Savouring the Present to Better Recall the Past

Autobiographical memory (AM) encompasses personally experienced past events (Robinson, 1986), ranging from emotionally intense episodes to marginal ones (Conway, 1987). Interestingly, people’s memories do not perfectly overlap with experienced past events; rather, each memory is an inaccurate copy of an experience, being the result of a subjective reconstruction over time (Conway, 1996; Conway & Pleydell-Pearce, 2000). Likewise, there are memories which are more detailed, vivid and accessible than others. As a growing body of literature has indicated, the characteristics of a specific event can shape the associated memory, thus leading to AMs with different phenomenological features. Although several factors have been identified, valence and arousal have been suggested as two key aspects affecting the encoding and subsequent recall of AMs (for a review, see Holland & Kensinger, 2010). While the experience of intense negative emotions leads to memories that are richer in details (Berntsen, 2002; Mickley & Kensinger, 2009; Reisberg & Heuer, 2004; Storbeck & Clore, 2005), the experience of positive emotions enhances one’s focus on positive self-schemas, thus promoting a general analysis of an event (Clore & Storbeck, 2006; Clore et al., 2001; Levine & Bluck, 2004), with a greater recall of sensorial and peripheral information (D’Argembeau et al., 2003; Levine & Bluck, 2004; Talarico et al., 2004, 2009). Furthermore, highly arousing events have been shown to lead to more durable, detailed and self-perceived accurate memories (Anderson et al., 2006; Cahill & McGaugh, 1995; Phelps & Sharot, 2008).

Recently, emotion regulation has been suggested as a further factor affecting memory. Emotion regulation is the process that enables individuals to influence their ongoing emotional states and reach desirable goals (Gross, 1998; Gross & Thompson, 2007). So far, many studies have explored the association between the regulation of negative emotions and memory. For example, the use of cognitive reappraisal (i.e., changing the interpretation and meaning of a negative stimulus) is associated with a greater recall of details, expressive suppression (i.e., the attempt to inhibit the expression of negative emotions) with less detailed memories and rumination (i.e., rehashing about one’s experienced negative emotion, its causes and consequences) with a greater emotional involvement with the recalled memory (Colombo et al., 2021b; Dillon et al., 2007; Hayes et al., 2011; Richards & Gross, 2000; Richards et al., 2003; Vanderveren et al., 2020; Watkins & Teasdale, 2001). As for positive emotions, whether the use of strategies to maintain and/or upregulate positive states influences memory is still an open question.

Savouring has been defined as “the capacity to attend to, appreciate and enhance the positive experiences in one’s life” (Bryant & Veroff, 2017, p. XI), which entails the ability to use different emotion regulation strategies to pursue this goal (Quoidbach et al., 2015).¹ Experiencing positive events does not imply feeling positive emotions. Rather, people differ in the ability to engage in cognitive, attentional, or behavioural strategies to relish the positive feelings coming from a positive experience (Bryant, 2003). Following Gross’ extended model (2015), Quoidbach et al. (2015) proposed five different strategies of savouring: (1) situation selection, that is, choosing and engaging in situations that are expected to produce pleasurable emotions; (2) situation modification, that is, the active attempt to modify a situation in order to increase its impact on one’s positive feelings; (3) attentional deployment, that is, mindfully savouring a positive experience as well as focusing the attention on the positive details of the event; (4) cognitive change, that is, reappraising a positive situation in order to boost the associated positive emotions; and (5) response modulation, that is, the verbal (e.g., sharing) or non-verbal (e.g., smiling) expression of a positive emotion to amplify its intensity.

