Emotional modulation of episodic memory in school-age children and adults: Emotional items and their associated contextual details.

It is well established that emotional events are better remembered than neutral events. However, little is known about emotional enhancement of memory (EEM) in children. This is particularly the case when the main components of episodic memory are considered: core information (item memory) and its associated contextual details (associative memory). In 2 experiments, the present study tested whether the negative or positive emotional valence of words and pictures can influence item and associative memory. The contextual information to be associated with items was the gender of the voice pronouncing words and the type of frame in which pictures were displayed in Experiment 1, and the spatial location of stimuli in Experiment 2. Two groups of 8- to 11-year-old children (Experiment 1