Memory For Central Details Research Articles

Recovering and preventing loss of detailed memory: differential rates of forgetting for detail types in episodic memory.

Episodic memories undergo qualitative changes with time, but little is known about how different aspects of memory are affected. Different types of information in a memory, such as perceptual detail, and central themes, may be lost at different rates. In patients with medial temporal lobe damage, memory for perceptual details is severely impaired, while memory for central details is relatively spared. Given the sensitivity of memory to loss of details, the present study sought to investigate factors that mediate the forgetting of different types of information from naturalistic episodic memories in young healthy adults. The study investigated (1) time-dependent loss of “central” and “peripheral” details from episodic memories, (2) the effectiveness of cuing with reminders to reinstate memory details, and (3) the role of retrieval in preventing forgetting. Over the course of 7 d, memory for naturalistic events (film clips) underwent a time-dependent loss of peripheral details, while memory for central details (the core or gist of events) showed significantly less loss. Giving brief reminders of the clips just before retrieval reinstated memory for peripheral details, suggesting that loss of details is not always permanent, and may reflect both a storage and retrieval deficit. Furthermore, retrieving a memory shortly after it was encoded prevented loss of both central and peripheral details, thereby promoting retention over time. We consider the implications of these results for behavioral and neurobiological models of retention and forgetting.

Effects of Emotional Context on Memory for Details: The Role of Attention

It was repeatedly demonstrated that a negative emotional context enhances memory for central details while impairing memory for peripheral information. This trade-off effect is assumed to result from attentional processes: a negative context seems to narrow attention to central information at the expense of more peripheral details, thus causing the differential effects in memory. However, this explanation has rarely been tested and previous findings were partly inconclusive. For the present experiment 13 negative and 13 neutral naturalistic, thematically driven picture stories were constructed to test the trade-off effect in an ecologically more valid setting as compared to previous studies. During an incidental encoding phase, eye movements were recorded as an index of overt attention. In a subsequent recognition phase, memory for central and peripheral details occurring in the picture stories was tested. Explicit affective ratings and autonomic responses validated the induction of emotion during encoding. Consistent with the emotional trade-off effect on memory, encoding context differentially affected recognition of central and peripheral details. However, contrary to the common assumption, the emotional trade-off effect on memory was not mediated by attentional processes. By contrast, results suggest that the relevance of attentional processing for later recognition memory depends on the centrality of information and the emotional context but not their interaction. Thus, central information was remembered well even when fixated very briefly whereas memory for peripheral information depended more on overt attention at encoding. Moreover, the influence of overt attention on memory for central and peripheral details seems to be much lower for an arousing as compared to a neutral context.

The role of overt attention in emotion-modulated memory.

The presence of emotional stimuli results in a central/peripheral tradeoff effect in memory: memory for central details is enhanced at the cost of peripheral items. It has been assumed that emotion-modulated differences in memory are the result of differences in attention, but this has not been tested directly. The present experiment used eye movement monitoring as an index of overt attention allocation and mediation analysis to determine whether differences in attention were related to subsequent memory. Participants viewed negative and neutral scenes surrounded by three neutral objects and were then given a recognition memory test. The results revealed evidence in support of a central/peripheral tradeoff in both attention and memory. However, contrary with previous assumptions, whereas attention partially mediated emotion-enhanced memory for central pictures, it did not explain the entire relationship. Further, although centrally presented emotional stimuli led to decreased number of eye fixations toward the periphery, these differences in viewing did not contribute to emotion-impaired memory for specific details pertaining to the periphery. These findings suggest that the differential influence of negative emotion on central versus peripheral memory may result from other cognitive influences in addition to overt visual attention or on postencoding processes.

恐怖感情が目撃者の記憶情報検索に及ぼす効果

The effect of fear on the retrieval of eyewitness' recognition memory was experimentally investigated. Participants were presented with a thematic series of slides of either neutral or ambiguous stimuli. The ambiguous stimulus consisted of a red liquid flowing on a girl's head. Participants who saw the ambiguous stimulus interpreted the liquid as either red paint, or the girl's blood. Differences in the interpretation of the ambiguous stimulus affected the participants'recognition memory. Participants who interpreted the stimulus as blood displayed inferior memory compared to those who interpreted the stimulus as red paint or those who were shown the neutral stimulus. Moreover, when the participant's interpretation was changed from blood to red paint by an experimenter, the memory for central details was enhanced. These results suggest that fear interferes with retrieval. Participants' memory could be improved by reducing fear during the retrieval stage.

The Impact of Anxiety on Memory for Details in Spider Phobics

According to the attentional narrowing account of emotional memory, physiological arousal results in attention being directed towards central rather than peripheral characteristics of the situation. Consequently, memory for central details would be relatively good, whereas memory for peripheral information would be impaired. The present experiment sought to test this attentional narrowing hypothesis under highly stressful conditions. Spider phobics and low-fear controls were confronted with a large live spider, eliciting high levels of emotion in the phobic group. Afterwards, subjects' memory for the experimental situation was tested. On a cued recall test, phobics displayed a poor memory for peripheral detail information relative to control subjects. There were no differences between phobics and controls with respect to central detail information. Thus, the present data provide partial support for the attentional narrowing account of emotional memory. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.