Mood-dependent Variations in Destination Memory: Evidence from an Experimental Study

While emotional influences on general memory are well-documented, the impact of mood on destination memory remains underexplored. This study investigates the effects of positive, negative, and neutral moods on destination memory performance.

Sixty participants from the Indian Institute of Technology Indore were randomly assigned to mood induction conditions and completed a destination memory task. The descriptive statistics were applied to check the central tendency of facts, faces, and videos, and the one-way ANOVA test was applied to test the hypothesis. We performed the Tukey HSD test to identify specific group differences. The valence of mood was an independent variable, and the scores of destination memory were a dependent variable.

A one-way ANOVA revealed a significant effect of mood on performance [F _{(2, 57)} = 5.25, p = .008, η² = 0.13], with participants in a neutral mood performing significantly better than those in a positive mood. No significant difference was observed between negative and neutral conditions.

The findings align with prior research suggesting that positive emotions broaden the attentional focus and promote relational processing, potentially leading to memory errors. In contrast, neutral moods provide an optimal cognitive state for accurate associative memory. These results contribute to the growing body of research on mood and memory, suggesting that positive mood impairs destination memory by increasing susceptibility to distraction and reducing cognitive control.

The study highlights the importance of considering emotional states in understanding social memory and suggests avenues for future research into the real-world implications of mood-related memory biases.