Chapter 11 Flashcards
What is Autobiographical memory?
Autobiographical memory: Memory across the lifespan for both specific events + self-related information.
What are the 3 functions of autobiographical memory proposed by Williams, Conway + Cohen?
1) Directive functions–>what happened the last time you tried to change a car tire
2) Social function–>hearing sons reminisce about childhood family holidays
3) Self-representation
What is mood-congruent memory?
One form of context-dependent memory
Depressive patients find it difficult to recollect positive life experiences whereas negative recollections are more readily available.
Describe Hyman + Faries study to find evidence about the 4 functions of ABG memory
Questioned people about memories they frequently talked about + situations in which they were discussed.
Very few reports of autobiographical memory used directively to solve problems
Sharing of experience + passing on of advice being more common.
Used cue words to prompt memories
Found a distinction between memories that were used internally for self-related functions + those used in interacting with others
Describe the Thinking About Life Experiences (TALE) questionnaire by Habermas + Rubin
Devised the (TALE) questionnaire, specifying particular situations categorizing the resulting reports as: directive, self-related, nurturing existing social relationships, or developing new social relationships.
Considerable overlap between the directive function, the self-related function + those related to nurturing + developing relationships (e.g. I enjoyed talking to John; so I think I’ll accept his party invitation ).
It is doubtful that functions are clearly separable into different categories in actual practice.
Studies of this type lack adequate methodology–> assume that participants are aware of the function of such memories + can remember the situations that evoked them in sufficient detail to categorize them.
One method–>use diaries in which participants record events + try to remember them. This is too demanding
Another method–>Probe memory by asking for a memory associated with a cue word such as river, then analyzing the nature of the responses.
A third method–>Ask for memories associated with either a specific time period/ major public event
Describe Willem Wagenaar ‘s study of the diary method
Recording events in a diary allows later memories to be objectively checked. The more often an event was probed, the better it was retained.
Wagenaar kept a diary for over 6 years, on each day recording two events with four features or cues to that event (a total of 2400 incidents)
He also rated the incident for its saliency (happens often or is unusual) + the degree of emotional involvement (pleasant or unpleasant)
Then tested his memory by selecting an incident at random + cueing himself with 3 retrieval cues, randomizing the order in which the who/what/where/when cues were presented.
The who/what/where cues–>equally good at evoking a memory
The when cue was much less efficient.
In a number of cases, he could not remember anything, despite all his recorded cues.
The process of selecting the event in itself involves retrieval + rehearsal
The process of deciding on his cues involves a relatively deep level of processing.
This degree of selection + implicit rehearsal is a problem for diary studies–>result in memories that are atypically well encoded.
Describe Brewer’s study that avoided a biased selection of recorded memories
The study sampled events at random.
10 participants were each given a beeper + tape recorder.
The beeper went off at random intervals–> say what they were doing, where, what the significance of their activity was, its goal-directedness + their emotional state.
Tested at delays ranging from 0 to 46 days, using one or other of their ratings as a cue.
A total of 414 events were recorded.
26% were correctly recalled, 28% were wrong, and 46% evoked a blank.
Describe Conway et al’s study with 2 participants keeping diaries mixed with invented alternatives
Two participants kept diaries over a period of months, recording both “events” + “thoughts.”
Mixed with plausibly invented alternatives + recognition was required
Followed by a categorization as to whether the item was “remembered,” or “known”
True events–>more likely to evoke a remember response than invented but plausible foils
Items classified as “events” being twice as likely to evoke recollection as entries that were “thoughts.”
Describe pros/cons of diary studies
Diary studies are useful for the richness of autobiographical memory but suffer from:
a) problems of sampling bias in the events recorded
b) tendency for the event reporting process itself to result in the enhanced learning of the events selected
c) perseverance from the diarists
Describe Probed ABG memory study BY Crovitz and Shiffman
Gave their participants a word + asked them to recollect an autobiographical memory associated with that word (horse, first time going horseback riding)
Despite its simplicity + relative lack of control–>used widely + productively.
