Emotion and Memory

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a morsel of the cake. No sooner had the ... Whence could it have come to me, this all-powerful joy? ... bedroom, my aunt L6onie used to give me, dipping it first in.
Emotion and Memory PIERRE PHlllPPOT ALEXANDRE SCHAEFER

I raised to my lips a spoonful of the tea in which I had soaked a morsel of the cake. No sooner had the warm liquid, and the cruinbs with it, touched my palate that a shudder ran through my all body. . . . An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, but individual, detached, with no suggestion of its origin. .. . Whence could it have come to me, this all-powerful joy? . . . And suddenly, the memory returns. The taste was that of the little crumb of madeleine which on Sunday morning at Combray. . . when I went to say good day to hex in her bedroom, my aunt L6onie used to give me, dipping it first in her own cup of real or of iie-flower tea. -PROWST

(19131192211957, pp. 56-58)

We have all expexienced that seemingly trivial events can trigger intense emotional feelings because of their capacity to reactivate a memory of a past emotional experience. In this famous excerpt from one of Marcel. Proust's novels, the simple MSte of a biscuit evokes past memories in the character who reexperiences the emotions he lived Fears ago. The same phenomenon-an emotion being elicited by the activation of an autobiographical memory-is even more striking in the case of individuals suffering of posttraumatic stressi for them, any stimulus chat can cue the memory of the traumatic event induces intense feelings of distress (Saigh, 1991). If there is a consensus on the fact that the activation of memories of past emotional experiences can induce emotion (Cuthbert, Vrana, & Bradley, 1991),the role of memory in the elicitation and regulation of emotion is not yet well established. Are emotional memories activated during

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