Adrenalin, emotional arousal and memory

Two experiments were designed to investigate the effects of emotional arousal on memory. Emotional arousal was induced via subcutaneous injections of adrenalin whilst subjects in the control conditions received saline injections. Memory performance was assessed by using recall (Experiment 1) and recognition (Experiment 2) tests. The study phase involved slide presentations of a neutral face accompanied by four verbal descriptors concerning the person's name, occupation, hobby, and personality. For each of the total 18 faces, subjects were asked to read each of the four descriptors aloud, concentrate on the face, and choose the one of the descriptors that was most appropriate to the face. Subjects were not aware that their memory for the verbal stimuli would be assessed during a subsequent retention test. Measurements of cardiac and palmar activity were made continuously during the slide presententation. In both experiments autonomic arousal data and self‐reports by the subjects revealed a higher level of emotional arousal in the adrenalin group as compared to the saline group. Despite this significant difference in state of emotional arousal, no signifcant differences in memory performance were found between the two groups in either experiment.