In this seminar we will research how arousing information is remembered and how the attention to arousing and emotional stimuli influences memory for non-emotional information. We will focus on a basic theory in human memory research, the Arousal Biased Competition theory, but with a particular focus on how this theory can be used to guide real world learning practices.
The language of the seminar will be chosen by the students (English or German) but many of the relevant papers that need to be read will be in English.
In the first semester we will familiarize ourselves with psychological research and especially with the Arousal Biased Competition theory. We will develop our own hypotheses and plan how to test these hypotheses.
In the second semester we will collect the data needed to test our hypotheses.
In the third semester we will analyze the data, write a paper, and discuss where future research should go. |