Heartfelt memories
- During social interactions, we rapidly judge others’ trustworthiness on basis of their facial characteristics. Face-based trustworthiness judgments may not only affect our current but also our future interactions because we seem to be more inclined to remember untrustworthy than trustworthy faces. Memory formation of salient stimuli like untrustworthy faces may be modulated by the interplay between the autonomic and central nervous system, which can be indexed by changes in vagally mediated heart rate variability (HRV). To test this assumption, we investigated whether differences in HRV would be associated with differences in memory formation of untrustworthy faces in a sample of healthy participants (n = 34, all female). Untrustworthy faces were remembered more accurately than trustworthy faces, albeit only by participants with high and not low HRV. Across participants, increased memory accuracy for untrustworthy faces was associated with increased HRV. We discuss these findings in the context of neurobiological theories regardingDuring social interactions, we rapidly judge others’ trustworthiness on basis of their facial characteristics. Face-based trustworthiness judgments may not only affect our current but also our future interactions because we seem to be more inclined to remember untrustworthy than trustworthy faces. Memory formation of salient stimuli like untrustworthy faces may be modulated by the interplay between the autonomic and central nervous system, which can be indexed by changes in vagally mediated heart rate variability (HRV). To test this assumption, we investigated whether differences in HRV would be associated with differences in memory formation of untrustworthy faces in a sample of healthy participants (n = 34, all female). Untrustworthy faces were remembered more accurately than trustworthy faces, albeit only by participants with high and not low HRV. Across participants, increased memory accuracy for untrustworthy faces was associated with increased HRV. We discuss these findings in the context of neurobiological theories regarding the interplay between the autonomic and central nervous system during the regulation of autonomic, emotional and cognitive processes. (PsycInfo Database Record…
Author details: | Julia WendtORCiDGND, Mathias WeymarORCiDGND, Martin JungeGND, Alfons O. HammORCiDGND, Alexander LischkeORCiDGND |
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DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0000396 |
ISSN: | 1528-3542 |
ISSN: | 1931-1516 |
Pubmed ID: | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29553757 |
Title of parent work (English): | Emotion : a new journal from the American Psychological Association |
Subtitle (English): | Cardiac vagal tone correlates with increased memory for untrustworthy faces |
Publisher: | American Psychological Association |
Place of publishing: | Washington |
Publication type: | Article |
Language: | English |
Year of first publication: | 2018 |
Publication year: | 2018 |
Release date: | 2021/04/19 |
Tag: | amygdala; face memory; heart rate variability; prefrontal cortex; trustworthiness |
Volume: | 19 |
Issue: | 1 |
Number of pages: | 5 |
First page: | 178 |
Last Page: | 182 |
Funding institution: | German Research Foundation (DFG)German Research Foundation (DFG) [WE 4801/3-1, LI 2517/2-1, WE 5873/1-1] |
Organizational units: | Humanwissenschaftliche Fakultät / Strukturbereich Kognitionswissenschaften / Department Psychologie |
DDC classification: | 1 Philosophie und Psychologie / 15 Psychologie / 150 Psychologie |
Peer review: | Referiert |