Out-of-body experience favors emotional memory consolidation
Konstantinos Christos Daoultzis, Sophie Alida Bogemann, Yoshiyuki Onuki, Martijn Meeter, Ysbrand van der Werf
Ψυχολογία: το Περιοδικό της Ελληνικής Ψυχολογικής Εταιρείας July 25, 2022 DOI: 10.12681/psy_hps.25576 (opens in new tab) via DOAJ
Summary
AI-generated from the abstractOut-of-body experiences (OBE) improve emotional memory consolidation and cause a rise in skin temperature, supporting embodied cognition theory. In the experiment, participants viewed neutral, pleasant, and unpleasant images before an OBE was induced, then completed a recognition memory test. Neck and hand skin temperature were measured throughout. Those who experienced OBE showed better memory for emotional pictures and increased skin temperature, contrary to earlier findings that OBE impairs memory and lowers temperature. The authors suggest these results align with Anderson's (2003) embodied cognition framework, but note future work should rule out baseline memory differences or alternative causes for the temperature increase.
Study at a glance
| Characteristics | Experimental study Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Keywords | Body ownership Emotion Experience Memory consolidation Out-of-body skin temperature |
| Key finding | Out-of-body experiences enhance emotional memory consolidation and increase skin temperature. |
Abstract
Body ownership reflects our ability to recognise our body at a certain location, enabling us to interact with the world. Emotion has a strong impact on memory and body ownership; interestingly, skin temperature may at least in part mediate this impact. Previous studies have found that out-of-body experiences (OBE) impair memory encoding and cause skin temperature to drop. In the present study a new method for inducing OBE was designed and their impact on a different stage and type of memory processing (emotional memory consolidation) and on skin temperature was investigated. In our experiment, we presented three types of emotional pictures (neutral, pleasant, unpleasant) before inducing OBE and testing our participants’ recognition memory in a retrieval session. Throughout the whole experiment, both neck and hand skin temperature were measured using iButtons. Participants’ performance was calculated using d-prime and statistical analyses included one-way ANOVA, probing the relationship between the score on the OBE questionnaire, performance and skin temperature; we also compared the differences between the experimental and a control group. Results showed that OBE favour emotional memory consolidation and cause a temperature increase, supporting the embodied cognition theory as proposed by Anderson (2003). Future studies should expand our findings, to rule out that participants experiencing OBE could have a better memory at baseline or that temperature could be increased due to other reasons.