Autobiographical Events Research Articles

Ethnic-Racial Life Scripts: Relations With Ethnic-Racial Identity and Psychological Health

Life scripts dictate the culturally appropriate order, content, and timing of autobiographical events. In the current study, we examined the ethnic-racial life scripts of American emerging adults from three ethnic-racial backgrounds. One hundred ninety-five Asian, 165 Latinx, and 45 White undergraduates produced and rated seven life events they believed to be prototypical of their ethnic-racial group and self-reported desired and perceived script normality, ethnic-racial identity (ERI), and psychological health. The resulting life scripts differed in meaningful ways between the three ethnic-racial groups. Relations between script normality, ERI, and psychological health were similarly varied between groups. These findings provide a descriptive basis for understanding the normative expectations associated with certain ethnic-racial enclaves and how life scripts may vary across these and other such groups. Moreover, the manner in which these scripts are perceived may carry divergent implications for adjustment, across ethnic-racial groups.

Dynamic Content Reactivation Supports Naturalistic Autobiographical Recall in Humans.

Humans can vividly recall and re-experience events from their past, and these are commonly referred to as episodic or autobiographical memories. fMRI experiments reliably associate autobiographical event recall with activity in a network of “default” or “core” brain regions. However, as prior studies have relied on covert (silent) recall procedures, current understanding may be hampered by methodological limitations that obscure dynamic effects supporting moment-to-moment content retrieval. Here, fMRI participants (N = 40) overtly (verbally) recalled memories for ∼2 min periods. The content of spoken descriptions was categorized using a variant of the Autobiographical Interview (AI) procedure (Levine et al., 2002) and temporally re-aligned with BOLD data so activity accompanying the recall of different details could be measured. Replicating prior work, sustained effects associated with autobiographical recall periods (which are insensitive to the moment-to-moment content of retrieval) fell primarily within canonical default network regions. Spoken descriptions were rich in episodic details, frequently focusing on physical entities, their ongoing activities, and their appearances. Critically, neural activity associated with recalling specific details (e.g., those related to people or places) was transient, broadly distributed, and grounded in category-selective cortex (e.g., regions related to social cognition or scene processing). Thus, although a single network may generally support the process of vivid event reconstruction, the structures required to provide detail-related information shift in a predictable manner that respects domain-level representations across the cortex.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Humans can vividly recall memories of autobiographical episodes, a process thought to involve the reconstruction of numerous distinct event details. Yet how the brain represents a complex episode as it unfolds over time remains unclear and appears inconsistent across experimental traditions. One hurdle is the use of covert (silent) in-scanner recall to study autobiographical memory, which prevents experimenter knowledge of what information is being retrieved, and when, throughout the remembering process. In this experiment, participants overtly described autobiographical memories while undergoing fMRI. Activity associated with the recall and description of specific details was transient, broadly distributed, and grounded in category-selective cortex. Thus, it appears that as events unfold mentally, structures are dynamically reactivated to support vivid recollection.

Neuropsychological and neuropathological observations of a long-studied case of memory impairment

We report neuropsychological and neuropathological findings for a patient (A.B.), who developed memory impairment after a cardiac arrest at age 39. A.B. was a clinical psychologist who, although unable to return to work, was an active participant in our neuropsychological studies for 24 y. He exhibited a moderately severe and circumscribed impairment in the formation of long-term, declarative memory (anterograde amnesia), together with temporally graded retrograde amnesia covering ∼5 y prior to the cardiac arrest. More remote memory for both facts and autobiographical events was intact. His neuropathology was extensive and involved the medial temporal lobe, the diencephalon, cerebral cortex, basal ganglia, and cerebellum. In the hippocampal formation, there was substantial cell loss in the CA1 and CA3 fields, the hilus of the dentate gyrus (with sparing of granule cells), and the entorhinal cortex. There was also cell loss in the CA2 field, but some remnants remained. The amygdala demonstrated substantial neuronal loss, particularly in its deep nuclei. In the thalamus, there was damage and atrophy of the anterior nuclear complex, the mediodorsal nucleus, and the pulvinar. There was also loss of cells in the medial and lateral mammillary nuclei in the hypothalamus. We suggest that the neuropathology resulted from two separate factors: the initial cardiac arrest (and respiratory distress) and the recurrent seizures that followed, which led to additional damage characteristic of temporal lobe epilepsy.

