Recollective experience mediates the relation between visual perspective and psychological closeness in autobiographical memory

Abstract

ABSTRACT Psychological closeness refers to how recent and near an event feels to a person remembering the event and how close this person feels from their “past self” in the event. Participants recalled recent positive and recent negative experiences and rated them on field perspective, observer perspective, emotionality, recollective experience, and psychological closeness at two sessions held four weeks apart. Field perspective, emotionality, recollective experience, and psychological closeness decreased over time. More field perspective, higher emotionality, and stronger recollective experience corresponded with higher levels of psychological closeness. In addition, participants with large changes between the two sessions in field perspective and emotionality also reported large changes in recollective experience, and participants with large changes in recollective experience also reported large changes in psychological closeness. Finally, recollective experience mediated the relation between field perspective and psychological closeness. Recollective experience, however, did not consistently mediate the relation between emotionality and psychological closeness.