AUTHOR=Zalmenson Tom , Azriel Omer , Bar-Haim Yair 

TITLE=Enhanced recognition of disgusted expressions occurs in spite of attentional avoidance at encoding

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Psychology

VOLUME=Volume 13 - 2022

YEAR=2023

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1063073

DOI=10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1063073

ISSN=1664-1078

ABSTRACT=Negative emotional content is prioritized in memory. Prioritized attention to negative stimuli has been suggested to mediate this valence-memory association. However, research suggests only a limited role for attention in this observed memory advantage. We tested the role of attention in memory for disgusted facial expressions, a powerful social-emotional stimulus, in an incidental encoding task and a surprise memory test. Replicating prior studies, we found increased attentional dwell-time for neutral over disgusted expressions at encoding. However, contrary to the attention-memory link hypothesis, disgusted faces were better remembered than neutral faces. Although dwell-time was found to partially mediate the association between valence and memory, this effect was much weaker than the opposite direct effect. These findings point to independence of memory for disgusted faces from attention during encoding.