Individual Differences In Autobiographical Memory Research Articles

Individual differences in autobiographical memory predict memory confidence but not memory accuracy.

Individual differences in autobiographical memory predict memory confidence but not memory accuracy.

Individual differences in autobiographical memory predict the tendency to engage in spontaneous thoughts

ABSTRACT Individual differences in autobiographical memory have become a research area of interest, but little is known about its associations with other individual differences dimensions, such as the tendency to engage in spontaneous cognition. We report two studies examining individual differences in autobiographical memory, as measured by the Autobiographical Recollection Test (ART), in relation to eight trait-like measures of spontaneous thought and, in Study 2, also a measure of fantasy proneness. In Study 1, the ART correlated positively and systematically with six out of eight measures of spontaneous thought, even when controlling for age, gender, and trait positive and negative affect. The two exceptions concerned spontaneous thoughts specifically related to attentional deficits. Study 2 replicated these findings and extended them to a measure of fantasy proneness. The findings demonstrate that people who generally consider their autobiographical memories to be vivid, detailed, relevant, and coherent, report a higher tendency to engage in various forms of spontaneous cognition, including positive constructive daydreaming, spontaneous mind wandering, involuntary mental time travel, and vivid and immersive fantasy. We discuss these findings in terms of the role autobiographical memory plays in spontaneous thoughts.

Effects of mental context reinstatement on accuracy and recollective experience

AbstractObtaining eyewitness accounts after an event can aid criminal investigations. Mental Reinstatement of Context (MRC) is used to improve memory. However, direct comparisons have identified little effects of MRC relative to free delivery with No‐MRC, and little is known about the effects of MRC on subjective memory characteristics and the role of individual differences in autobiographical memory. Here we exposed 234 participants to a naturalistic film and randomly assigned them to either MRC or No‐MRC before requesting written memory reports and memory characteristics ratings. They also answered an autobiographical memory test. MRC participants reported more unverifiable, but not more accurate, details in Free Recall, whereas they performed better in Cued Recall and delivered higher ratings of Reliving, Vividness, Re‐experience, and Emotions, suggesting a richer recall experience, while Belief/confidence and Scene ratings did not differ. Individual differences in autobiographical memory correlated with memory characteristics but not with accuracy performances.

How well do you think you remember your personal past? French validation of the Autobiographical Recollection Test (ART) and exploration of age effect

ABSTRACT This study aimed to validate a French version of the Autobiographical Recollection Test (ART), a 21-item self-report questionnaire developed by Berntsen, D., Hoyle, R. H., & Rubin, D. C. (2019; The Autobiographical Recollection Test (ART): A measure of individual differences in autobiographical memory. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, 8(3), 305–318) examining the subjective quality people attribute to their autobiographical memories. It measures seven distinct but correlated dimensions of memories’ quality varying between individuals: vividness, narrative coherence, reliving, rehearsal, visual imagery, scene, and life-story relevance. 373 participants aged from 18 to 87 years old were invited to complete the questionnaire by rating on a 7-point Likert scale the degree to which they agree with each item. Demographic data and information about their perception of their memory functioning and satisfaction were also collected. Confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the initial seven-factor structure of the ART. Moreover, results showed desirable psychometric properties, with good internal consistency (.94) and test-retest reliability (.83). This scale was also correlated with participants’ perception of memory functioning in daily life. However, there was no correlation with age, confirming prior studies showing that the subjective quality of autobiographical memories does not decline with age. This study thus provides proof of the good psychometric properties of the French version of the ART and promotes its use to explore the subjective quality of autobiographical memories in clinical populations.

Individual differences in autobiographical memory: a Danish version of the Autobiographical Recollection Test (ART)

Individual differences in autobiographical memory have become an area of growing research interest. Recently, the Autobiographical Recollection Test (ART; Berntsen et al., 2019) was introduced. The ART measures individual differences in autobiographical memory along seven components: Vividness, narrative coherence, reliving, rehearsal, scene, visual imagery, and life story relevance. The ART is a useful and easily administered tool, but is so far not available in any of the Nordic languages. The aim of the present study was to provide a Danish translation of the ART and to provide correlations between the Danish ART and characteristics of randomly sampled memories (i.e. memories cued by words) in order to support the validity of the translation. First, the ART was translated into Danish. Then, 122 Danish adults filled out the Danish ART and rated the recollective qualities of three word cued autobiographical memories. The internal consistency was in line with findings on the original English version of the scale as were correlations between the Danish ART, Brief ART and the seven components of the ART. The Danish ART correlated positively with characteristics of the word cued memories corresponding to the seven components of the ART. Additional analyses demonstrated that the magnitude of these correlations were similar to those between ratings of individual memory items, supporting the validity of the ART as a trait-like measure of the recollective experience of autobiographical memory. The ART could be of interest to many areas of psychology and potential applications of the ART are discussed.