Self-Concept Focus: A Tendency to Perceive Autobiographical Events as Central to Identity

Self-Concept Focus is a 15-item measure of the disposition to make autobiographical memories central to one's self-concept and thus to rehearse them more frequently. In studies with 400 MTurk workers and 299 undergraduates, Self-Concept Focus had high reliability (α ∼.83), good test-retest stability (r = .66) that did not decline between 7 and 54 days, good psychometric properties in a bifactor measurement model, and results that replicated across studies. A factor analysis of nine measures relevant to self-concept resulted in two factors. Self-Concept Focus, Reflection, Reappraisal and Private Self-Consciousness all loaded on one factor, suggesting an underlying dimension of elaborative rehearsal of memories and emotion regulation. Self-Concept Focus also correlated with PTSD symptoms for a single very negative event and thus with opportunities to modify such memory-based symptoms. Given its association with elaborative rehearsal and emotion regulation, Self-Concept Focus has potential applied relevance in clinical, forensic and consumer contexts.

Does Distanced Self-Talk Facilitate Emotion Regulation Across a Range of Emotionally Intense Experiences?

Research indicates that a subtle shift in language—silently referring to oneself using one’s own name and non–first-person-singular pronouns (i.e., distanced self-talk)—promotes emotion regulation. Yet it remains unclear whether the efficacy of distanced self-talk depends on the intensity of the negative experience reflected on and whether the benefits extend to emotionally vulnerable individuals. Two high-powered experiments addressed these issues. Distanced as opposed to immersed self-talk reduced emotional reactivity when people reflected on negative experiences that varied in their emotional intensity. These findings held when participants focused on future and past autobiographical events and when they scored high on individual difference measures of emotional vulnerability. The results also generalized across various types of negative events. These findings illuminate the functionality of language for allowing people to regulate their emotions when reflecting on negative experiences across the spectrum of emotional intensity and highlight the need for future research to examine the clinical implications of this technique.

Individual and socioenvironmental differences in autobiographical emotional appraisal of preschoolers

Emotions are essential processes for integrating events into autobiographical memory. Different children react differently to the same event. The process through which these different responses are generated from subjective evaluations of an event is called emotional appraisal. The main purpose of this study was to analyze the variations in the emotional appraisal of autobiographical events of 4- and 5-year-old children from homes with different socioenvironmental conditions. We compared preschoolers’ emotional appraisal responses with those of their families. The emotional accuracy of the preschoolers was found to differ according to the different socioenvironmental conditions of their homes. Greater appraisal accuracy was observed in the favorable condition, and it was greater for emotional events than for neutral events. Appraisal accuracy also differed with age, with 5-year-olds showing greater appraisal accuracy than 4-year-olds. Therefore, the emotional appraisal of these events may also be affected by age and valence when attributing emotions to personal experiences.

Could Self-Consciousness Be Enhanced in Alzheimer's Disease? An Approach from Emotional Sensorial Stimulation.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) provides a valuable field of research into impairment of self-consciousness (SC), because AD patients have a reduced capacity to understand their mental world, to experience and relive previous personal events, as well as to interpret thoughts, feelings, and beliefs about themselves. Several studies observed that AD patients had an altered SC, but not a complete abolition of it. Emotions are an integral part of the construction of personal identity, therefore of Self. In general, most studies on emotion in AD patients have observed that emotion is not completely abolished and it lets them better remember autobiographical events with greater emotional charge. The positive effect of autobiographical memories rich in emotional content, evoked directly/automatically by sensorial stimuli such as familiar odors or music, could be used to reestablish/reinforce the permanence and coherence of the Self in AD. We studied the research of empirical evidence supporting the power of the sensorial cues associated with emotion, which could be capable of enhancing the SC in AD. We presented the studies about "Emotional stimulations" using odor, music, or taste cues in AD. All studies have shown to have a positive impact on SC in AD patients such as odor-evoked autobiographical memories, taste/odor-evoked autobiographical memories, emotional sensorial stimulation using musical cues, and multi-sensorial stimulations using healing gardens. We found research supporting the notion that emotional sensorial stimulations can even temporarily exalt memory, affective state, and personal identity, that is, the SC in AD. The emotional sensory stimulations could be used as a tool to activate the SC in AD and hence improve the quality of life of patients and caregivers.

