Study Of Autobiographical Memory Research Articles

If My Memory Serves Me Well: Investigating My Memory for the Past 24 Years.

This paper reports on a study of my autobiographical memory for 2691 notes recorded over 24 years in my diary, without any intention to ever use the notes as test material. I never read any of the notes again until the start of the memory study. I remembered less than two thirds of the recorded events and the retention curve showed a curvilinear shape. I dated 2% of the described events correctly but misdated on average about one and a half year, with an equal number of over and underestimations of the event age. Retention correlated significantly with ratings of salience, emotional involvement, pleasantness, event rehearsal and self-relatedness, but not with intimacy. Dating accuracy correlated with salience, pleasantness, intimacy and event rehearsal, but not with emotional involvement or self-relatedness. Regression analyses showed that event rehearsal was the best predictor of retention and dating, but the predictive value of other ratings was dependent on the content of the recorded events.

The internet will not remember you: curation of autobiographical online materials in Russia in Spring 2022

Abstract This paper is based on research conducted in February–April 2022. It describes and illuminates what was happening with tech-savvy educated people between 20 and 40 years old in Russia, while their usual digital tools and places for the autobiographical process were changing in the spring of 2022. Facing censorship of platforms, surveillance, and the inability to pay for services, people who were keeping important memories of their lives online were deleting their profiles, migrating to other platforms, censoring themselves, and creating archives of autobiographically meaningful materials. The paper examines these disruptions as a case that illuminates the role of online platforms in autobiographical memory and expands some concepts within autobiographical memory studies, such as evocative objects and autotopography.

Cognitive scripts and narrative identity are shaped by structures of power

Constructing a narrative identity involves developing an understanding of oneself as integrated through time and across contexts, a task critical to psychosocial development and functioning. However, research has primarily focused on the individual in isolation or in highly localized contexts. This is problematic because narrative identity is profoundly shaped by structures of power; thus, we cannot understand how individuals understand themselves through time, across contexts, and as a member of a particular community without attention to the structure of society. We propose a structural-psychological framework for the study of autobiographical memory, narrative, and context that examines how structures of power are maintained, and potentially changed, through the narration of autobiographical events, as guided by cognitive scripts, or master narratives.

Differences in autobiographical memories reported using text and voice during everyday life

ABSTRACT Autobiographical memories frequently occur during everyday life. One of the most common approaches to measuring memories in everyday life is a diary method: Participants record memories as they occur by writing down these memories in a paper diary or typing them on a smartphone. Conversely, many laboratory-based studies of autobiographical memory require participants to describe their memories out loud in a spoken manner. Here, we sought to directly compare memories recorded via typing to those spoken out loud in a smartphone diary study. Participants reported or, autobiographical memories that occurred over a period of four days either by typing (n = 43) or recording themselves orally describing memories (n = 39) using a smartphone app. Results indicated that the audio recording group reported memories more frequently and these memories contained a greater number of words, while the text group reported memories more promptly after they occurred. Additionally, the typing group reported memories that were episodically richer and contained a greater proportion of perceptual details. This work has important implications for future autobiographical memory studies in the lab, online, and using diary methods, and suggests that certain reporting modalities may be advantageous depending on the specific research focus.

Collective memory and autobiographical memory: Perspectives from the humanities and cognitive sciences.

The current overview provides an interdisciplinary synthesis of autobiographical and collective memory studies, focusing on history and cognitive psychology, to help other scholars bridge the disciplinary gap. We describe the various interpretative frameworks used to build theoretical knowledge on how autobiographical memory and collective memory are intertwined. We expose how research exploring self, social and directive functions of autobiographical memory echoes three main functions that can be identified for collective memory, that is, social identity, social schemata, and means for actions, or a political decision tool of research in these fields. In doing so, we hope to stimulate opportunities for more interdisciplinary research. This article is categorized under: Psychology > Memory Psychology > Theory and Methods.

Autobiographical memory in dementia syndromes-An integrative review.

