The effects of emotional arousal and valence on television viewers’ cognitive capacity and memory

This study examines the combined effects of arousal and valence on viewers’ capacity allocation to and memory for television messages. Results show that when valence (how positive or negative a message is) is controlled, arousing messages are remembered better than calm messages. When arousal is controlled, positive messages are remembered better than negative messages. Reaction time results suggest that capacity allocation is a function of both valence and arousal. Viewers allocate the most capacity to positive arousing messages and the least capacity to negative arousing messages. The calm messages (both positive and negative) fall between these two.