a series of well-controlled laboratory studies by physiologist Michael Bock examined the relationship between emotional arousal and memory when individuals were shown a list of words and asked to recall them later they were better able to recall words with negative emotional impact than words with a neutral impact were recalled least well in Bock's studies this suggested that although Freud was correct in saying that negative event are recalled less well than positive events experiences with any type of emotional impact appear to be easier than neutral experience