3. Autobiographical Memory Flashcards
Directive function of AM
Allows us to create schemes an enables us to problem solve for future events
Ie how to study for an exam, how to cook dinner
Social function of AM
Helps maintain and develop friendships
Sharing personal information increases intimacy
Facilitates social interaction, common basis of small talk
Individuals who have impaired AM suffer with poor social relations (potential asbergers)
Self representation function of AM
Personal memories are used to construct and maintain self identity
Allows evaluation of past experience… Life reflection
Leads to self insight and self growth
Adaptive function of AM
Remembering positive events and experiences as a way of mood regulation
Cope with negative situations and develop resilience
AM may be impaired in depressed patients so this function doesn’t work
Methods to study AM
Diaries: participants keep a diary over a series of time. Provides true autobiographical memories. Tests: diaries are manipulated with false entries and participants must tell which entries were real and which were false
Memory probe: list of words to cue AMs which the participant then has to describe in as much detail as possible.
ODOURS are particularly good at cueing AMs
Periods of AM across lifespan
Childhood amnesia
Reminiscence bump
Recency
Childhood amnesia
Struggle to remember events from early childhood
Maybe because brains are not developed yet
Language is not yet developed in order to encode memories
Freud- repression (he’s an idiot)
Development of cognitive self occurs around 2-3 years
Reminiscence bump
Unusual peak in memories over 20s
Lots of 1st and major life events: uni, moving out, marriage, babies etc
Novel experiences
Stable self system forms- development of identity
Met the friends they would keep forever, met people they would marry and choose careers they would stick with
Cultural differences in reminiscence bump…
No differences in the lifespan memory curve
There are differences in memory content
Individuals with independent self (western culture) tend to recall a self focused AM
Individuals with interdependent self (Chinese) had general memories with a strong group orientation. Relation-centred AM.
Types of autobiographical knowledge
Lifetime period
General events
Event specific knowledge
Lifetime period
general knowledge of significant others, common locations and actions. They have a distinct beginning and end.
General events
more specific and heterogeneous.. Compromised of either single or repeated events
Event specific knowledge
defining feature of memory vividness
Disorganised in ptsd and lost in some retrograde amnesia
Working self
Similar to working memory
Is a central control process which controls access to AM knowledge base
Reciprocal relationship with the knowledge base, knowledge base constrains the goals and self image of working self
Who am I? Charlesworth et al…
Experiment :
Test group- write about a personal experience with meaning and makes them nostalgic
Control- write about solar system
Then…
Write as many sentences beginning with “I am” as possible
Nostalgia group have more sentences, increase in psychological statements
We use AM to increase accessibility of self concepts
AM retrieval is most closely associated with psychological selves
Interactive self concept and episodic AM
