Are emotion-label words more memorable than other abstract words?

Previous research has reported a memory advantage for emotion-label words (e.g. anger, joy) compared to other abstract words (e.g. justice, freedom), an effect attributed to their high ratings of imageability, context availability, arousal or valence. The present study aimed to replicate this advantage and examine whether it can be explained by these semantic dimensions. In addition, we explored an alternative account that this advantage is influenced by the close semantic relatedness of emotion-label words. Emotion-label words were recalled more accurately in a free recall task, however had more prior-list intrusions. Similarly, on an item recognition task, emotion-label words had both a higher hit rate and higher false alarm rate. Higher accuracy on the free recall task was accounted for by imageability and semantic relatedness, with semantic relatedness influencing item recognition performance. Overall, these findings highlight the role of imageability and semantic relatedness in recall of abstract and emotion-label words.