好心情或降低大腦的工作記憶能力

Being in a good mood decreases the brain's working memory, US researchers say.

“This explains why you might not be able to remember a phone number you get at a party when you are having a good time,” Elizabeth Martin, a doctoral student of psychology at the University of Missouri, says in a statement. “This research is the first to show that positive mood can negatively impact working memory storage capacity.”

The researchers gauged study participants’ mood before and after showing them a video clip - some saw a bit of a stand-up comedy routine, while others saw a video on how to install flooring.

Those who viewed the comedy routine were in significantly better moods after viewing the video, while the mood of flooring group had not changed. Both groups were then given a memory test.

The study, published in the journal Cognition and Emotion, found those who watched the comedy routine performed significantly worse on the task.

好心情會讓記憶力下降?

美國研究人員稱，好心情可能會降低大腦的工作記憶(屬程序性記憶、短時記憶，是一種短暫時刻的知覺)能力。

“這就能解釋為什么明明在派對上玩得很開心，卻記不住從派對上得到的電話號碼，”密蘇里大學(xué)心理學(xué)博士伊麗莎白 馬丁在一份報告中指出。“該研究首次說明，積極情緒有損于工作記憶容量。”

研究人員在受試者觀看視頻片段前后對其情緒進行了測量。其中一部分受試者所看的是輕松喜劇節(jié)目，另一些人所看的視頻則關(guān)于如何鋪地板。

那些看了喜劇的受試者觀后情緒更佳，而“地板視頻”受試者觀前觀后情緒并無波動。兩組都接受了記憶測試。

此項刊登于《認知與情感》雜志的研究發(fā)現(xiàn)，觀看了喜劇的受試者在記憶測試中表現(xiàn)明顯差于另一組受試者。