A prominent feature of this method is its distribution across the lifespan.
Infantile amnesia for the first 5 years of life, but tends to produce plenty of memories from the most recent period.
40 years+ however–> marked increase of memories from ages of 15 and 30 which is called the reminiscence bump
Reminiscence bump is due to the fact that this is a period when many important things in our lives tend to happen.
The first date recollected is culturally different, Americans sooner than Chinese–>reflect differences in the way that mothers talk to their children U.S is more elaborate, emotionally oriented + focused on the past
Describe Berntsen and Rubin’s study of life narratives
Asked participants to rate a number of important life events
The average age for first falling in love was 16 years, college memories later 22 years, marriage at an average of 27, and children at 28.
All fell within the period of the reminiscence bump
The life narrative–>coherent account that we create for ourselves as we progress through life
Events that influence life narrative–>important to us + more likely to be retrieved, and to be more deeply encoded. They are also emotionally intense which increases their accessibility (especially if positive + in young adulthood)
Describe Glück + Bluck study proving that ABG memory is important in in creating a positive life narrative
They collected a total of 3000+ life events from 600+ participants aged between 50-90 years.
Asked to rate their memories on emotional valence, their personal importance + extent to which they felt that they had control over events.
A reminiscence bump was found, but only for positive events over which they had a high degree of control
Describe Chu + Downes et al. study proving that odor-induced memories are more emotional
Found that memories evoked by smell peaked at an earlier age (6–10 years) than the typical verbally cued reminiscence bump.
They cued with items that could not only be represented as a word but also as a picture or a smell (e.g. violet, tobacco, soap, whiskey ).
A distinct tendency for smells to evoke memories that are rated by their participants as earlier than visually or verbally cued events.
Describe study by Means et al. proving that people tend to date events indirectly
They Asked patients with least four medical visits in the last year to recall + report them + checking against the doctor’s records.
The performance was poor, particularly for visits that had clustered
People tend to date events indirectly, either by recollecting incidental features (weather/seasonal changes) or by linking it to some other event that can itself be dated (holiday in Paris)
Describe Martin Conway’s attempt to develop an overall theory of ABG
He defines ABG as a system that retains knowledge concerning the experienced self.
It is always addressed by the content of the memory but does not always produce recollective experience (know you went to Paris, but recollect specific episodes later/never).
Such recollective experiences occur when ABG knowledge, our personal semantic memory, retains access to associated episodic memories (knowledge of going to Paris connected to seeing the Eiffel tower)
Such ABG memories are transitory + constructed dynamically on the basis of the ABG knowledge base.
The knowledge base itself ranges from very broad representations of lifetime periods to sensory-perceptual episodes, which are rapidly lost.
The whole system depends on the interaction between the knowledge base + working self
Describe the working-self by Conway
Comprises a complex set of active goals and self-images + modulates access to long-term memory and is influenced by it.
Comprises both conceptual self-knowledge (occupation, family background) + socially constructs that make up self-representation
It is a way of encoding information about what is, what has been, and what can be.
Needs to be both coherent + correspond reasonably closely with outside reality.
When this link is lost, problems occur, which might lead to confabulation or delusion
Describe the structure of the ABG knowledge base + Autonoetic consciousness
ABG knowledge base has a broadly hierarchical structure–>overall life story being linked to a number of broad themes; work and personal relationships–>split up into different time periods
In recollecting an event, it is the arbitrary sensory detail that typically convinces us that we have a genuine memory rather than a confabulation
Such detail is often visual, which is one reason why vivid visual flashbacks are so convincing
Autonoetic consciousness–>Our capacity to reflect on our thoughts which is essential in deciding whether a recollection is an accurate record of our past or a confabulation.
Accessing such detailed knowledge is relatively slow (several secs) whereas access to semantic memory is often performed almost immediately
Patients with frontal-lobe damage–>difficulty both in accessing ABG memories + evaluating them.
Describe Wang’s + Marian’s study on cultural differences in ABG
The operation of ABG memory is goal-related + different goals predominate in different cultures.
