ABSTRACT We investigated age-related differences and commonalities in earliest memories, focusing on retrieval speed, recollection type (remember vs. know), retrieval type (direct vs. generative), age at the time of the event, and phenomenological characteristics. The sample consisted of 131 adults: 68 young adults (48.5% males; Mage = 20.29, Sage = 1.53) and 63 older adults (47.6% males; Mage = 68.43, SDage = 4.11). They reported their earliest memories, estimated their age at the time, indicated recollection and retrieval types, and rated event characteristics (e.g., importance, vividness). Results showed that older adults were significantly more likely to classify their memories as remembered and directly retrieved, whereas young adults had a more balanced distribution of the classifications. Directly retrieved memories were accessed more rapidly than generatively retrieved ones, and young adults demonstrated shorter retrieval latencies than older adults. Additionally, older adults dated their earliest memories to later age and rated them as significantly more vivid, emotionally intense, and personally meaningful. Recollection type was not associated with retrieval latency but linked to higher vividness and confidence. Overall, our findings demonstrate potential age-related shifts in the retrieval and subjective evaluation of earliest autobiographical memories.

ABSTRACT Background: Dissociative identity disorder remains contested. The debate hinges on whether memories carry over between identity states and whether those states are truly distinct, but most evidence rests on self report rather than direct memory tests. Neuroimaging has been advanced as an indirect, non self-report approach by scanning individuals with DID in different identity states and comparing them with simulators or other groups. Objective: To evaluate how studies that scan people with DID in more than one identity state inform the core memory claims of DID, by assessing their methodological quality. Methods: Systematically reviewing studies from the past 40 years, quality was assessed using GRADE criteria and the Newcastle-Ottawa scale. Results: Of the nine studies reviewed, many lacked specific aims and only one stated clear hypotheses throughout. The results further indicated several concerns related to diagnostic comorbidity, and absence of clinical comparisons, reverse inference, and post hoc reasoning. Conclusions: On current evidence, functional imaging across identity states does not support firm claims about identity fragmentation or inter identity amnesia, nor does it decide between trauma based and sociocognitive accounts. Methodological refinement and direct tests of memory transfer are needed for progress.

ABSTRACT False autobiographical memories can have serious implications in legal settings, where the case outcomes may hinge entirely on memory-based eyewitness testimony. This study investigated whether a sensitisation memory training could reduce false autobiographical memory reports. We employed a blind implantation method in which participants (N = 294) indicated whether various childhood events had happened to them. Participants were then told they had confirmed five events – one of which was false – and were asked to rate their memory and belief. In session two, 15% (44/294) of participants reported a false belief and an additional 3.4% (10/294) a false memory, meaning that a total of 18.4% made a false report. Before session three, participants were randomly assigned to receive either the memory training or a distractor task, then repeated the false memory procedure. Contrary to our expectations, the training did not reduce false reports. Instead, false beliefs (SMT: 20.4%, 28/137, Control: 22.3%, 31/139) and false memories (SMT: 5.1%, 7/137, Control: 2.9% 4/139) increased in session three. The findings suggest false memories elicited in the blind implantation paradigm might be particularly resistant to correction.

ABSTRACT Public belief in repressed memories remains widespread, yet little is known about the demographic predictors of this belief. We examined beliefs about the repression, permanence, and reliability of memory in a nationally representative sample of U.S. adults (N = 1,545). Nearly all participants (94%) expressed belief in unconscious repressed memory. Belief in repression was high across all groups, with the highest rates among women without a college education. Age patterns varied by construct: Generation Z reported the strongest endorsement of repression, permanence beliefs increased steadily with age, and reliability beliefs followed a nonlinear trajectory with dips among younger adults and rebounds in midlife. These findings confirm that memory misconceptions remain pervasive and are structured by gender, age, and education. Because nearly all demographic subgroups still show very high endorsement, these misconceptions pose serious challenges for legal, clinical, and public education contexts.

ABSTRACT Studies have shown that involuntary autobiographical memories often have identifiable cues, which are rooted in a variety of experiences. Studies have also suggested that one’s activities and thoughts may also sometimes be related to these memories. Here, we examined a relatively large diary sample of involuntary memories (N = 123), where participants were asked to record their activities and thoughts along with their involuntary memories, and to decide if these activities and thoughts were related to these memories. The results showed that nearly two-thirds of the recorded involuntary memories were reported to be related to the activities and/or thoughts that coincided with them. Further, independent judges determined that activities and thoughts frequently overlapped conceptually with the memories, resulting in high inter-rater reliability estimates between the judges and the participants. We argue that the results suggest that activities and thoughts may have a priming role in the elicitation of involuntary memories.