Autobiographical memory represents a defining feature of human cognition, enabling us to vividly re-experience salient events from the personal past. By mentally traversing different temporal contexts, humans can maintain an enduring sense of who we are as individuals, as well as envisaging our future goals and behaviors. The relative ease with which we engage in these endeavors, however, belies the remarkable complexity of the autobiographical memory system. Dementia syndromes offer compelling insights into the cognitive neuroarchitecture of autobiographical memory in the face of progressive neural insult to large-scale brain networks. Importantly, the atrophy profiles of many neurodegenerative disorders follow coordinated and predictable trajectories, affecting key regions implicated in episodic and semantic memory. A wealth of evidence suggests that autobiographical memory disruption is a transdiagnostic feature of dementia, yet this impairment takes many forms and arises due to differential neurocognitive disturbances. This review aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the literature on autobiographical memory in typical and atypical presentations of Alzheimer's disease, as well as younger-onset dementia syndromes such as frontotemporal dementia and primary progressive aphasia. I will demonstrate how the systematic study of autobiographical memory across dementia syndromes can constrain and inform our fundamental understanding of memory function and, in turn, stimulate new directions in how we conceptualize and assess these cognitive capacities. Consideration will further be given to clinical implications of autobiographical memory dysfunction with a view to developing targeted interventions to better support the person living with dementia. This article is categorized under: Psychology > Memory Neuroscience > Clinical Neuroscience Psychology > Brain Function and Dysfunction.

Autobiographical memory and the self: A transition theory perspective.

In contrast to much theoretical work on the topic, Transition Theory (Brown, 2016, 2021) attempts to account for important aspects of autobiographical memory in a way that emphasizes the structure of experience, rather than the relation between personal-event memories and the Self. This article provides the rationale for adopting this minimalist stance. Here it is argued that: (a) an all-inclusive notion of the Self is of little utility to the study of autobiographical memory because virtually all sentient goal-directed activities can be seen as reflecting the Self, hence, adopting this view provides no bias for predicting event memorability; (b) although some event memories are clearly Self-relevant (e.g., life-story events, turning points, self-defining memories), most are not; (c) the formation of and access to Self-knowledge typically does not depend on the availability of specific autobiographical memories; rather, (d) Self-knowledge is generally derived from massive amounts of readily forgotten role-relevant experience. This article is categorized under: Philosophy > Representation Philosophy > Knowledge and Belief Psychology > Memory.

Autobiographical memory impairment in chronic schizophrenia: Significance and clinical correlates.

Previous studies of autobiographical memory (AM) in schizophrenia yielded a reduction of specificity, richness of details and conscious recollection, which indicate both, quantitative and qualitative AM changes. However, their associations with psychopathological symptoms and neuropsychological deficits were not resolved. Therefore, we sought to investigate AM with respect to psychopathology and neuropsychology in patients with chronic schizophrenia to rule out the influence of different courses of the disease. AM of four lifetime periods was examined in 75 patients and 50 healthy controls by using a semi-structured interview. The recalled episodes were rated for memory specificity. Subsequently, one single event of each period of life was rated for details and experiential aspects of reliving (originality, vividness/visual imagery, emotional re-experiencing and emotional valence). When contrasted with healthy controls, patients recalled a significantly reduced number of episodes and personal semantic facts; moreover, memory specificity of AM was significantly lower in patients than controls. While the richness of details calculated for single events showed only minor, non-significant group differences, vividness and emotional re-experiencing were significantly less pronounced in the patient group. Along with this, AM performance correlated significantly with negative symptoms including apathy as well as verbal memory and executive functions. Our results underline the significance of overgenerality as a key feature of AM in schizophrenia as well as a dissociation between intact number of details of single events and reduced vividness and emotional re-experiencing. The extent of negative symptoms including apathy and impairments of verbal memory/executive functions may explain AM deficits in chronic schizophrenia.

A tetrahedral model of autobiographical memory research design.

