Everyday Remembering Research Articles

Forensic, clinical and everyday remembering: Exploring the role of perceived audience in changes across autobiographical memory recollections

Contradictions and other changes across recollections are interpreted negatively in some settings. This may be problematic because who we share our memories with may affect what we recollect. In our research, we used a retelling paradigm for autobiographical memory to investigate how perceived audience influences consistency of repeated personal memory accounts. Participants free-recalled memories of four autobiographical events either to an imagined police officer, psychologist or friend. One week later, they recalled the same events again to the same imagined audience. Memory accounts changed across recollections, with most participants making omissions, additions and contradictions. Some changes varied across conditions. Participants in the friend condition were least consistent in amount of information provided. Participants in the police officer condition contradicted themselves on details about people present. However, overall audience context did not reliably influence consistency of accounts, rather changes were common. Findings broaden our understanding of social influence on autobiographical memory.

A RANDOMIZED CONTROLLED TRIAL OF THE EVERYDAY MEMORY AND METACOGNITIVE INTERVENTION IN OLDER ADULTS

Abstract This study evaluated an intervention to improve remembering in everyday life, the Everyday Memory and Metacognitive Intervention (EMMI). EMMI uses strategies designed to enhance everyday remembering and self-regulatory approaches to monitor goal pursuit, anticipate, and address memory demands. A randomized controlled trial compared a group assigned to EMMI with a traditional memory strategy training control (MSC) group. Expanding on earlier work (Pearman et al., 2020) we created a new event-based ecological momentary assessment (EB-EMA) smartphone application for reporting everyday memory errors when they occurred, synched to a nightly diary for collecting additional information about each event. The pretest-posttest design assessed changes in subjective memory beliefs and episodic memory performance and also measured posttest-only performance measures, including EB-EMA frequency of memory errors and a laboratory contact task assessing everyday prospective memory. The protocol was reduced in scope to accommodate fully remote participation due to the pandemic. The final sample included 30 EMMI and 32 MSC participants. Memory strategy training differentially improved MSC associative memory test performance. There were no group differences in EB-EMA reported memory errors or successful prospective memory contacts. The EMMI group showed more improvement in memory self-efficacy than the MSC group; both groups showed increases in perceived control over everyday memory. Individual differences in EMMI intervention benefits suggest that the program worked well in reducing memory errors for some but not all older adults. The EMMI shows promise but may require more extensive in-person training and behavioral shaping than this study provided to improve everyday memory.

Everyday Remembering During a Global Pandemic in Caring Dyads

During the COVID-19 global pandemic people’s lived experiences and day-to-day lives have been tremendously impacted. This impact is believed to be more severe in people with a memory-impaired partner at home. As part of an ongoing cognitive intervention project with the Emory-Georgia Tech Cognitive Empowerment Program (CEP), we conducted interviews with dyads (one person with diagnosed amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) and one person, in this case, a spouse who is an identified care partner). To address the COVID-19 pandemic, we supplemented the existing interview about everyday cognition with several questions about the dyadic experience during the pandemic. To date, we have conducted 5 qualitative interviews with dyads. Preliminary results indicate that the COVID-19 pandemic has created additional everyday challenges and cognitive burden for care partners of people diagnosed with aMCI. Some of these challenges include the need to manage pandemic precautionary behaviors, such as mask wearing and maintaining social distancing, for both themselves and the care recipient. In contrast, some aspects of everyday remembering among these dyads have improved (e.g. more advance planning of things like grocery shopping and outings). The results of these interviews will provide additional unique insights into the everyday cognitive challenges of the pandemic on caregivers and persons with aMCI.

Alcohol Hangover Has Detrimental Impact Upon Both Executive Function and Prospective Memory.