Les marqueurs linguistiques du temps et de la subjectivité dans le récit de psychotraumatisme

ObjectiveThis study aims to assess the enunciative and pragmatic characteristics of the discourse of a subject who has been confronted with a recent, life-threatening, and potentially traumatic event. MethodFragments of speeches were collected in the context of clinical interviews in which the experience of the traumatic event was recounted using a methodology inspired by post-immediate psychotherapeutic intervention (IPPI), which we reworked to operationalize certain variables of the discourse. We have built our research method by developing a few examples according to the single case report method and unique event contexts that allow us to better highlight the ethos of the subjects examined and to provide in-depth phenomenological and linguistic analysis of their narratives. ResultsEnunciative and pragmatic criteria make it possible to distinguish between discourse qualified as an “ordinary narrative” characterized by an absence of revivals and traumatic dissociation, and discourse qualified as a “traumatic narrative”, whose revivals and dissociation affect the subject's temporal and subjective continuity. DiscussionOur discussions focuse on the chain of causality between dissociation, trauma, and behavior, and on the capacity of an underlying psychological metabolization of trauma that could transform it into an autobiographical event. ConclusionThe linguistic tools used are both a procedure for discovering and analyzing traumatic dissociation and a clinical method for treating this disorder.

A Self-Centered Story about Yourself in the Text of Literary Autobiography

The article demonstrates the narrator’scomplexity in the autobiographical text of the literary biography at the basis of which egocentrism lies as a principle of this prose type construing. Layering refers both to the author and to
 the narrator. However, layering of the author causes a change of the narrator’s point of view and its transfer to the 3-rd person’s narration while layering of the narrator is caused by a temporary interval between the time of the narration and the time of the autobiographical event. Ambivalence and a poly discourse character of the autobiographical narration are determined by an ability of the speech person to create texts of different genres and various types.

Self-defining memories after severe traumatic brain injury: A preliminary study.

Autobiographical memory plays a major role in the (re)construction of sense of identity, a recurrent issue after a traumatic brain injury (TBI). Although the recall of specific autobiographical events is frequently impaired in patients with TBI, little is known about how these changes affect their sense of self and identity. Thus, we examined self-defining memories (SDMs), that is, the most significant personal memories supporting one's sense of identity, in 16 patients with severe TBI and in matched controls. To this end, participants recalled three SDMs and rated their emotions in response to memory retrieval. In addition, characteristics of SDMs such as specificity, meaning-making, self-connections that reflect identity stability or identity change, content (theme, presence of tension, and redemption sequences) were analysed by independent raters. The main results showed that patients' SDMs were less specific and contained fewer redemption sequences than did those of controls but did not significantly differ in thematic content, presence of tension, meaning-making, self-connections that reflect identity stability or identity change and affective responses to memory retrieval. Furthermore, among the patients' memories that refer to the TBI-related event itself, only one contained an explicit meaning. Despite the lack of specificity in memories, patients with severe TBI were able to extract meaning from personal memories although they could struggle with integrating the TBI-related event into their sense of identity. These characteristics of SDMs may contribute to disturbances in sense of self and continuity in patients with severe TBI, as well as difficulties in personal or social adjustment. These results also open up relevant prospects for psychological interventions in identity-related issues in patients with TBI.

Imagining a false alibi impairs concealed memory detection with the autobiographical Implicit Association Test.

