the recall accuracy were non-significant for the anger stories (r(19)=0.11, p=.642), fear stories (r(19)=-0.03, p=.903), and sadness stories (r(19)=0.12, p=.617). Similarly, after seven days, all correlations remained non-significant (see Figure 6 B.): anger stories

(r(32)=0.18, p=.334), fear stories (r(32)=0.17, p=.358), and sadness stories (r(32)=-0.27, p=.130). These results are in line with the previously reported findings that the recall of the story endings was not correlated with the recall accuracy. The lack of any

A. After 30 minutes

Recall accuracy of Anger story endings

0

Recall accuracy of Fear story endings

0

Recall accuracy of Sadness story endings

0

Recall accuracy of Anger story endings

0

Recall accuracy of Fear story endings

0

Recall accuracy of Sadness story endings

69 correlation suggest an absence of empirical support for the idea that participants may have recalled the story endings automatically, and silently, during or immediately after the presentation of the story.

2.5 Discussion

The present study reports a newly developed set of stories, designed to investigate a range of four basic emotions: three of which have been traditionally labelled as ‘negative’ (i.e., anger, fear, sadness), and one ‘positive’ (happiness). The stimuli elicited the target emotion discretely, at similar levels of intensity.

This is the first direct investigation comparing the stability of affective valence and discrete emotions over time. As first proposed by the hierarchical theory of

emotions (Tellegen et al., 1999), and supported by evidence from affective neuroscience (Panksepp, 2004), emotion valence was expected to outlast the experience of discrete emotions. A series of self-referential vignettes elicited selectively four commonly investigated discrete emotions (anger, fear, sadness, and happiness). After the presentation of semantically neutral contexts preceding the emotional events in the stories, participants were able to experience selectively the discrete emotions elicited by the associated episode after a short period of time (i.e., 30 minutes). However, over the course of a week, the story contexts lost their affective specificity, carrying only a flavour of the associated emotions, in the form of either positive or negative affect. The loss of the emotional specificity of the story contexts could not be explained by an affective reappraisal of the stories, since the detailed episodic recall elicited the target emotions discretely and accurately every time.

70 2.5.1 Valence, discrete emotions and the hierarchical organisation of affect

The sustained stability of valence in the absence of the specific experience of the target discrete emotion, reported in the present study, supports the hierarchical

organisation of affect, which proposes that valence is a more fundamental property of emotional expression, underlying all distinct classes of emotions (Tellegen et al., 1999).

Thus, despite the universal, automatic and differentiable character of discrete emotions, they seem to require, over time, more intense forms of emotion elicitation (e.g., detailed episodic recall) than are needed for the re-experience of affective valence. Furthermore, the results also confirmed previous reports (Watson & Clark, 1992) that discrete classes of emotions have in common an either positive or negative valence when they are being experienced (as shown by story contexts after 30 minutes), but also that the affective valence is what ultimately is retained and re-experienced from emotional memory when the specificity of discrete emotions has faded (as seen after seven days).

Future research could expand present findings in at least four ways. Firstly, the results of the affective conditioning paradigm employed in the present study could be replicated by participants showing a selective episodic memory impairment (i.e., the amnesic syndrome). Such patients have long been shown to possess a normal ability to retain and re-experience past emotions (Bechara et al., 1995; Feinstein, Duff, & Tranel, 2010; LaBar, LeDoux, Spencer, & Phelps, 1995; Turnbull & Evans, 2006), for

considerable periods of time (Damasio, 1994). Thus, it would be possible to examine if specific discrete emotions can even be experienced in the absence of explicit episodic recall, and also, if in such cases emotional memory can retain and retrieve distinct classes of affect.

Secondly, the present study employed momentary self-reports of emotional experiences, as an established way of measuring specific emotions. However, relatively recent neroimaging evidence (Tettamati et al., 2012; Vytal & Hamann, 2010) has

invited the possibility of investigating specific cerebral blood-flow patterns as correlates for discrete emotions (anger, fear, sadness, disgust, and happiness). The superior

temporal resolution of fMRI techniques over the end-of-story self-reports would allow a

71 live measurement of affective change, which in turn could help identify emotional trigger points during the presentation and recall of narratives, as well as peak and ebb points for the intensity of each discrete emotion.

Thirdly, a further dimension that could be added to the present design refers to the amount of seemingly neutral and emotional details and their association with emotional re-experience; these are sometimes called “peripheral” and “central”, respectively (Loftus, 1996). Situations when neutral versus emotional details influence the accuracy and consistency of episodic recall are abundant in the eye-witness

literature (see for a review Loftus, Doyle, & Dysert, 2008), but the simultaneous direct investigation of these differences between a wide range of discrete emotions is notably absent. This is surprising since different classes of discrete emotions have long been reported to have a specific effect on other cognitive functions (Lench, Flores, & Bench, 2011).

Fourthly, many studies investigating the difference between positive and negative emotions, in different methodological contexts, seemed to reach contradictory findings, especially in relation to the interaction between episodic memory and

emotional experience (see for a review Levine & Lench, 2010). Thus, a simultaneous and methodologically controlled investigation of a broader range of discrete classes of