Wang studied ABG memory in US participants who come from an Asian background, probing their memory
US-related memories were more self-focused, Asian memories were more socially oriented.
Marian Interviewed Russian–English bilingual participants in both languages.
Regardless of the language of encoding of a specific ABG memory, recollections in Russian were more collectivist than those in English.
Life scripts are also influenced by culture
Describe Calendrical autobiographical memory + the case of RM
RM was good at generating the date on which events had happened, provided it was something within his interest.
Our autobiographical memory is likely to be hierarchically organized, starting at a broad general level + moving to the more particular.
In contrast, RM uses a date-based calendar framework, encoding information on the basis of dates as if he were able to consult his diary for that year–> gives him a precise day, which if the information was of sufficient interest at encoding, gives a reasonable chance of retrieval.
Describe Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory (HSAM)
11 HSAM participants + controls were examined
ABG first tested by asking them to recall five personal events for which the answers could be verified for accuracy.
They then had a series of more standard memory tests
Then tested then for depression + obsessional behaviour, together with an interview + behavioural questionnaire about how they use their memory, their knowledge of calendars dates, etc.
Then examined by MRI to look for possible anatomical differences in the structure of their brains.
The HSAM group were extremely good at recalling public events/dates
Better ABG performance in terms of verified details + the richness of detail recalled.
Unremarkable episodic LTM
Average performance on standard tests of episodic memory
Only slightly better than controls at remembering face-name associations
Did not differ from controls on backward/forward digit span, or memory for prose or paired associates.
No evidence of depression but somewhat higher in obsessionality.
9 organized their memories chronologically
6 habitually recall their memories in this way as a means of passing time or going to sleep.
Describe Flashbulb memory and say why people have vivid autobiographical memories of flashbulb incidents.
It is a highly detailed, exceptionally vivid ‘snapshot’ of the moment and circumstances in which a piece of surprising and consequential news was heard. “Now print” mechanism
Neisser + Harsch compared the recall of the experience of learning about the event, testing people after 1 day + retesting after 2½ years–>finding a substantial drop in accuracy.
Flashbulb memories don’t need to be life-threatening. Davidson et al. found the same degree of loss of detail of 9/11 for flashbulb and everyday memories, although participants believed that their memory of 9/11 was clearer.
People do have vivid autobiographical memories of flashbulb incidents. Why?
1) Such incidents are highly distinctive, unlikely to be confused. This is not the case for most everyday memories.
2) We tend to talk about such events/watch them repeatedly on TV so rehearsing them.
3) They tend to be important events that change some aspect of our lives/ surroundings
4) They tend to give rise to emotions.
Describe the self-esteem aspect of ABG as well as how we protect ourselves from depression in relation to ABG
ABG memory is likely to be influenced by our hopes and needs.
A tendency to place ourselves center-stage because it helps us maintain our self-esteem. We readily accept praise but tend to be skeptical of criticism–>attributing criticism to prejudice on the part of the critic.
We are inclined to take credit for success when it occurs but deny responsibility for failure + selectively forgetting failure + remembering success/praise. This tendency to preserve our self-esteem serves a useful function.
There is a tendency for depressed patients to retrieve much less rich and detailed (less distressing) ABGmemories
When asked to generate an autobiographical memory in response to cue words, depressed patients would respond with a very general response.
Hence, given the cue angry, they might respond “When I’ve had a row,” whereas control participants are more specific, for example, “With my supervisor last Monday.” This tendency is reversed when depression is successfully treated.
Describe Conway’s study on self-esteem preservation
Asked students prior to an exam to report:
a) their expected grades + their importance
b) their hours of study + how well they had prepared
c) How valid the test would be.
Two weeks after results were announced, he asked each student the same set of questions.
For those who got better results than expected–> Amount of work reported was the same + importance of the result was increased.
Those who had underperformed–> reported doing less work, + the grade was less important and less valid.
Describe Wagenaar and Groeneweg’s study of Holocust victims and their recall of events
Tested recall for brutal concentration camp guard, known as Ivan the Terrible during WWII
Able to re-interview victims who had first testified 40 years before.
