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PaperclipPerfector  7mo ago (text post)   3226 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 10, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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I recently read a comment on reddit:

There is a phenomenon called mood-dependent memory that everyone experiences. It's the facilitation of accessing memories when your mood at retrieval is the same as your mood was at encoding. I'm sure you have had different memories flood in when you are in heightened states of mood before. When you get angry, you have memories pop up from other times you are angry. When you are happy, you have memories come in from other times you were happy. The reason for that is that when you form memories, your brain is not only encoding the basal level visual and auditory data. It's also encoding the emotional data in other brain regions, like the insula, insular cortex, and amygdala. When memories are stored, these neuronal connections are a formed that connect these brain regions.

I also heard someone say something along the lines of:

When I’m high I listen to music. When I’m sober listening to that same music it can put me in a better mood than usual.

In the first quote a mood is helping retrieve memories encoded with the same mood. In the second quote the music is helping retrieve the mood of a different instance of listening to the same music.

Where can I read more about the concrete details behind this phenomenon?

Is there a way to reliably trigger recall of a specific memory that matches your current mood?

Could you use psychoactive mood boosting substances to generate positive memories where music is playing in the background then use that same music to retrieve the enhanced mood when sober?

I had a math professor who advised us to study in a similar mood as we would be in during the exam. He joked that maybe we should be crying while we study.

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