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World J Clin Cases. Jan 14, 2022; 10(2): 401-411
Published online Jan 14, 2022. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v10.i2.401
What emotion dimensions can affect working memory performance in healthy adults? A review
Tian-Ya Hou, Wen-Peng Cai
Tian-Ya Hou, Wen-Peng Cai, Faculty of Psychology, The Second Military Medical University, Shanghai 200433, China
Author contributions: Hou TY drafted the article; Cai WP made critical revisions; all authors have approved the final manuscript.
Supported by Shanghai Pujiang Program, No. 2020PJC115.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest and approved to submit to your journal.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Wen-Peng Cai, MD, PhD, Associate Professor, Lecturer, Faculty of Psychology, The Second Military Medical University, No. 800 Xiangyin Road, Shanghai 200433, China. wpcai@smmu.edu.cn
Received: February 25, 2021
Peer-review started: February 25, 2021
First decision: August 19, 2021
Revised: August 28, 2021
Accepted: November 30, 2021
Article in press: November 30, 2021
Published online: January 14, 2022
Abstract

Due to the critical roles of emotion and working memory in our daily activities, a great deal of attention has been given to how emotion influences working memory performance. Although the association between emotion and working memory is relatively well established, whether mood enhances or impairs working memory performance remains controversial. The present review provides a relatively representative overview of the research on the effect of different dimensions of emotion on working memory among healthy adults spanning a 30-year period. The findings show that the valence, arousal and motivational dimensions of emotion could all exert an impact on working memory performance. The impact of emotion on working memory might be modulated by task relevance, emotion type, working memory paradigms and individual differences. The vast majority of the studies regarding the effect of emotion on working memory performance focused on the impact of negatively valenced affect and yielded highly contradictory findings. The impacts of arousal and motivation on working memory have been less explored, and inconsistent findings have also been reported. Possible explanations are discussed. Considerable research on the effect of certain dimensions of emotion on working memory has suffered from a lack of control of other emotional dimensions, and different aspects of working memory have been investigated by various paradigms. Directions for further studies should include the exploration of specific dimensions of emotion on different aspects of working memory, with the other dimensions being well controlled.

Keywords: Working memory, Emotion, Valence, Arousal, Motivation, Review

Core Tip: An updated review of the literature regarding the association between emotion and working memory among healthy adults is provided. Valence, arousal and motivational dimensions of emotion could all exert an impact on working memory performance among healthy adults. The influence of emotion on working memory might be modulated by task relevance, emotion type, working memory paradigms and individual differences. Due to the highly contradictory findings in the literature regarding whether emotion facilitates or impairs working memory, further investigation of the effect of one dimension of emotion on different aspects of working memory with other dimensions being well controlled is clearly warranted.