Imagining counterfactual versions of past events can distort memory. In 3 experiments, we examined whether imagining a false alibi for a mock crime would make suspects appear less guilty in a concealed memory detection test, the autobiographical Implicit Association Test (aIAT), which aims to determine which of 2 autobiographical events are true. First, "guilty" participants completed a mock crime, whereas "innocent" participants completed an innocent act. Next, some of the guilty participants were asked to imagine a false alibi that corresponded to the innocent act. Finally, all groups completed the aIAT. Across experiments, we varied the type of aIAT used and also compared the effectiveness of the false alibi countermeasure when only imagined once, versus when it was repeatedly imagined over a week-long period. The aIAT accurately detected the mock crime as true for guilty participants without a false alibi, but was consistently less able to detect the mock crime as true for guilty participants who had imagined a false alibi. The findings suggest that if guilty suspects fabricate an alibi, this may create a memory for the alibi that appears to be true based on the aIAT, which is problematic for its real-life applications in concealed memory detection. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Enhanced cortical specialization to distinguish older and newer memories in highly superior autobiographical memory

There is a growing consensus on the role played by the hippocampus and the medial prefrontal cortex in autobiographical memory. However, it is not clear whether and how these key regions play a central role in enabling forms of enhanced memory, such as highly superior autobiographical memory (HSAM). Here, we investigated the role of the hippocampus, the ventromedial (vmPFc) and dorsomedial (dmPFc) prefrontal cortices in discriminating older vs newer autobiographical events in a group of rare individuals with HSAM through multivoxel pattern analysis of functional neuroimaging data. During fMRI scanning, participants with HSAM and normal memory controls were asked to recollect remote and more recent events. We found a stronger neural signature of older vs newer autobiographical memories within the vmPFc of HSAM subjects as compared to controls. In this brain region, the discriminability between the multivariate neural patterns of the two types of memories increased as a function of the temporal distance that separated older and newer events in HSAM subjects. Comparable neural patterns of older vs newer memories were found instead within the dmPFc and hippocampus of both groups. Overall, these findings highlight for the first time that HSAM relies on enhanced vmPFc specialization to represent past experiences, therefore contributing to uncover the neurobiological mechanisms potentially enabling enhanced forms of memory. Implications of the current findings for the extant models of autobiographical memory are discussed.

Optimizing CBCA and RM research: recommendations for analyzing and reporting data on content cues to deception

ABSTRACT For more than a century, verbal content cues to deception have been investigated to assess the credibility of statements in judicial contexts. Among the many cues investigated, Criteria-based Content Analysis (CBCA) and criteria based on the reality monitoring (RM) approach have been most prominent. However, research with these cues used as ‘tools’ has not fully exploited their potential. We critically discuss statistical approaches used in past research and recommend a series of 12 principles or guidelines researchers should follow to design, analyze and report future studies on detecting deception with verbal content cues. To illustrate some of these points, we present analyses from two separate studies: A quasi-experiment in a field setting conducted with adults with intellectual disabilities who truthfully or deceptively described a negative autobiographical event to an interviewer, and a large-scale simulation study where adults wrote an account of either an experienced or an invented significant life event. Accounts in both studies were rated with CBCA and RM criteria, as well as by ‘naive’ raters. The guidelines should help to increase the quality and transparency of research in this area.

Involuntary autobiographical memories and future projections in social anxiety

ABSTRACTIntrusive involuntary memories and images are a cardinal phenomenon in a range of psychological disorders, but not systematically examined in social anxiety. We examined potential biases upon generating involuntary versus voluntary memories and future projections in individuals with high and low levels of social anxiety. Participants recorded involuntary and voluntary autobiographical events, and their associated emotional response in a structured mental time travel diary. High social anxiety was associated with more intense anxiety and embarrassment and greater use of a range of emotion regulation strategies upon generating all types of autobiographical events. Involuntary (versus voluntary) memories and future events were associated with a heightened emotional response independent of social anxiety, and memories were associated with more embarrassment than imagined future events. The effects of high versus low social anxiety and involuntary versus voluntary generation process were independent from each other. The findings have implications for affective and cognitive models of involuntary memories and future projections in emotional disorders.

Validating “belief in occurrence” for future autobiographical events.

Validating “belief in occurrence” for future autobiographical events.

The decentering component of mindfulness reduces reactions to mental imagery.

