Schedule of Events | Search Abstracts | Invited Symposia | Symposia | Poster Sessions | Data Blitz

Exploring the Neural Mechanisms underlying the Impact of Emotion on Temporal Distance Memory

Poster Session B - Sunday, March 8, 2026, 8:00 – 10:00 am PDT, Fairview/Kitsilano Ballroom

Gahyun Kim¹ (), Aicha Belghiti¹, Kristin Langohr¹, Andy C.H. Lee^1,2; ¹University of Toronto, Canada., ²Rotman Research Institute, Baycrest Centre, Toronto, Canada.

Our temporal memory is often influenced and distorted by emotional states, such that our subjective temporal memory is compressed or lengthened in comparison to objective time. Prior work suggests that this phenomenon can occur in the context of sequences of events, yet the relative contributions of valence and/or arousal, and their underlying neural mechanisms, remain unclear. In the present fMRI study, we investigated how emotional valence and arousal influence temporal memory, with a specific focus on temporal distance within a sequence of events and its neural correlates. In each block, participants viewed emotional images of varying levels of valence and arousal. They then completed a temporal distance rating task in which they reported how close or far apart pairs of previously seen images had been presented during the encoding phase. The behavioural results showed that subjective temporal distance memory was driven more by arousal than valence, indicating that the high arousal condition led to longer subjective temporal distances compared to the low arousal condition. The fMRI analyses further revealed differential patterns of neural activity associated with varying levels of valence and arousal during the encoding and temporal distance retrieval phases in memory-related regions. Together, these findings provide further insights into how emotion can influence our temporal memory, advancing our understanding of the underlying mechanisms.

Topic Area: LONG-TERM MEMORY: Episodic