wever, it conflicts with other reports in the literature. If, however, one expects word recall to vary both by semantic relevance to mood and mood, there is no logical reason to expect that the total number of words recalled should be increased by a mood congruence between encoding and recall states.
Hypotheses numbers two and three each were supported by the research, and, by inference, each hypothesis was accepted. Again, these findings are consistent with some reports in the literature, but not with all such reports. The strength of the relationships between mood and recall found in this study, however, generally are stronger than most such relationships found in the literature. One reason for this outcome may be that all of the subjects in this study were college students. The literature indicates that recall memory generally is stronger among persons of this age group than among persons of other age groups. Further, the presence of these individuals in college suggests that they have memory capacities above those of the average person.
The influence of emotional states on memory is a widely studies issue in cognitive psychology. Prior research has established links between mood and memory; however, questions of both causality and strength of relationships continue to exist (Foa, McNally, & Murdock, 1989, pp. 141-147; Eich & Metcalfe, 1989, pp. 443-455; Morel, 1991, pp. 1007-1010; Perrig & Perrig, 1988, pp. 102-109; Bower, 1987, pp. 443-455). This study investigated the effects of mood on memory in relation to the ability to recall words.
A generally accepted premise is that short-term memory (STM) can be usefully distinguished from long-term memory (LTM) (Squire, Knowlton, & Musen, 1992, pp. 453-495). The traditional view of the distinction between STM and LTM has been that the systems operate serially. Information initially enters STM and subsequently becomes incorporated into a more stable LTM. This view was c...