Gun Focus Effect Revisited: Emotional Tone Modulates Information Processing Strategy

In: Communication research, Band 39, Heft 6, S. 724-737

Abstract

This study attempts to clarify the relationship between message emotional tone and memory vividness, specifically gun focus effect. Based on findings in neuroimaging research, it is claimed here that positive and negative messages trigger different processing mechanisms in the brain and therefore later detail retrieval is dependent on the degree to which the same processing paths are activated. Overall, data support an assumption that visual recognition aids negative arousing content detail memory more than positive. In contrast, cued recall procedure is more helpful for recalling positive detail. For central detail the matching cues work together with the arousing content to boost memory specificity. Yet for peripheral detail, the matching cues help overcome the harmful effects of arousing content by reducing forgetting. Thus visual recognition minimizes gun focus effect for negative visual content and enhances it for positive. At the same time, a cued recall task minimizes gun focus effect for positive visual content and enhances it for negative.