Stimuli encoded shortly before an aversive event are typically well remembered. Traditionally, this emotional memory enhancement has been attributed to beneficial effects of physiological arousal on memory formation. Here, we proposed an additional mechanism and tested whether memory formation is driven by the unpredictable nature of aversive…

It is well known that emotions participate in the regulation of social behaviors and that the emotion displayed by a conspecific influences the behavior of other animals. In its simplest form, empathy can be characterized as the capacity to be affected by and/or share the emotional state of another. However, to date, relatively little is known…