Mood-congruent memory bias

Biological Parallel

Stressed animals more easily recall previous threats than rewards—current emotional state primes related memories because if you're afraid now, past dangers are more predictively relevant than past comforts. Mood-congruent retrieval is context matching: your current state is a prediction about what information will be useful, so the brain surfaces matching patterns. This is adaptive priming: emotion tells memory which past experiences predict the present situation.