Recall and recognition memory for spider information.

Two experiments were devised to examine the effect of anxiety on memory for threatening information in those with spider phobia. Those with spider phobia, control participants, and those with other phobias were shown video clips of spiders. In the recognition task, participants were asked to state whether they remembered having seen specific video clips of spiders that had been presented to them previously. In the recall task, they were asked to remember and note as much detail as possible about each of a second series of video clips of spiders. Those with spider phobia were no different from the other two groups in their ability to recognize spider stimuli or in the amount of detail they were able to recall.