Induced Arousal and Incidental Learning during Rehearsal

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Abstract
An experiment is reported in which the effect of arousal on retention is studied. It is hypothesized that high arousal increases the selectivity of processing and strengthens the storage of what is being selected. According to this assumption, increases in retention performance caused by simple vocal rehearsal will be greater in high arousal conditions than in low arousal conditions. Arousal was induced by presenting stimulus words accompanied by either loud or soft tone bursts. Phasic arousal levels were measured independently by continuously recording pupil dilation. To avoid uncontrolled processing, subjects were not informed about a subsequent incidental free recall test. Even though the subjects were not actively trying to memorize the words, high arousal led to higher recall scores. This difference increased with an increasing number of rehearsal trials. The loud tones induced higher arousal, as shown by increased pupillary dilation, in just over half of the subjects. This "reacting" group was completely responsible for the better recall performance in the loud tone conditions.

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