Four experiments examined whether reactions to mental imagery can be reduced by the mindfulness component of decentering, that is, the insight that experiences are impermanent mental states. In Experiments 1a, 1b, and 1c, participants vividly imagined an unpleasant autobiographical event or a rewarding food. When instructed to adopt a decentering perspective in comparison to an immersed perspective during imagery, participants experienced less negative affect and fewer cravings to eat. In Experiment 2, participants were exposed to an attractive or a neutral food, and we assessed salivation and eating-related imagery. Although imagery did not differ between groups, the attractive food elicited less salivation in decentering relative to control participants. We suggest that decentering can make one’s imagery of consuming a food and of reliving of negative experiences less compelling, and thus reduce affective responses to both unpleasant and rewarding imagery, even if the imagery itself is kept active in mind.

Effects of collaboration on the qualities of autobiographical recall in strangers, friends, and siblings: both remembering partner and communication processes matter

ABSTRACTRecalling autobiographical memories with others can influence the quality of recall, but little is known about how features of the group influence memory outcomes. In two studies, we examined how the products and processes of autobiographical recall depend on individual vs. collaborative remembering and the relationship between group members. In both studies, dyads of strangers, friends, and siblings recalled autobiographical events individually (elicitation), then either collaboratively or individually (recall). Study 1 involved typing memory narratives; Study 2 involved recalling aloud. We examined shifts in vividness, emotionality, and pronoun use within memory narratives produced by different relationship types. In Study 2, we also coded collaborative dyads’ “collaborative processes” or communication processes. In Study 1, all relationships showed decreased positive emotion and I-pronouns and increased negative emotion within collaboratively-produced memory narratives. In Study 2, all relationships showed increased vividness, reduced emotionality and positive and negative emotion, and increased I- and we-pronouns within collaboratively-produced memory narratives. However, strangers used collaborative processes differently from friends and siblings. Some collaborative processes were associated with memory qualities. Across studies, collaboration influenced memory quality more than did relationship type, but relationship type influenced dyads’ recall dynamics. These findings indicate the complexity of social influences on memory.

Contamination or Natural Variation? A Comparison of Contradictions from Suggested Contagion and Intrinsic Variation in Repeated Autobiographical Accounts

Contradictions and other changes across retellings can result from contamination from others, deception, or natural variation. In this study we used the social contagion paradigm to investigate (a) the relative frequencies and types of contradictions resulting from outside suggestion and from natural variation, and (b) a baseline measure of variation in autobiographical memory accounts across retellings. Participants recalled memories of four personal events. One week later, participants and confederates alternated in describing their own and summarising each other's autobiographical events. The confederates included a contradictory contagion detail in two of the participants’ events. The participants then individually recalled their own events. Twenty percent of participants made contradictions due to contagion, but 63% of participants made contradictions due to intrinsic variation. Accounts also exhibited other forms of variation. Concern about negative evaluation and social closeness ratings predicted contradictions due to contagion but not intrinsic variation. We discuss applications to forensic settings.

Supplemental Material for Self-Concept Focus: A Tendency to Perceive Autobiographical Events as Central to Identity

Supplemental Material for Self-Concept Focus: A Tendency to Perceive Autobiographical Events as Central to Identity

Memory category fluency, memory specificity, and the fading affect bias for positive and negative autobiographical events: Performance on a good day-bad day task in healthy and depressed individuals.

In mentally healthy individuals, autobiographical memory is typically biased toward positive events, which may help to maintain psychological well-being. Our aim was to assess a range of important positive memory biases in the mentally healthy and explore the possibility that these biases are mitigated in those with mental health problems. We administered a novel recall paradigm that required recollection of multiple good and bad past events (the Good Day–Bad Day task) to healthy and depressed individuals. This allowed us to explore differences in memory category fluency (i.e., the ability to generate integrated sets of associated events) for positive and negative memories, along with memory specificity, and fading affect bias—a greater reduction in the intensity of memory-related affect over time for negative versus positive events. We found that healthy participants demonstrated superior category fluency for positive relative to negative events but that this effect was absent in depressed participants. Healthy participants exhibited a strong fading affect bias that was significantly mitigated, although still present, in depression. Finally, memory specificity was reduced in depression for both positive and negative memories. Findings demonstrate that the positive bias associated with mental health is maintained by multiple autobiographical memory processes and that depression is as much a function of the absence of these positive biases as it is the presence of negative biases. Results provide important guidance for developing new treatments for improving mental health.