The field of autobiographical memory can do more to be representative of global populations experiencing and recollecting diverse events across the lifespan. To inspire such work, I present a general model for designing autobiographical memory studies. The tetrahedral model (based on Jenkins, 1979) has at its vertices context (e.g., the situated environment, activated schema, or functional goal), outcomes (e.g., the content and phenomenology of remembering), participants (e.g., the demographic characteristics and traits of the individual), and events (e.g., the lived experiences that comprise an individual's autobiography). Further, the area of the base of the pyramid can represent the time frame under investigation (e.g., the wider the distance, the greater the delay between an experience and its retrieval) and the height of the pyramid can represent the sample size (e.g., nearly flat for a case study, increasingly taller for larger groups) being studied. After applying the model to describe how typical autobiographical memory research is conducted (and briefly identifying the limitations therein), representative models of particularly promising areas of research are highlighted. This article is categorized under: Psychology > Memory.

Importance de la mémoire autobiographique chez les patients antisociaux

The study of autobiographical memory allows the understanding of identity construction. Narrative identity is fundamental to ensure continuity in one's life history. Over the last five years, we have witnessed a boom in scientific research highlighting narrative identity disorders in people with Antisocial Personality Disorder. These studies focus on the methodology of Recall of Self-Defining Memories. People with Antisocial Personality Disorder have difficulty integrating their memories, recall more multiple memories with negative valence, and refer to threatening or relational life events. The narrative incoherence observed could be characteristic of the disturbed identity functioning in young adults with Antisocial Personality Disorder. It would be interesting to study this functioning earlier in the life trajectory of adolescents with a Conduct Disorder. Assessing the Self-Defining Memories of these adolescents can clarify the identity related to the development of their criminal trajectory and identify the presence of narrative coherence. The aim is to interfere in the construction of their identity and to accompany them earlier in their forensic trajectory in order to improve the integration of their potentially traumatic life experiences. This psychological work to identify and make sense of traumatic experiences should have a beneficial effect on the regulation of the negative emotions generated by these memories. We hypothesise that antisocial behaviour and childhood adversity are more related to the inability to integrate than personality disorder.

The Watermark of a Self in Narrating the Past: A Study of Autobiographical Memory in Vladimir Nabokov’s Speak, Memory

Autobiographies are not merely literary productions but mental functions, stories continuously narrated, owned and believed by the self. By broadening the locus of autobiography from literary productions to mental functions, the connection between its Greek constituent parts: autos (self), bios (life), and graphe (writing), can be clarified and new vantage points become possible for studying the self and its narrative framing. In the genre of autobiography Vladimir Nabokov’s Speak, Memory stands out in unraveling the ways in which memory speaks the self. The free indirect style voice of narration and bridging the epistemic gap between the past and the present, both innate to the act of remembering, are masterly used by Nabokov. This article, following Mark Rowlands’ approach to memory, studies Speak, Memory in order to explore the narrative structure of autobiographical memory and the constitution of the autobiographical sense of self. Thisstudy argues that in Speak, Memory, the self emerges as a narrative thematic pattern across time by being purported in, and at the same time transcending clusters of first-personal narratives that reconstruct the past.

Semi-automated transcription and scoring of autobiographical memory narratives.

Autobiographical memory studies conducted with narrative methods are onerous, requiring significant resources in time and labor. We have created a semi-automated process that allows autobiographical transcribing and scoring methods to be streamlined. Our paper focuses on the Autobiographical Interview (AI; Levine, Svoboda, Hay, Winocur, & Moscovitch, Psychology and Aging, 17, 677-89, 2002), but this method can be adapted for other narrative protocols. Specifically, here we lay out a procedure that guides researchers through the four main phases of the autobiographical narrative pipeline: (1) data collection, (2) transcribing, (3) scoring, and (4) analysis. First, we provide recommendations for incorporating transcription software to augment human transcribing. We then introduce an electronic scoring procedure for tagging narratives for scoring that incorporates the traditional AI scoring method with basic keyboard shortcuts in Microsoft Word. Finally, we provide a Python script that can be used to automate counting of scored transcripts. This method accelerates the time it takes to conduct a narrative study and reduces the opportunity for error in narrative quantification. Available open access on GitHub ( https://github.com/cMadan/scoreAI ), our pipeline makes narrative methods more accessible for future research.