The alcohol hangover (AH) is a state of general malaise following an evening of heavy episodic drinking when the blood alcohol concentration of the person reaches/approaches zero. The aim of the current study was to investigate what impact the AH has upon both executive function (EF) and prospective memory (PM). Previous research has shown that the AH has a detrimental effect upon cognitive abilities, including attention, working memory, and PM. The current study focused upon what impact AH might have upon both EF and related PM in the same cohort, both of which underpin everyday remembering. The current study compared an AH group (AHG) with a non-hangover group (NHG) on both EF and PM measures. Forty-one participants aged 18–29 years were tested; 19 comprised the AHG and 22 of whom made up the NHG (individuals who reported no heavy drinking the day before and did not report any significant hangover symptoms). A Verbal Fluency task measured EF and the Prospective Remembering Video Procedure measured PM. The Acute Hangover Rating Scale measured AH symptoms and severity, and a Digital Breath Analyzer Test measured their blood alcohol concentration (BAC). A Recreational Drug Use Questionnaire measured alcohol and other drug use. Anyone reporting having used an illicit substance across their lifetime (e.g., cannabis, ecstasy) or who smoked heavily were omitted from the study. Two univariate analyses of covariance compared the AHG and NHG groups on Verbal Fluency and Prospective Remembering Video Task scores (controlling for age, total alcohol units consumed per week, and the number of years spent drinking). The AHG recalled significantly fewer items on the Verbal Fluency task [F (1, 36) = 7.42, p < 0.01] and on the Prospective Remembering Video Task NHG [F (1, 36) = 14.9, p < 0.001] when compared with the NHG. Overall, it appeared that a state of AH significantly impaired both EF and PM. Given the importance of EF and PM to everyday remembering, these findings may have farther-reaching implications.

Does a state of alcohol hangover impair event based prospective memory?

IntroductionThe alcohol hangover state (AHS) is characterized by range of symptoms (e.g., drowsiness, fatigue, gastro-intestinal problems, dry mouth, nausea, sweating) that remain after ones blood-alcohol level returns to zero following a recent bout of excessive drinking. Recent findings have revealed a range of cognitive deficits associated with an AHS, including memory deficits. It is less clear what impact the AHS has upon everyday remembering; of which prospective memory is an excellent example (PM: memory for future plans/actions; such as remembering to perform a task at a specific time).AimsThe present study explored whether the AHS impairs everyday PM.MethodsTwenty-one AHS participants were compared with 28 non-AHS controls using a between-groups design. All completed a prospective remembering video procedure (prvp), which measured event-based pm. the prvp required the participant first to memorise a series of specific action-locations combinations and then to recall these combinations whilst viewing a CD clip of a busy shopping high street. Drug use (alcohol, smoking, etc.) and mood (anxiety and depression) were also measured, as these have been shown to have a deleterious impact upon PM.ResultsThe AHS group recalled significantly fewer event-based PM combinations on the PRVP compared with the non-AHS control group (P &lt; 0.05). There were no significant differences between the groups on age, smoking, alcohol use or mood.ConclusionThese results confirm that a state of alcohol hangover impedes everyday prospective memory. The wider implications will be discussed at conference.Disclosure of interestThe author has not supplied his/her declaration of competing interest.

Dissociating appraisals of accuracy and recollection in autobiographical remembering.

Recent studies of metamemory appraisals implicated in autobiographical remembering have established distinct roles for judgments of occurrence, recollection, and accuracy for past events. In studies involving everyday remembering, measures of recollection and accuracy correlate highly (>.85). Thus although their measures are structurally distinct, such high correspondence might suggest conceptual redundancy. This article examines whether recollection and accuracy dissociate when studying different types of autobiographical event representations. In Study 1, 278 participants described a believed memory, a nonbelieved memory, and a believed-not-remembered event and rated each on occurrence, recollection, accuracy, and related covariates. In Study 2, 876 individuals described and rated 1 of these events, as well as an event about which they were uncertain about their memory. Confirmatory structural equation modeling indicated that the measurement dissociation between occurrence, recollection and accuracy held across all types of events examined. Relative to believed memories, the relationship between recollection and belief in accuracy was meaningfully lower for the other event types. These findings support the claim that recollection and accuracy arise from distinct underlying mechanisms. (PsycINFO Database Record

Remembering (in) the past perfect: Ethical shifts in times

The traditional approach towards the research on remembering at a later age has therapeutic connotations. It is usually associated with treatment techniques against depression or dementia. Within the context of social remembering studies, the role of eyewitnesses of the past is routinely assigned to the older generation. Within those research frameworks recollections are often treated as a ready-made means that can help older people to address their current problems. We shall argue that the essential value of remembering at a later age overrides such clinical applications and consists not in reviving the past as it ‘really happened’, but in re-evaluating it. In order to demonstrate this we shall draw on everyday remembering, purposely setting aside any structured form of reminiscing. The analysis will elucidate ethical shifts in attitudes towards the past and contribute to the discussion about the authenticity of memories.

