Recognition memory - a type of episodic memory in long term memory - is known in the literature to be affected by emotion, aging and the modality of the presented stimuli. The major aim of this study was to investigate whether emotional stimuli enhances recognition memory. Another goal was to observe whether modality and aging effects are present and differentiable in a non-Western subject sample. In literature, emotion studies were based on mainly two dimensions of emotions: valence and arousal. However, the contribution of these two dimensions to the enhancement of recognition memory still needs clarification. The present study investigated specifically the effect of valence on recognition memory. Moreover, the experimental manipulations of this study allowed observing the effect of valence on recognition memory due to normal aging. Since modality of the presented stimuli is a major confounding factor on recognition, separate experiments involving visual and verbal stimuli were designed. Pictures and words were selected on the basis of valence and arousal ratings. The stimulus set of the visual recognition memory task consisted of the pictures selected from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS) (Lang et al., 2005). The stimulus set of the verbal recognition memory task was constructed from partially standardized material for affective norms of Turkish emotional words (METU TEW), which was developed as a part of this study. METU TEW allowed selecting words with positive, neutral and negative valence while controlling arousal. The results replicated two findings reported in the literature: (1) younger adults recognized more accurately than older adults / (2) recognition memory was enhanced for visual items regardless of age and valence. Interestingly, this study revealed that recognition memory was not enhanced for emotional stimuli varying only on the valence dimension. More specifically, there was a decline in recognition memory for positive items and no change was observed for negative items, regardless of age. Further analysis also revealed that there may be differential effects of abstractness and concreteness on verbal recognition memory in aging.

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過去研究顯示負向情緒會干擾夜間睡眠，預期可有效降低負向情緒的情緒調節策略應有助於睡眠，然而，認知再評估策略對睡眠的影響卻未有一致的研究結果，此可能受限於過去研究多以問卷測量認知再評估策略的使用偏好，卻未測量個體使用策略的能力，亦即認知再評估策略的調節效果。本研究透過實驗室典範測量認知再評估能力，主要探討個體使用認知再評估策略的能力是否會影響個體於夜間情緒調節的效果，以及再評估策略於睡前之適用性。本研究受試者共24位，包含11名男性與13名女性，平均年齡為22歲。受試者皆依序經歷引發和調節負向情緒的實驗情境與中性情境兩個夜晚，並以主觀問卷與客觀生理反應測量受試者使用認知再評估策略調節情緒的表現，及對其後續睡眠的影響，在兩晚作業結束後，受試者會回到實驗室進行認知再評估能力測量作業。研究結果發現，認知再評估能力佳者於實驗晚的情緒調節表現較佳，在能力指標中，正負向與憤怒感調節佳者，其睡前生理激發度增加量較低、入睡前高頻腦波相對功率較低，且較不會高估入睡耗時；此外，運用再評估策略會增加較高情緒控制感者，入睡後高頻腦波相對功率較低，且實驗晚所增加的入睡耗時較低。整體來說，負向情緒會干擾後續睡眠，於正負向指標上調節能力佳者較可減少其主觀失眠困擾度，且使用再評估策略後有較高情緒控制感者，較可彈性的運用再評估策略。 / Negative emotion has been showed to interfere with sleep, therefore effective emotion regulation to reduce negative emotion prior to sleep could be beneficial for sleep. Cognitive reappraisal is generally considered to be an effective and adaptive emotion-regulation strategy, but previous studies had inconsistent findings about the impact of reappraisal on sleep. A study has even found that insomnia patients had a higher frequency to use reappraisal in comparison to good sleepers. However, previous studies used self-report measure of an individual's tendency to use reappraisal. It has been shown that the frequency of using reappraisal did not correlate with the ability to use reappraisal as measured by reduction of stress reactivity after standard laboratory challenge. The present study examined the hypothesis that the impact of pre-sleep reappraisal on sleep onset process depends on individual's cognitive reappraisal ability (CRA). Twenty-four normal sleepers were recruited (male:11, female:13, average age: 22 years). Participants came to sleep laboratory for two experimental nights and one daytime reappraisal ability evaluation. For the two experimental nights, participants did a cognitive task and got two different feedbacks for the two conditions: either a neutral feedback (baseline condition night) or a negative feedback (experimental condition night). They were instructed to use cognitive reappraisal strategy to reduce negative emotion after getting negative feedback. The change of subjective emotion ratings and physiological reaction were measured during the presleep task. Polysomnographic recording and subjective ratings of sleep onset experience was conducted for the sleep onset process analysis. During the daytime session, the ability of the participants to use reappraisal was measured with physiological reactivity to a standard laboratory challenge with anger-inducing films. The results showed that, at experimental night, participants with high CRA in reducing emotion valence exhibited better emotion regulation outcomes, less presleep somatic arousal increments, lower beta power before falling asleep, and less overestimation of their sleep onset latency (SOL). Besides, participants with high CRA in reducing dominance of emotion exhibited shorter emotion regulation time, lower beta power after falling asleep, and lesser SOL increments. This finding is consistent with the hypothesis that reappraisal ability would determined whether cognitive reappraisal strategy is adaptive for presleep emotion regulation; those individuals with better CRA in reducing dominance of emotion might have more flexibility in applying reappraisal strategy.