Comparing Methods for Analyzing Music-Evoked Autobiographical Memories

The study of music-evoked autobiographical memories (MEAMs) has grown substantially in recent years. Prior work has used various methods to compare MEAMs to memories evoked by other cues (e.g., images, words). Here, we sought to identify which methods could distinguish between MEAMs and picture-evoked memories. Participants (N = 18) listened to popular music and viewed pictures of famous persons, and described any autobiographical memories evoked by the stimuli. Memories were scored using the Autobiographical Interview (AI; Levine, Svoboda, Hay, Winocur, & Moscovitch, 2002), Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC; Pennebaker et al., 2015), and Evaluative Lexicon (EL; Rocklage & Fazio, 2018). We trained three logistic regression models (one for each scoring method) to differentiate between memories evoked by music and faces. Models trained on LIWC and AI data exhibited significantly above chance accuracy when classifying whether a memory was evoked by a face or a song. The EL, which focuses on the affective nature of a text, failed to predict whether memories were evoked by music or faces. This demonstrates that various memory scoring techniques provide complementary information about cued autobiographical memories, and suggests that MEAMs differ from memories evoked by pictures in some aspects (e.g., perceptual and episodic content) but not others (e.g., emotional content).

Autobiographical memory after 40 years

SummaryThe procedure in this study of autobiographical memory after forty years had three phases: uncued recall of experiences of 1978 to 1980, recall cued by descriptions made in 1979 of selected events, and recall cued by a diary written between 1978 and 1980. The schema theory of autobiographical memory describes memory of individual experiences as embedded in longer extended events. In uncued recall in 2019 all bar one of the extended events later found in the diary were remembered, with approximate dates and extents. Few specific episodes that occurred outside an extended event were recalled. In cued recall, characteristics of episodes associated with recall were rarity, vividness, and emotional intensity, and to a lesser extent importance to self. There was no difference between recall of pleasant and unpleasant episodes.

The study of autobiographical memory and identity processing styles in Afghan immigrant adolescents suffering from post–traumatic stress disorder

The study of autobiographical memory and identity processing styles in Afghan immigrant adolescents suffering from post–traumatic stress disorder

A review of autobiographical memory studies on patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders

BackgroundPatients suffering from schizophrenia spectrum disorders demonstrate various cognitive deficiencies, the most pertinent one being impairment in autobiographical memory. This paper reviews quantitative research investigating deficits in the content, and characteristics, of autobiographical memories in individuals with schizophrenia. It also examines if the method used to activate autobiographical memories influenced the results and which theoretical accounts were proposed to explain the defective recall of autobiographical memories in patients with schizophrenia.MethodsPsycINFO, Web of Science, and PubMed databases were searched for articles published between January 1998 and December 2018. Fifty-seven studies met the inclusion criteria. All studies implemented the generative retrieval strategy by inducing memories through cue words or pictures, the life-stage method, or open-ended retrieval method. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) Statement guidelines were followed for this review.ResultsMost studies reported that patients with schizophrenia retrieve less specific autobiographical memories when compared to a healthy control group, while only three studies indicated that both groups performed similarly on memory specificity. Patients with schizophrenia also exhibited earlier reminiscence bumps than those for healthy controls. The relationship between comorbid depression and autobiographical memory specificity appeared to be independent because patients’ memory specificity improved through intervention, but their level of depression remained unchanged. The U-shaped retrieval pattern for memory specificity was not consistent. Both the connection between the history of attempted suicide and autobiographical memory specificity, and the relationship between psychotic symptoms and autobiographical memory specificity, remain inconclusive. Patients’ memory specificity and coherence improved through cognitive training.ConclusionsThe overgeneral recall of autobiographical memory by patients with schizophrenia could be attributed to working memory, the disturbing concept of self, and the cuing method implemented. The earlier reminiscence bump for patients with schizophrenia may be explained by the premature closure of the identity formation process due to the emergence of psychotic symptoms during early adulthood. Protocol developed for this review was registered in PROSPERO (registration no: CRD42017062643).