ABSTRACT When retrieving information, people often shift over time from “Remembering” high levels of detail about a study episode to simply “Knowing” the information absent such detail. This “Remember-Know” shift is well-documented for true information, and recent work suggests that this effect exists, but is attenuated, for false information. One explanation for this difference is that true information is better represented in people’s prior knowledge, supporting retention of this content as “Known” over time. In this registered report we tested this hypothesis by measuring people’s reported retrieval experiences (e.g., “Remembering” or “Knowing”) for true and false information at two levels of anticipated prior knowledge. While we replicate the “Remember-Know” shift, we do not find that it differs by anticipated prior knowledge. We also examine the relation between retrieval experiences and the production of encountered information, as well as the impact of repeated testing on retrieval experiences.

ABSTRACT Past research has found substantial evidence of enhanced memory for objects and events that are highly incongruent with individuals’ prior expectations. This well-known bizarreness effect, was recently extended into the domain of colour, revealing enhanced memory for objects paired with expectation-incongruent colours (or bizarre - e.g., blue carrot) relative to expectation-congruent colours (e.g., orange carrots; Morita & Kambara, 2022). Colour bizarreness effects in object memory: Evidence from a recall test and eye tracking.. In two experiments, we explored whether the enhanced memory for bizarre, expectation-incongruent objects includes object-feature memory and whether this feature memory persists long-term. Using a 4-Alternative recognition task, we assessed memory for object colours as a function of expectation-congruence immediately following study and three days later. Results of Study 1 revealed no significant difference in recognition memory for bizarre compared to expectation-congruent colours, and no enhanced memory for bizarre colours in long-term memory. In Study 2, we found that an encoding task requiring participants to activate their prior expectations during study did not promote greater retention of bizarre object features. Instead, the results across both studies revealed a long-term memory advantage for expectation-congruent items. These findings highlight conditions where the enhanced memory for bizarre information is limited, providing an interesting challenge to current mechanistic accounts of memory for expectation-related information.

ABSTRACT The present study replicated and extended prior research by comparing the effects of reviewing notes in groups vs. reviewing notes individually on individual final test performance. We also examined the potential interaction between reviewing delay and reviewing methods. Finally, students completed a questionnaire, the results of which reveal how students perceive the effectiveness of group vs. individual reviewing methods. In this experiment, students watched and took notes on two lectures. Following a short or long delay, students reviewed their notes either individually or in a group and were allowed to update their notes during these sessions. After the reviewing phase, students completed a final test for each lecture. We found that individuals added more idea units to their notes after reviewing notes in a group, and this beneficial effect was greater after a longer delay compared to a shorter delay. However, more new idea units did not translate into better cued recall performance. Our findings suggest that reviewing notes in a group helps individuals add more overlooked idea units in their notes, but more factors should be considered when studying the relationship between reviewing notes in a group and final test performance.

ABSTRACT Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is associated with impaired emotional memory, though findings are mixed. Music has been shown to enhance or decrease memory. Few studies applied music immediately after encoding in both AD and older adults. The aim of this study is to analyze emotional memory and the effect of music listening on emotional memory in patients with Alzheimer's disease and older adults. Ninety-three patients with AD and ninety-three older adults with low educational levels participated. They viewed positive, negative and neutral pictures, followed by three minutes of either emotionally arousing music, relaxing music, or white noise. Participants then recalled and recognised the pictures. One week later, the recall and recognition tasks were repeated. Participants remembered emotional pictures better than neutral pictures. Emotionally arousing music increased delayed recall in older adults and decreased delayed false recognition in AD. Relaxing music decreased recognition of negative pictures. Emotional memory was relatively spared in AD patients, despite previous findings. Emotionally arousing music enhanced memory in AD patients and older adults, while relaxing music decreased memory for negative stimuli. The results are novel considering the characteristics of the sample (low educational levels), and support the use of emotional stimuli and music-based interventions in these populations.

ABSTRACT It has been reported that autobiographical memories have a social function that promotes conversation by using past events as conversation materials for non-autistic people. Autistic people and those with high autistic traits who were not diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) used social functions less frequently than those without autism. Thus, this study seeks to answer the question of whether autistic people and those with high levels of autistic traits who were not diagnosed with ASD and who use the social function of autobiographical memory less frequently do so because they have diminished open-air memory. To achieve this, university students who were not diagnosed with ASD were divided into high and low groups based on the number of autistic traits; open-air and laboratory encoding were conducted. Furthermore, we examined the correlation between memory performance and the social functions of autobiographical memory. The results showed that the performance of open-air encoding was better than that of laboratory encoding, regardless of the group. There was no significant correlation between performance in open-air encoding and the social function of the autobiographical memory. These findings emphasise the importance of actual experience in memory formation, even in an increasingly digitalised world.