The Impact of Excessive Alcohol Use on Prospective Memory: A Brief Review

Research into the cognitive consequences of chronic excessive alcohol use continues to grow. Despite this, little research has investigated what impact excessive alcohol use might have upon everyday remembering. An important aspect of everyday remembering is prospective memory (PM), which refers to the cognitive ability of remembering to carry out an intended action at some future point in time. The majority of the studies which have focused on what impact excessive alcohol use has upon PM in teenagers and young adults have consistently found that the excessive drinkers reported more lapses in their short term (e.g., forgetting to lock one's door upon leaving home) and long term (e.g., forgetting to post a letter on time) aspects of everyday PM, when compared to low-dose alcohol users or non-users. It is concluded from this review that PM deficits should be added to the growing list of neuropsychological sequelae associated with excessive alcohol use. The magnitude of the effects of alcohol on PM depends upon the amount of alcohol consumed and how long one has been drinking. Major limitations of these studies include their reliance upon the use of self-report measures of PM, the issue of polydrug use complicating the picture, the need to control for the co-morbidity of other conditions--such as depression, and better drug-screening methods. Therefore, further studies need to employ objective measures alongside self-report measures of PM, incorporate better controls for the use of other drugs and mood states, as well as extending the focus of the research to study what effect different patterns of alcohol use might have upon PM, e.g., what impact binge drinking has upon everyday PM. These findings have educational and applied relevance within the alcohol field.

The Chancellor's memory: Rhetoric and truth in discursive remembering

AbstractThis paper explores the notion of truthfulness in research on conversational remembering. It argues that people's accounts of past events, before they can be taken as data on the cognitive workings of memory, need to be examined as contextualized and variable productions that perform pragmatic and rhetorical work; no one version can be taken as a person's real memory. The consequences of this discourse‐analytical perspective are examined first through a critical discussion of Ulric Neisser's study of John Dean's testimony to the senate ‘Watergate’ committee. The issues are then explored more deeply in an analysis of reportings of a different event, in which similar (Watergate‐like) issues of memory, truth and accuracy are also at issue. It is argued that: (a) all of Neisser's three kinds of memory–verbatim, gist and ‘repisodic’–involve problematical assumptions concerning their relation to some true, original event; and (b) that Dean's accounts of his memory and his displays of memory should be approached as occasioned productions oriented pragmatically to the assignment of guilt and avoidance of scapegoating. Through an analysis of newspaper reports (based on memory) of a controversial briefing given by the then British Chancellor of the Exchequer, Nigel Lawson, we then examine: (a) how discourse about what could be used as an arbiter of truth was rhetorically organized; (b) how participants' versions of events were constructed rhetorically, as parts of arguments; (c) that both sides in the dispute maintained the coherence of their positions by a form of error accounting similar to that used by Neisser with respect to Dean. It is suggested that cognitive psychologists, whether working in the laboratory or attempting to do real‐world studies of everyday remembering, need to avoid simplistic notions of true original events, and can do so by addressing the rhetorical organization of participants' memory accounts.

Conversation and remembering: Bartlett revisited

AbstractBartlett's book Remembering (1932) is frequently cited as a major forerunner of the information processing approach to memory and cognition. This approach has itself been criticized by one of its founders, Ulric Neisser (1982), for its narrowness and artificiality compared with the nature of remembering in natural contexts. A re‐examination of Bartlett's work demonstrates that it offers little basis for an information processing approach, but rather that it offers the foundation of a much broader, culturally contextualized and functional approach to the study of everyday remembering. Three particular themes are discussed: the integration of social judgements and affective reactions with cognition, the role of conventional symbols in the coding and communication of experience, and the importance of conversational discourse. Bartlett's best‐known studies, involving the method of serial reproduction, are shown to be microcosmic demonstrations of the process that he was most concerned with—that of conventionalization of symbols rather than of the workings of an individual's memory. It is argued, again beginning with Bartlett, that everyday remembering may be most fruitfully studied in terms of its personal and social functions, and particularly through its realization in discourse.

Self-Report and Tests of Memory Aging

Memory complaints have not correlated well with tests of memory. However, given self-report questions, which tap processes of everyday remembering. sixty volunteers aged 21-84 years adequately rated their memory competence. Categorized into four memory processes, self-report and six tests of verbal, faces, story and nonverbal auditory, visual, and tactual memory ,were canonically correlated (r = 0.67) and both sets of measures declined with age in parallel. Thc old were more accurate than the young in their ratings but by no means on all tests and expectation to perform poorly seemed to have influenced some performances.