Hippocampus and temporal pole functional connectivity is associated with age and individual differences in autobiographical memory

Recollection of one's personal past, or autobiographical memory (AM), varies across individuals and across the life span. This manifests in the amount of episodic content recalled during AM, which may reflect differences in associated functional brain networks. We take an individual differences approach to examine resting-state functional connectivity of temporal lobe regions known to coordinate AM content retrieval with the default network (anterior and posterior hippocampus, temporal pole) and test for associations with AM. Multiecho resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and autobiographical interviews were collected for 158 younger and 105 older healthy adults. Interviews were scored for internal (episodic) and external (semantic) details. Age group differences in connectivity profiles revealed that older adults had lower connectivity within anterior hippocampus, posterior hippocampus, and temporal pole but greater connectivity with regions across the default network compared with younger adults. This pattern was positively related to posterior hippocampal volumes in older adults, which were smaller than younger adult volumes. Connectivity associations with AM showed two significant patterns. The first dissociated connectivity related to internal vs. external AM across participants. Internal AM was related to anterior hippocampus and temporal pole connectivity with orbitofrontal cortex and connectivity within posterior hippocampus. External AM was related to temporal pole connectivity with regions across the lateral temporal cortex. In the second pattern, younger adults displayed temporal pole connectivity with regions throughout the default network associated with more detailed AMs overall. Our findings provide evidence for discrete ensembles of brain regions that scale with systematic variation in recollective styles across the healthy adult life span.

Individual differences in autobiographical memory: The autobiographical recollection test predicts ratings of specific memories across cueing conditions.

Individual differences in autobiographical memory: The autobiographical recollection test predicts ratings of specific memories across cueing conditions.

Supplemental Material for Individual Differences in Autobiographical Memory: The Autobiographical Recollection Test Predicts Ratings of Specific Memories Across Cueing Conditions

Supplemental Material for Individual Differences in Autobiographical Memory: The Autobiographical Recollection Test Predicts Ratings of Specific Memories Across Cueing Conditions

Individual Differences in Autobiographical Memory: The Autobiographical Recollection Test Predicts Ratings of Specific Memories Across Cueing Conditions

The Autobiographical Recollection Test (ART; Berntsen et al., 2019) measures individual differences in autobiographical memory. We here examined whether the ART correlates with characteristics of people’s specific autobiographical memories. Participants ( N s ≥ 475) completed the ART and rated recollective qualities of autobiographical memories cued by words (Study 1), by positive and negative emotional valence (Study 2), and by future and past temporal direction (Study 3). Scores on the ART consistently correlated with recollective qualities of specific memories and future thoughts, both immediately and after a 1-week delay. The magnitude of these correlations was at the same level as the correlations between individual memory items, underscoring the ability of the ART, as a trait measure to predict ratings of individual memories. The findings support the construct validity of the ART and demonstrate that people’s evaluation of their autobiographical memory, in general, is reliably related to how they remember specific events.

Properties of autobiographical memories are reliable and stable individual differences

Autobiographical memory research typically focuses on individual memories with variability in individual participants' responses serving as error variance. Integrating individual-difference and experimental approaches demonstrated that properties of autobiographical memories are stable individual differences with stable patterns of correlations. In two sessions approximately one week apart, different cues were used to prompt seven autobiographical memories. Each memory was rated on 12 properties including visual imagery, emotional intensity, narrative coherence, reliving, and past rehearsals. In two studies with samples from different populations (Ns of 200 and 160), each property had a high reliability in both sessions (median α = .90), and the mean of each property averaged over seven memories correlated highly with itself over sessions (median r = .72). Multiple regressions predicting three properties from Session 1 with the remaining nine properties of Session 2 and exploratory factor analyses yielded solutions consistent with expectations from studies of individual memories. Moreover, the correlation matrices of the 12 properties across studies and sessions were extremely similar. Thus, separate sessions, cues, samples, and properties provided generalizable data about individual differences in autobiographical memory. Practical, theoretical, and methodological implications include that individual differences in memory affect: life stories and narrative structure internal to events, stable clinical syndromes and symptoms, experimental results previously attributed to the properties of individual memories, and the confidence people have in the accuracy of their autobiographical and episodic memories.

