Emotion, Mood, and the Encoding Process

I am now going to explore how our emotions, mood, and memory interact during the encoding process.
Mood and emotion are terms often used interchangeably. However, emotion is defined as a reaction to a specific stimulus and mood is defined as more of a long-lasting general experience.
Three Ways in Which Mood and Emotion Affect the Encoding Process
1. In most cases, we remember pleasant stimuli more accurately than other stimuli. This is known as the Pollyanna Principle which states that pleasant stimuli is processed more efficiently and accurately than less pleasant stimuli. The Pollyanna Principle holds true for phenomenon in perception, language, and decision-making.
Example: Think about your favorite vacation. Recall the details of this vacation. Now think about your least favorite vacation. Try to recall the as many details as you can. B. The intensity level of the stimuli’s emotional tone is also an important factor.
C. Another factor is that the visual imagery for pleasant stimuli tends to be more vivid than for unpleasant stimuli.
D. Memory accuracy is affected by emotions.
For example, when we are angry our memory is less accurate.
E. Recall is faster for pleasant stimuli.
For example, make a list of 10 foods. Now number those foods, 1-10, in order from favorite to least favorite. You may be surprised to find that your favorite foods are at the top of the list. Now, make a list of your least favorite foods. I found the task of listing my favorite foods easier. I also discovered that I had listed my top ten favorite foods almost in the exact order of favoritism.
2. In most cases, we recall material more accurately if our current mood matches the emotional nature of the material. This is referred to mood congruence.
For example, we should remember pleasant stimuli better if we are in a pleasant mood and vice versa. That is we should remember unpleasant stimuli better if we are in an unpleasant mood.
3. In most cases, we recall material more accurately if our mood during encoding matches our mood during retrieval. This is referred to as mood dependent
References:
Matlin, M.W. (2005),Cognition (6th ed.) Wiley and Sons