Metacognition and memory of emotional information:Judgments of learning predict the affectivity congruence effect in free recall

Abstract

Memory of emotional information often depends on the current mood and the dominant affective state. For example, studies show that people tend to recall emotional information of valence that is congruent with their affective traits. However, not much is known about whether this tendency is captured by metacognitive judgments of learning (JOLs). The aim of this study was to find out how people who score low or high on affectivity scales assess their memory of emotional material. We used a free-recall task with self-referential neutral, positive, and negative adjectives. The results show the affectivity congruence effect: the number of negative words recalled is related to affectivity; it increases with Negative Affectivity (NA) and decreases with Positive Affectivity (PA). Metacognitive assessment of future recall is also related to affectivity. Higher PA is related to higher JOLs for positive words and lower JOLs for negative words. Higher NA is related to higher JOLs for negative words and lower JOLs for positive words. The results suggest that metacognitive processes are sensitive to affective trait-specific memory bias.