Vividness of recollection is supported by eye movements in individuals with high, but not low trait autobiographical memory

There are marked individual differences in the recollection of personal past events or autobiographical memory (AM). Theory concerning the relationship between mnemonic and visual systems suggests that eye movements promote retrieval of spatiotemporal details from memory, yet assessment of this prediction within naturalistic AM has been limited. We examined the relationship of eye movements to free recall of naturalistic AM and how this relationship is modulated by individual differences in AM capacity. Participants freely recalled past episodes while viewing a blank screen under free and fixed viewing conditions. Memory performance was quantified with the Autobiographical Interview, which separates internal (episodic) and external (non-episodic) details. In Study 1, as a proof of concept, fixation rate was predictive of the number of internal (but not external) details recalled across both free and fixed viewing. In Study 2, using an experimenter-controlled staged event (a museum-style tour) the effect of fixations on free recall of internal (but not external) details was again observed. In this second study, however, the fixation-recall relationship was modulated by individual differences in autobiographical memory, such that the coupling between fixations and internal details was greater for those endorsing higher than lower episodic AM. These results suggest that those with congenitally strong AM rely on the visual system to produce episodic details, whereas those with lower AM retrieve such details via other mechanisms.

The Autobiographical Recollection Test (ART): A measure of individual differences in autobiographical memory.

The Autobiographical Recollection Test (ART): A measure of individual differences in autobiographical memory.

The Autobiographical Recollection Test (ART): A Measure of Individual Differences in Autobiographical Memory

We introduce the Autobiographical Recollection Test (ART) to examine individual differences in how well people think they remember personal events. The ART comprises seven theoretically motivated and empirically supported interrelated aspects of recollecting autobiographical memories: reliving, vividness, visual imagery, scene, narrative coherence, life-story relevance, and rehearsal. Desirable psychometric properties of the ART are established by confirmatory factor analyses demonstrating that items probing each of the seven components form well-defined, yet highly correlated, factors that are indicators of a single underlying second-order factor. The ART shows high test-retest reliability over delays averaging three weeks and correlates meaningfully with a test of different categories of memory. Overall, the findings document that autobiographical recollection is a dimension that varies among individuals. The ART forms a reliable and easily administered autobiographical memory test that will help to integrate autobiographical memory research with fields generally concerned with individual differences, such as health and personality psychology.

Supplemental Material for The Autobiographical Recollection Test (ART): A Measure of Individual Differences in Autobiographical Memory

Supplemental Material for The Autobiographical Recollection Test (ART): A Measure of Individual Differences in Autobiographical Memory

Severely deficient autobiographical memory (SDAM) in healthy adults: A new mnemonic syndrome

Recollection of previously experienced events is a key element of human memory that entails recovery of spatial, perceptual, and mental state details. While deficits in this capacity in association with brain disease have serious functional consequences, little is known about individual differences in autobiographical memory (AM) in healthy individuals. Recently, healthy adults with highly superior autobiographical capacities have been identified (e.g., LePort, A.K., Mattfeld, A.T., Dickinson-Anson, H., Fallon, J.H., Stark, C.E., Kruggel, F., McGaugh, J.L., 2012. Behavioral and neuroanatomical investigation of Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory (HSAM). Neurobiol. Learn. Mem. 98(1), 78–92. doi: 10.1016/j.nlm.2012.05.002). Here we report data from three healthy, high functioning adults with the reverse pattern: lifelong severely deficient autobiographical memory (SDAM) with otherwise preserved cognitive function. Their self-reported selective inability to vividly recollect personally experienced events from a first-person perspective was corroborated by absence of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and event-related potential (ERP) biomarkers associated with naturalistic and laboratory episodic recollection, as well as by behavioral evidence of impaired episodic retrieval, particularly for visual information. Yet learning and memory were otherwise intact, as long as these tasks could be accomplished by non-episodic processes. Thus these individuals function normally in day-to-day life, even though their past is experienced in the absence of recollection.

Facets of personality and the phenomenology of autobiographical memory

AbstractThe relationship between individual differences in autobiographical memory and personality was examined by having 118 undergraduates complete the NEO Personality Inventory after rating 15 word‐cued autobiographical memories on 20 scales. The Openness to Feelings facet (O3) correlated with measures of belief in the accuracy of memories, recollection, sensory imagery and emotion. Four other facets had correlations with belief (A3—Altruism, E1—Warmth, E4—Activity, E6—Positive Emotions). These facets also deal with emotional components of personality. In multiple regressions, measures of belief and measures of recollection were predicted by different variables, and for measures of belief, the O3 facet increased the variance accounted for beyond that of just the cognitive variables. Our results are consistent with and extend studies of the effects of depression and emotional suppression on autobiographical memory. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.