Prior research using single words has found reduced emotionality in a foreign
language, but what happens if emotionality is conveyed throughout a longer text rather
than being contained in a word? Would emotionality affect how well we remember and
associate information? We asked participants to listen to descriptions of two invented
countries and tested how well they remembered facts about these countries. Each
participant listened to one positive and one neutral description, which half of the
participants heard in their native language (Spanish) and the other half heard in their
foreign language (English). Participants remembered facts they heard in positive
contexts better than those learned in neutral contexts and participants did better in
their native language than in their foreign language. Importantly, there was no
interaction between language and emotionality, suggesting that the decrease in
emotionality in a foreign language observed in some areas might not extend to all areas