Since savouring strategies amplify the intensity of ongoing positive emotions and enhances one’s focus on the details of a pleasant stimulus (Bryant & Smith, 2015; Bryant & Veroff, 2007; Quoidbach et al., 2015), individual differences in the deployment of savouring strategies might also make people remember events differently. In this sense, savouring has been suggested as a “memory building” process that, by directing one’s attention on positive experiences and its pleasurable aspects, may facilitate the formation of more vivid and accessible memories (Bryant & Veroff, 2007) which, in turn, might also facilitate the recall of the associated positive emotions and overall positivity (Bohn & Berntsen, 2007; Kensinger, 2009; van Schie et al., 2019). For instance, Jose et al. (2020) demonstrated that individuals with a strong inclination for savouring exhibit enhanced abilities to recognize and relish positive situations in daily life. However, their study did not delve further into the specific impact of savouring on memory. Another study found that savouring pleasant experiences was associated with an increased tendency to reminisce nostalgically about the associated memories (Biskas et al., 2019). Yet, the assessment of savouring abilities and positive events was retrospective, and further memory properties, such as vividness and memory details, were not explored. Finally, Chun et al. (2017) showed that savouring a future event (i.e., anticipation) enhances the positive emotions derived from its recall later on, but “real-time” use of savouring strategies and their impact on memory were not investigated. In summary, although the literature suggests a connection between savouring and memory, there is much left to explore in order to fully understand the reciprocal interplay among savouring skills, daily positive events and memory phenomenology, as well as how this process unfolds in naturalistic settings. Previous studies have attributed various adaptive functions to positive reminiscence, such as establishing and maintaining personal identity, serving as a source of positive experiences that boost self-esteem and elicit pleasant emotions, or functioning as a coping mechanism for dealing with negative experiences (Bryant, 2003; Bryant et al., 2005; Jose et al., 2012; Quoidbach et al., 2010; Speer & Mauricio, 2017; Tam et al., 2021). Given the significance of positive reminiscence as an emotion regulation strategy contributing to emotional well-being, it becomes paramount to further investigate and disentangle the underlying mechanisms of this process.

The main aim of the current study was to investigate the potential effects of savouring positive emotions on AMs. More specifically, we explored whether the manipulation of savouring strategies during the experience of daily positive events could affect the recall of the associated memories. To achieve this, we conducted a smartphone-based ecological momentary assessment (EMA) study to capture daily positive events in real-life. Participants received two randomized notifications per day, asking whether a positive event was currently being experienced. If so, they were randomly assigned to either a control or experimental condition in which specific instructions to upregulate the ongoing positive emotions were provided. Based on Quoidbach et al. (2015)’s model, four different narratives (i.e., experimental conditions) were developed and randomly delivered: situation modification, attentional deployment, cognitive change, and behavioural modulation. The category “situation selection” was excluded because the participants had to report ongoing events (i.e., the situation had already been spontaneously selected). To investigate the effects of savouring on AM, we administered a surprise memory task one week after each event and asked participants to retrospectively describe and rate its positivity. Five memory dimensions were assessed: accessibility (i.e., the ease of retrieval of a memory); coherence (i.e., the recall of a memory through a coherent narrative); sensory details (i.e., the retrieve of the sensorial information associated with a memory); visual perspective (i.e., the recall of a memory from a first-field perspective); and vividness (the visual clarity and intensity of a memory). These dimensions were combined to define memory salience: that is, more accessible, coherent, vivid, emotionally intense and detailed memories.

We hypothesized that fostering savouring by providing individuals with specific instructions could help positive events maintain their salience and positive intensity over time. Our main hypotheses were as follows:

In addition, and to gain a broader understanding of the association between savouring and memory, the secondary objective of the present investigation was to disentangle the unique effect of each strategy on different dimensions of memory: accessibility, coherence, sensory details, visual perspective, and vividness. Given the exploratory nature of these secondary analyses, we did not formulate specific hypotheses.

