Abstract
The story of our lifetime – our narrative self – is constructed from our autobiographical memories. A central claim of social psychology is that this narrative self is inherently social: When we construct our lives, we do so in a real or imagined interaction. This predicts that self-referential processes which are involved in recall of autobiographical memories overlap with processes involved in social interactions. Indeed, previous functional MRI studies indicate that regions in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) are activated during autobiographical memory recall and virtual communication. However, no fMRI study has investigated recall of autobiographical memories in a real-life interaction. We developed a novel paradigm in which participants overtly reported self-related and other-related memories to an experimenter, whose non-verbal reactions were being filmed and online displayed to the participants in the scanner. We found that recall of autobiographical vs. non-autobiographical memories was associated with activation of the mPFC, as was recall in the social as compared to a non-social control condition; however, both contrasts involved different non-overlapping regions within the mPFC. These results indicate that self-referential processes involved in autobiographical memory recall are different from processes supporting social interactions, and argue against the hypothesis that autobiographical memories are inherently social.
Highlights
Episodic memory is defined as memory for events which can be exactly localized in space and time, and which can be retrieved by a ‘‘mental time travel’’ [1]
Autobiographical memory encompasses both memory for facts about one’s life and memory for specific episodes localized in time and space
We focus on episodic autobiographical memory because it has been argued that the autobiographical self is constructed of narratives [9,10], and episodes putatively have a more narrative structure than semantic facts have
Summary
Episodic memory is defined as memory for events which can be exactly localized in space and time, and which can be retrieved by a ‘‘mental time travel’’ [1] These events concern personal, autobiographical experiences (in the following, the terms ‘‘personal memory’’ and ‘‘autobiographical memory’’ are used interchangeably). Recall of personal memories transforms experiences into a personal identity, the autobiographical self [8] or narrative self (e.g., [9]): Over time, your experiences define how you see yourself, and how you present yourself towards others – they become the story you tell about yourself Autobiographical memory encompasses both memory for facts about one’s life (semantic autobiographical memory) and memory for specific episodes localized in time and space (episodic autobiographical memory). We focus on episodic autobiographical memory because it has been argued that the autobiographical self is constructed of narratives [9,10], and episodes putatively have a more narrative structure than semantic facts have
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