Autobiographical memory Flashcards
What is autobiographical memory?
How we remember events from our lives. A combination of specific memories. Links with self-knowledge.
Semantic memory
our memory of knowledge
How can we research autobiographical memory?
- private events (cue word techniques, diary studies)
- public events (flashbulb memories)
- previous life events
- creation of new episodic memories through lab experiments
Diary studies
used to keep a near-truth record of a person’s life so we can test his or her autobiographical memory later
Diary studies - advantage
measure memory for events that really happen in a person’s life, and are recorded that day
Diary studies - disadvantages
- at the longer retention intervals tend to depend on diaries of interested parties themselves
Theory of representation (Conway and Pleydell-Pearce, 2000)
- the major theory that organises research on autobiographical memory is a hierarchical model of autobiographical memory
Representations of AM
how our memories are stored and organised for retrieval
lifetime periods
idiosyncratic ways we organise our past
Event specific memories
individual events stored in episodic memory
general events
combined and cumulative memory of similar events
Two different forms of memory included in general events -
- combined
- extended events
Combined memories
- integrate and interpret across individual events
- our lives are filled with repeating cycles of events
extended events memories
- long series of episodic events
- different form averaged memory in that it is memory of a single sequence of events that occurred only once
organistion of events
Specific events are organised into general events, which are organised into lifetime periods
Working self functions to keep 2 features of memory intact
- coherence
- correspondence
Coherence
processes that yield autobiographical memories which are consistent with the working self
correspondence
the retrieval autobiographical memory should actually correspond accurately to the reality of the past
working self can lead to conflicts
coherence wants to keep memories consistent with our views of ourselves, correspondence works to keep memories accurate
Reminiscence bump
Memory fluency - between 16-25 years, many ‘first experiences’, unique and novel.
Neurological views of reminiscence bump
Young adults have most efficient encoding system, as it is time of optimal maturation of brain mechanisms of memory before the inevitable decline in memory abilities associated with age.