So far, a growing body of literature has shown that the emotional underpinnings of an event and the strategies deployed to deal with ongoing emotional states are likely to affect the way people remember it. While the effects of negative emotion regulation on memory has been extensively investigated (e.g., Dillon et al., 2007; Hayes et al., 2011; Richards & Gross, 2000; Richards et al., 2003), the link between savouring positive experiences and AMs has been less studied. The available investigations in the field of positive emotion regulation mainly rely on the retrospective assessment of personal events, the use of trait questionnaires to assess savouring, and the exploration of a reduced number of memory properties (Biskas et al., 2019; Chun et al., 2017; Jose et al., 2020). In the present investigation, we aimed to address these gaps by utilizing an ecological approach, which involved investigating naturalistic positive events, manipulating savouring strategies in real life, and assessing their influence on subsequent memory. Our hypothesis was that the manipulation of savouring would lead to retrieve more salient memories which, in turn, would increase the likelihood to keep their positive intensity over time.

Overall, our results support the hypothesis that upregulating the pleasant feelings experienced during a positive event can affect its subsequent recall, specifically indicating that savouring leads to the retrieval of memories with higher salience and positivity. The ability to savour positive situations might therefore not only have short-term effects in terms of enhanced positive emotions and well-being (Colombo et al., 2021a; Livingstone & Srivastava, 2012), but also long-term outcomes in terms of memory. Importantly, all conditions required participants to write the event down (i.e., record it in the survey by describing it), while only the experimental conditions provided instructions specifically targeting the upregulation of positive emotions. This suggests that our findings can´t be solely explained by an increase in the elaboration of the events but rather by the experimental induction of savouring.

Notably, different findings were observed in relation to the two main variables of interest: memory salience and memory positivity.

Regarding the former, our findings showed that the experimental manipulation of emotion regulation predicted more accessible, coherent, vivid, emotionally intense, and detailed memories (i.e., higher memory salience), regardless of the strategy considered. These results might suggest that it is savouring, rather than the specific cognitive (CC), behavioural (SM, RM) or attentional (AD) strategy deployed to relish a positive situation, which increases the salience of the associated memory. As suggested by Dillon et al. (2007), two possible explanations might be provided to these results. On the one hand, the “arousal hypothesis” suggests that emotion regulation affects memory by influencing emotional arousal, so that events with higher emotional intensity are associated with more durable, detailed, and accurate memories (Anderson et al., 2006; Cahill & McGaugh, 1995; Phelps & Sharot, 2008). In this sense, we may hypothesize that our manipulation successfully enhanced the intensity of participants’ positive emotional experience, thus resulting in more salient memories at the time of recall. On the other hand, the “stimulus elaboration hypothesis” suggests that emotion regulation might influence memory via effects on stimulus encoding, as different strategies might encourage different levels of elaboration (Dillon et al., 2007). Since savouring has been shown to be associated with an increased ability to attend to and relish a positive event through the enhancement of one’s attention to the details (Bryant & Smith, 2015; Bryant & Veroff, 2007; Jose et al., 2020), we may hypothesize that our manipulation triggered a deeper elaboration of the event at the time of its encoding, thus resulting in memories with higher salience. This hypothesis is in line with the concept of Active Memory Building proposed by Bryant and Veroff (2007), defined as ‘a way of savouring in which people search for, notice, and highlight those aspects of positive experiences they find most enjoyable’ (Bryant & Veroff, 2007, p. 93). According to the authors, savouring a pleasant experience does not only involve the amplification of the associated positive emotions but also a more focused attention on its features and details which, in turn, leads to the creation of more reliving, vivid, and easily recalled memories. Although in their study Dillon et al. (2009) found evidence for the latter hypothesis, the design of our investigation does not allow us to conclude whether savouring influences memory via effects on arousal or stimulus encoding.

