Encoding Emotion Differently: Investigating ERP Correlates of Emotional Memory in Anxiety and Depression

Poster Session E - Monday, March 9, 2026, 2:30 – 4:30 pm PDT, Fairview/Kitsilano Ballrooms

Alexandra Doiron¹, Abby Mander¹, Cassandra Morrison¹; ¹Carleton University

Emotional words are thought to exhibit a memory advantage over neutral material. However, it remains unclear whether emotional content primarily influences neural processes supporting memory encoding, retrieval, or both under incidental learning conditions, and how anxiety and depression affect these mechanisms. This study examined how emotional word valence modulates behavioural recognition performance and event-related potentials (ERPs) during incidental encoding and retrieval, and whether anxiety and depressive symptoms alter these effects. Twenty-six young adults completed an incidental memory task while electroencephalography was recorded. During encoding, participants classified words as emotional or non-emotional, followed by a delayed recognition test. ERPs indexing attentional processing (P2), semantic integration (N400), and later-stage memory processing (early and late LPP) were analysed. Positive words were remembered less accurately than neutral (p=.022) and negative words (p=.011). Anxiety and depressive symptoms were not associated with recognition accuracy. Exploratory subgroup analyses showed reduced recognition of positive words in the moderate anxiety group (p=.046) and in the severe depression group relative to negative words (p=.021). Emotionally valanced words elicited larger P2 amplitudes and more negative N400 amplitudes during encoding, and larger early and late LPP amplitudes during retrieval (p’s < .05). Higher anxiety was associated with larger late LPP amplitudes at retrieval across conditions (p < .05). Emotional content modulated neural processing across multiple stages despite the absence of a behavioural memory advantage. Anxiety influenced later-stage neural activity during retrieval without affecting recognition accuracy, indicating that emotion and anxiety alter how information is processed rather than whether it is remembered.

Topic Area: EMOTION & SOCIAL: Emotion-cognition interactions