NYU Phelps Lab - Sonya Dougal, Ph.D.

Ph.D., 2003, University of Pittsburgh
B.A. Cum Laude, 1996, University of Massachusetts at Amherst

“An impression may be so exciting emotionally as almost to leave a scar upon the cerebral tissues” (James, 1890). Here William James describes the common belief that emotionally significant events, and many of the details surrounding them, are remembered with extraordinary accuracy. Indeed, studies of flashbulb memories indicate that the subjective experience of memory for emotional events is more vivid and detailed than memory for ordinary events (e.g., Talarico & Rubin, 2003). However, reports of the details surrounding these flashbulb events typically change over time suggesting that these memories may be inaccurate. In addition, recent laboratory studies of the subjective experience of memory for emotional stimuli indicate that emotion enhances the feeling of recollection without also enhancing memory accuracy (Dougal & Rotello, in press; Sharot, Delgado, & Phelps, 2004). My research uses behavioral and fMRI methods to ask 1) whether the enhanced subjective experience of detailed recollection of emotional stimuli is actually accompanied by enhanced memory for contextual details, and 2) which medial temporal lobe regions are involved in forming memories for emotional versus neutral stimuli. I am also interested in how personal relevance of emotional stimuli influences subsequent memory performance and how emotion modifies visual perception.

Dougal, S., & Rotello, C.M. (2007). “Remembering” emotional words is based on response bias, not recollection. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review. 14(3):423-429.

Dougal, S., Phelps, E.A., & Davachi, L. (2007). The role of medial temporal lobe in item recognition and source recollection of emotional stimuli. Cognitive, Affective, and Behavioral Neuroscience. 7(3):233-242.

Dougal, S., & Schooler, J.W. (2007). Discovery misattribution: When solving is confused with remembering. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. 136(4):577-592.

Dougal, S., Delgado, M.R., & Phelps, E.A. (2006). Medial temporal lobe correlates of recognizing personally relevant emotional stimuli. Poster presented at the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society, San Francisco, CA.

Dougal, S., & Rotello, C.M. (2005). “Remembering” emotional words is based on response bias, not recollection. Paper presented at the 46th Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society, Toronto.

Dougal, S., Chang, Y.K., Delgado, M.R., & Phelps, E.A. (2005). Medial temporal lobe correlates of recognition memory for September 11, 2001. Society for Neuroscience, Washington DC.