Besides, different results were observed in relation to memory positivity. The comparison of savouring versus the control condition predicted enhanced memory positivity at t1, which was mediated by enhanced memory salience. However, when we considered each strategy alone, only AD and CC significantly predicted memory positivity, which was enhanced via higher memory salience at the time of recall. In other words, our results suggest that these two strategies did not directly affect the positivity of a recalled event but instead enhanced the salience of the associated memory and indirectly increased the overall recalled positivity. It is noteworthy that, while memory salience was a complex and multifaceted construct assessed through a questionnaire and involving the ability to visually imagine, re-experience, and access a memory, memory positivity was assessed with a single item, in which participants were invited to retrospectively rate the positive valence of an event (i.e., the cognitive appraisal one week after its occurrence). Furthermore, while SM (i.e., taking an action to modify a situation) and RM (i.e., expressing the emotions with the body) can be considered as behavioural strategies, AD and CC rely on cognitive processes (attention and reappraisal, respectively). It might be the case that, even though the use of behavioural strategies enhances the emotional intensity of a positive experience and the salience of the subsequent memory, it does not have any effect on its cognitive appraisal in the long run. Conversely, some cognitive processes need to be deployed during the experience of an event in order to keep its positive intensity over time, such as focusing one’s attention on the positive moment or positively reinterpreting the meaning of the situation. Accordingly, AD and CC may trigger a deeper elaboration of a positive experience, thus resulting in higher perceived positivity at the time of recall.

AD specifically aims to direct one’s attention to a pleasant emotional state and the associated sensations and feelings (Quoidbach et al., 2015). A growing body of literature has demonstrated that enhancing focused attention on a perceptual stimulus positively affects various cognitive processes, such as sustained and selective attention, disengagement from potential distractors, and self-regulatory processes (Lutz et al., 2008; Zeidan et al., 2010). These, in turn, lead to better encoding (Bonamo et al., 2015), working memory (Chambers et al., 2008; Zeidan et al., 2010), and episodic memory performance (Brown et al., 2016; Crawley, 2015). In this sense, it might be the case that our AD instructions helped participants bring and focus their attention on the positive experience, making its positive valence more salient in memory over time. Differently, CC involves an active process of changing the meaning of a stimulus in order to shape the associated emotional state (Troy et al., 2018), implying a deeper conceptual analysis of a situation (Richards et al., 2003). Previous studies have shown that cognitive reappraisal not only improves memory performance (i.e., more detailed memories) (Dillon et al., 2007; Hayes et al., 2011; Richards & Gross, 2000; Richards et al., 2003) but also promotes a positive reframing of a negative stimulus, remembered as more positive than it actually was (Colombo et al., 2021a, 2021b; Rusting & DeHart, 2000; Wisco & Nolen-Hoeksema, 2010). Similarly, our results seem to suggest that CC might induce a more positively-valenced mental representation of an event, thus helping to maintain its positivity in memory over time.

In an attempt to gain a deeper understanding of the effects of savouring on memory, we also explored the unique impact of each strategy on the five memory dimensions considered in the present investigation. Our results collectively suggest that the accessibility and first-field perspective of a memory were consistently enhanced when delivering instructions to upregulate positive emotions, regardless of the type of manipulation. In other words, the events in the experimental conditions were retrieved with less efforts and recalled from a first-field perspective, as typically observed with more intense emotional episodes (Berntsen & Rubin, 2006; D’Argembeau et al., 2003). However, some dimensions were uniquely affected by the type of strategy deployed: memory coherence through SM and AD, sensory information through SM and RM, and vividness through SM, AD, and RM.

Finally, it is worth noting that several results were influenced by gender, as many of the effects of savouring on memory were only significant among female participants. Importantly, women significantly outnumbered men in the sample, which might account for some of the null findings. Yet, an alternative explanation could be considered. A growing body of literature has explored gender differences in emotional expression, reactivity, and regulation (Chaplin, 2015; Goubet & Chrysikou, 2019), suggesting that gender differences in positive emotion regulation might exist. The socialization hypothesis posits that differences in emotional experiences between genders may arise from societal beliefs and expectations regarding male and female roles (Grossman & Wood, 1993). Due to established gender stereotypes and societal expectations, women are more inclined to implement emotion-focused strategies, as well as to seek and express emotions, especially positive ones (Eagly & Wood, 1982; Kring & Gordon, 1998; LaFrance et al., 2003). Accordingly, women have been shown to use amplifying strategies in response to positive events (i.e., savouring) to a greater extent than man (Bryant & Veroff, 2007; Kim & Bryant, 2017). One possible hypothesis could be that, being more skilled at identifying positive experiences, expressing positive emotions, and savouring them, women might benefit more from the savouring manipulation due to practice effects. However, this explanation warrants further exploration by future studies recruiting a more gender-balanced sample.

