People have many types of memory. Through this, memories about situations or events from the past are stored and retrieved, but, in addition, on many occasions physiological sensations are also recovered, and this is what is known as emotional memory. Sometimes, the only thing we have left about a specific situation is the emotional memory, while the memory of the event itself is lost. So, does the body have emotional memory? How do emotions affect our memories?
In this Psychology-Online article, we will see What is emotional memory, the different types of emotional memory there are and some examples of it, in order for us to understand ourselves and what happens to us a little more.
What is emotional memory?
Emotional memory consists of recovery of the physiological sensations we had in the past in a situation when we experience a similar situation again. That is, when exposed to a type of event, my body will react quickly because it remembers how it acted in the past in a similar situation.
Physiological sensations are automatic reactions that our body has among which we can find ourselves hyperventilation, increased heart rate, sweating, tremors and even our body temperaturel and many others.
Evolutionary psychology justifies the existence of this type of memory as a form of survival: if I react faster than the last time to a danger, I will have a better chance of surviving.
Types of emotional memory
The emotional memory to which we have referred is the one defined from the point of view of evolutionary psychology, however, there are other ways of approaching this term.
It has been seen that emotional memory would also be responsible for the recovery of other types of details about a past event and not only physiological reactions.
On the other hand, coining the similar term “affective memory” reference is made to a technique that consists of evoking memories through provoking emotionsThat is, it would be applying the emotional memory theory of evolutionary psychology in reverse order.
On some occasions, the start of the recovery of certain memories can occur through a specific detail that awakens certain emotions. This is the case with music. Through it, certain emotions can be produced that our brain ends up relating to specific memories. In this article we explain.
Some examples of emotional memory
There are many examples to point out what emotional memory is, but, above all, there are two that are very common and will help us understand this function of our brain in greater depth:
Phobias
On many occasions, we are afraid of something specific, such as dogs, spiders, wasps, heights… and yet, we do not remember the origin of that fear. At this moment emotional memory is acting exclusively: our body is remembering how we had to act in the past and is transferring that action to the present, although it has omitted the situation in which we acted like this for the first time.
As we can see, the physiological sensations, in the case of phobias, are usually hyperventilation, sweating and even paralysis of the body. These are the ones that our body decides to launch through emotional memory.
Remember through emotions
As we explained in the previous section, emotional memory can be activated in reverse order. Surely on some occasion when you felt sad due to a specific situation, you have started to remember all kinds of painful moments from your past even if they have nothing to do with the current situation.
On this occasion it is also the emotional memory that is acting. Through the expression of a certain emotion and certain physiological sensations, it is much easier to remember what other situations were like in the past that made us feel the same way.
In this article we explain.
This article is merely informative, at Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.
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Bibliography
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