Emotional Mood as a Context for Learning and Recall

The question was whether a person's emotional mood could serve as a distinctive context for learning and retrieval of memories. Hypnotized subjects learned a word-list while feeling happy or sad, and recalled it in the same or the opposite mood, either immediately (Exp. 1) or after one day (Exp. 2). Retention proved to be surprisingly independent of the congruence of learning and testing moods. Experiment 3 had subjects learn two lists, one while happy, one while sad. Later recall of both lists while happy (or sad) revealed a powerful congruence effect. Thus, learning mood provided a helpful retrieval cue and differentiating context only in multi-list circumstances where confusions and interference among memories would otherwise obtain.