La specificità della memoria autobiografica e il fenomeno dell'ipergeneralizzazione della memoria: note cliniche e di ricerca

Autobiographical memory is the memory that refers to the Self, and is based on the episodic and semantic memory systems. Studies focusing on the specificities of how autobiographical memories are recovered constitute a particular line of research within autobiographical memory studies. Much research has confirmed the existence of a tendency to recall categorical memories (i.e. memories relating to a class of events) and not specific memories - a tendency defined as overgeneral memory -- as a stable condition particularly associated with depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. This paper discusses the main theories related to the phenomenon of overgeneral memory, and hypothesises the influence of attachment on the style of autobiographical recall, particularly on the specificities of autobiographical memory, that is, on the flexibility in regulating the level of specificity with which an individual lingers during an autobiographical reconstruction, and on the ability to recall specific episodes by time and place, accompanied by the subjective experience of remembering.

Retrograde Autobiographical Memory From PTA Emergence to Six-Month Follow-Up in Moderate to Severe Traumatic Brain Injury.

The overwhelming focus of research on memory following traumatic brain injury (TBI) has been on anterograde amnesia, and very little attention has been paid to retrograde amnesia. There is evidence to suggest that retrograde autobiographical memory deficits exist after severe TBI, although there have been no prospective studies of autobiographical memory in a representative sample of moderate to severe cases recruited from hospital admissions. The purpose of the present study was to report changes in autobiographical memory performance among a group of patients soon after emergence from posttraumatic amnesia (PTA) and at the 6-month follow-up compared with a healthy control (HC) group. The authors also examined associations with anterograde memory function and community integration to assist in understanding the functional impact of autobiographical memory deficits and potential underlying mechanisms. The Autobiographical Memory Interview and the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test were used as measures of retrograde and anterograde memory, respectively, and the Community Integration Questionnaire was used as a measure of functional outcome in the TBI group. The results demonstrated that both personal semantic and episodic autobiographical memory scores were impaired following emergence from PTA and at the 6-month follow-up. Only subtle differences emerged in change over time in different injury severity groups. Recent retrograde memory function was associated with anterograde memory performance, which supports some degree of overlap in underlying mechanisms. The findings suggest that autobiographical memory deficits are prevalent following moderate to severe TBI and warrant consideration in rehabilitation.

Trauma event autobiographies: An exploratory multiple case study

This multiple case study explored trauma event memories of three individuals to characterise underlying meanings important for their recovery. The three participants were women in the age range of 43 to 54 years old, who shared their own memories of a trauma-laden event four to five years post-occurrence. Thematic analysis of the autobiographical narratives indicated underlying memories across cases of silence imposed on trauma victims by their social environments and communities. Differences in trauma autobiographical memories were in meaning making within the context of the participants’ own culture, society, and community. Autobiographical memory studies appear to have value for understanding likely pathways to recovery from trauma

Leveling up the analysis of the reminiscence bump in autobiographical memory: A new approach based on multilevel multinomial models.

In many studies of autobiographical memory, participants are asked to generate more than one autobiographical memory. The resulting data then have a hierarchical or multilevel structure, in the sense that the autobiographical memories (Level 1) generated by the same person (Level 2) tend to be more similar. Transferred to an analysis of the reminiscence bump in autobiographical memory, at Level 1 the prediction of whether an autobiographical memory will fall within the reminiscence bump is based on the characteristics of that memory. At Level 2, the prediction of whether an individual will report more autobiographical memories that fall in the reminiscence bump is based on the characteristics of the individual. We suggest a multilevel multinomial model that allows for analyzing whether an autobiographical memory falls in the reminiscence bump at both levels of analysis simultaneously. The data come from 100 older participants who reported up to 33 autobiographical memories. Our results showed that about 12% of the total variance was between persons (Level 2). Moreover, at Level 1, memories of first-time experiences were more likely to fall in the reminiscence bump than were emotionally more positive memories. At Level 2, persons who reported more emotionally positive memories tended to report fewer memories from the life period after the reminiscence bump. In addition, cross-level interactions showed that the effects at Level 1 partly depended on the Level 2 effects. We discuss possible extensions of the model we present and the meaning of our findings for two prominent explanatory approaches to the reminiscence bump, as well as future directions.