In the same vein, further research is need to address the limitations of the present study. First, we only collected positive daily events and their associated memories one week after their occurrence, so our results can’t be generalized to more salient life events and longer-term recalls. Additionally, the positivity of the episodes and associated memories was assessed through a single item, which might not have completely captured the complexity of participants’ appraisals. Second, although the instructions were developed based on prior research on positive emotion regulation strategies (Quoidbach et al., 2015) and revised by experts in the field, they were not validated before the study began. We also did not assess whether the instructions provided to the participants were actually deployed at the time of the event, and we did not control for the spontaneous use of savouring strategies during each event. Third, individual differences in savouring skills might have also introduced a selection bias. For instance, people who tend to savour positive events more often might show a lower threshold for positively-valenced events and report a higher number of daily positive experiences, as corroborated by Jose et al. (2020). Therefore, future studies might be interested in investigating whether these effects remain consistent when participants are instructed to report neutral events while being provided with instructions to make them more positive. Finally, when it comes to participants who reported multiple events, only the first memory recall notification was genuinely a "surprise", as they likely anticipated similar notifications for the other episodes reported in the EMA. The introduction of the "surprise" element aimed primarily at mitigating biases during the event assessment phase rather than the recall phase. Disclosing information about the recall task might have led participants to concentrate more on the details of the events reported in the EMA, potentially influencing subsequent memory retrievals. While the study's design prevented biases during assessment, the lack of unexpectedness after the first recall task could have affected the recall of the memories. For instance, participants might have anticipated subsequent notifications by reminiscing about the events reported in the EMA, potentially impacting how they remembered them. Although conditions were randomized to guarantee that the first recall belonged to a different condition, more studies are needed to confirm the results observed in the present study.

Despite the aforementioned limitations, this study provides novel insights on how savouring affects AM, which might also have potential implications for emotional well-being research. AM is an essential component of well-being (McAdams, 1996) and one’s life narrative (Pascuzzi & Smorti, 2017), since recalling personal events is a process through which people try to coherently reconstruct the past in order to provide a sense of continuity to the Self (Barclay, 2009; Conway, 1996). Furthermore, reminiscing about the past has been recognised as a powerful strategy that guides future goal-oriented behaviours (Cowan et al., 2021) and enhances emotional well-being in the present through the re-experience of pleasant memories (Bryant, 2021; Bryant et al., 2005; Quoidbach et al., 2015). The present study confirms previous evidence regarding the link between savouring and AM, suggesting that “savorers” might be more prone to vividly retrieve and enjoy positive memories.

Owning more reliving and detailed memories of past positive experiences may represent a crucial source of one’s emotional well-being, fostering pleasant emotions (Bryant et al., 2005; Speer et al., 2014; Westermann et al., 1996), buffering against stress (Speer & Mauricio, 2017), and bolstering self-identity (Bluck et al., 2005). In this sense, depression has been shown to be characterized by a greater, faster, and more detailed recall of negative rather than positive memories (Farina et al., 2019; Gupta & Kar, 2012; Hitchcock et al., 2017; Lemogne et al., 2006; Young et al., 2012), while also presenting impaired use of strategies to upregulate positive emotions (Carl et al., 2013). The present study might suggest the existence of a link between impaired savouring skills and reduced positive memory recall. Although more studies are needed to confirm this hypothesis, our findings point towards the importance of boosting “the capacity to attend to, appreciate and enhance the positive experiences in one’s life” (Bryant & Veroff, 2017, p. XI) to encourage more vivid positive memories and promote emotional well-being.