Most witnesses claimed to recognize Demanjuk as Ivan the Terrible
Two separate subgroups had seen Demanjuk on television.
In both groups, 80% reported recognition–>important potential source of eyewitness error when accused persons are shown in the media.
Surprisingly, even quite dramatic events such as being beaten up or witnessing another prisoner being murdered, often appeared to have been forgotten,
Describe Post-traumatic stress disorder
Applies to the symptoms that can follow from situations of extreme stress
Often involves “flashbacks,” extremely vivid memories of the scene of the initial terror.
Might be accompanied by nightmares and a more general state of anxiety
verbally accessible memory–>Links with the normal memory system
situationally accessible memory–>is highly detailed when it occurs as a flashback but cannot be called to mind intentionally.
The precise mechanism underlying memory disturbance in PTSD remains uncertain.
Classical conditioning–> environmental stimuli associated with the horrific moment being powerfully associated with the feeling of terror.
Incidental stimuli can act as a conditioned stimulus–>trigger off the emotional response, bringing back the associated memory.
Extinction–>focusing on the extinction of the fear response by having the patient imagine the scene under safe conditions controlled by the therapist
Virtual reality–>pilot who has developed PTSD under combat conditions, fly a simulated helicopter sortie over “virtual Vietnam.”
Describe the ANS response to stress
In a threatening situation, the amygdala signals the ANS to release adrenalin + cortisol, stress hormones that alert the organism for flight or fight.
When the danger passes, the brain normally signals the adrenal glands to stop producing stress hormones, gradually bringing the body back to normal.
In PTSD patients, this corrective process is reduced, leading to a more prolonged period of stress.
Treatment with propranolol aids this recovery process,
Describe the study by Gilbertson on twin Vietnam war veterans + their hippocampus volume
Patients with PTSD might have a somewhat smaller hippocampal volume than those without.
Prolonged stress can disrupt the operation of the hippocampus, possibly even leading to neuronal death
Studying Vietnam veterans who had developed PTSD, and who had a twin who had not experienced Vietnam.
Both PTSD veterans + their unexposed twins had smaller hippocampi than veterans who had experienced stress in Vietnam without developing PTSD + their unexposed twins.
A reduced hippocampus makes one more vulnerable to PTSD–>less able to recover from the huge surge in adrenalin associated with extreme stress.
Describe Berntsen + Rubin’s study of recurrent memories
involuntary memories of autobiographical events that people subjectively experience as being repetitive.
Analysis of PTSD in a sample of 118 Danes who were tourists in Thailand or Sri Lanka at the time of the tsunami catastrophe
About half had experienced or witnessed danger to life + experienced intense fear, helplessness, or horror.
Some 40% of respondents reported recurrent memories, with the likelihood of this increasing for those who were close to the threatening wave.
The frequency of the recurrent memories coincided with the point of maximum emotional impact
Those directly threatened by the wave having recurrent memories of escaping vs those who had heard about the tragedy having recurrent memories of searching for loved ones
Reappearance hypothesis–>under certain circumstances, such as flashbulb memory and PTSD, memories can be created that later reappear in exactly the same form.
Describe why Intrusive normal memories are more accessible
Because they are
(1) more recent (2) more arousing (3) more likely to occur for positive events (4) likely to show the reminiscence bump, at least in older participants.
Describe the difference between recurrent dreams + memories by Berntsen and Rubin
Asked about participants each about the frequency of recurrent memories and recurrent dreams.
Recurrent memories are frequent + decline somewhat with age.
Recurrent dreams are less frequent + show a modest correlation with recurrent memories.
As we get older, we tend to have more positive recurrent memories, which are also more intense.
Recent recurrent memories are more likely than older ones
For those who are 40+–> positive recurrent memories are likely to come from late childhood/adolescence + characteristic reminiscence bump.
flashbacks that are observed in PTSD do not comprise a special type of memory
They have the same characteristics as recurrent memories in the normal course of life + both reflect the same basic principles of all types of ABG
