Misleading emotions: judgments of learning overestimate recognition of negative and positive emotional images

Research has shown that memory predictions are higher for emotional words, pictures, and facial expressions, relative to neutral stimuli, with recognition memory performance often not following the same pattern as predictions. Memory predictions for negative emotional images have not yet been examined. The current study examined how memory predictions and recognition memory for negative and positive emotional images differed from neutral images. Participants studied a mixed list of positive, negative, and neutral images and predicted future recognition by providing judgements of learning (JOLs). JOLs were highest for negative images, followed by positive images and then neutral images. However, recognition accuracy showed the opposite pattern: neutral images were recognised most accurately and negative images were the most poorly recognised. Participants incorporate beliefs and subjective experience in predicting recognition of emotional images, but fail to account for the influences of study and test conditions.