Autobiographical memory Flashcards
Autobiographical memory
Memory across the lifespan for both specific events and selfrelated information
William, cohen & conway(2008) proposed 4 functions of autobiographical memory(speculative)
*Directive function(ex what happened last time i changed a tire)
* Social function(sharing autobiographical memories can be pleasant & socially supportive
* Creating and maintaining self-representation
* Emotional regulation
Processes for pattern of autobiographical memory over lifespan
- recency effect
- reminiscence bump
- infantile amnesia
Reminiscence bump och förklaringar för detta
A tendency in participants over 40 to show a high rate of recollecting personal experiences from their late teens and early twenties
Explanation:
* Many events that are important for one’s life narrative happens during that time. Events that influence this are likely to be important to us, to be more likely to be retrieved, and to be more deeply encoded. Indeed, the attachment of salient events such as these to an organized narrative schema in long-term memory likely confers powerful benefits to both consolidation and memory search.
* emotionally intense memories
Vilka event är mest memorable under veckorna och månaderna som
- In weeks and months after encoding, negative events tend to be unusually memorable. Men sen kmr man ihåg mer positiva saker än negativa o neutrala 👍
Hur skiljer sig reminiscence bump för minnen återhämtade efter lukt-cues
- memories evoked by smell peaked at an earlier age (6–10 years) than the memories found in the typical verbally cued reminiscence bump.
Explanation for infantile amnesia
- neurogenesis-induced forgetting
- given the powerful role of schemas in enhancing consolidation of long-term episodic memories, the lack of early episodic memories may also be related to the absence, during infancy, of a coherent concept of self, a general set of schemas that would gradually be built up on the basis of memories and experiences
Life narrative
A coherent and integrated account of one’s life that is claimed to form the basis of autobiographical memory retrieval. A life narrative provides an organized set of schemas with which key episodic events can be integrated, both increasing the chances of consolidation, and making memory retrieval efficient
Martin conway(2005) theory of autobiographical memory
- Defines autobiographical memory as a system that retains knowledge concerning the experienced self, the “me.”
- Autobiographical memory is always accessed by the cues about the content of the memory desired, but the results of memory search do not always produce recollective experience. Thus, autobiographical memory contains both:
- generalized knowledge of events(=autobiographical knowledge base?)
- specific episodes. Such recollective experiences occur when autobiographical knowledge retains access to associated episodic memories with perceptual details. Such autobiographical recollections are transitory and are constructed dynamically on the basis of the autobiographical knowledge base
- Finally, the whole system depends on the interaction between the knowledge base and the working self.
Autobiographical knowledge base
Facts about ourselves and our past that form the basis for autobiographical memory. The knowledge base itself ranges from very broad-brush representations of lifetime periods to sensory–perceptual episodes, which are rapidly lost(va?)
Hierarkisk struktur: Overall life story - themes(ex work, relationship, etc) - lifetime periods(“när jag jobbade på X) - general events(ex. En person) - episodic memories
Working self
A concept proposed by Conway to account for the way in which autobiographical knowledge is accumulated and used.
* The working self is assumed to play a similar role in autobiographical memory to that played by working memory in cognition more generally
* The working self comprises a complex set of active goals and self-images.
* The goals active in the working self modulates access to long-term memory and is itself influenced by LTM.
*The working self comprises both conceptual self-knowledge—my occupation, my family background, and my professional aims—which in turn are socially constructed on the basis of my. family background, the influence of peers, school, myths, and other factors that make up the complex representation of myself.
* To summarize, the working self is a complex knowledge structure that contributes to encoding information about what is, what has been, and what can be. To be effective, however, it needs to be both coherent and to correspond reasonably closely with outside reality
Autonoetic consciousness
A term proposed by Tulving for self-awareness, allowing the rememberer to reflect on the contents of episodic memory.
Flashbulb memory
Term applied to the detailed, vivid and apparently highly accurate memory of a dramatic experience.
Fading affect bias
The consistent tendency for negative memories, over time, to lose affective intensity at a higher rate than positive memories
SDAM
An acronym for severely deficient autobiographical memory, referring to a neuropsychological condition in which otherwise high functioning individuals nevertheless are largely unable to remember autobiographical experiences or re-experience them.
