Problem 3 - Autobiographical Memory Flashcards
Emergence of autobiographical memory:
Cue-word technique (galton-grovitz)
- to investigate the shape of the memory function across the entire life span.
- the number of memories recalled each period of life - autobiographical retention function
- childhood amnesia: very few memories before the age of 3
- reminiscence bump: disproportionately great number of memories from 10 to 30y
- forgetting: standard forgetting curve for the last 20 years
Childhood amnesia
- lack of any memories before age of 3
- precipitous drop of memories before age of 10
- emergence of autobiographical memory starts once the amnesia of childhood is lifted.
- no way to measure ones early memories - are they real or fake memories?
- memories that are rehearsed and/or are emotionally unforgettable will be remembered most.
Childhood amnesia: brain development
- Neurological structures not fully developed = early memories cannot be formed.
- hippocampus area (formation of long-term memory) = underdeveloped.
- prefrontal cortex = develops at 1y = improvement in certain cognitive tasks.
- damage to hippocampus = dissociation in memory abilities = unable to store or retrieve events but can learn and retain perceptual and cognitive skills => memory consists of multiple subsystems.
Childhood amnesia: language development
- Develops around 2-4y
- differences in parents’ narrative styles influences the quality of childhood memories:
1. Elaborative style: long, richly details discussion of past events (with daughters more).
2. Pragmatic style: succinct, less details and elaboration (with sons more).
Childhood amnesia: cognitive self-development
- self-concept: knowledge of one being unique and one can think and know things about the world as a causal agent).
- Western countries: earlier memories of the self (independent cultures)
- Eastern countries: earlier group memories (interdependent cultures)
- mother memories: equally early in both cultures.
Childhood amnesia: social cognitive development
- Basic explicit memory abilities: 2y, language takes prominent role, narrative understanding to encode events as richer and complexer, coherent and meaningful stores, memory talk with adults
- Consciousness about the past: extended consciousness (have a past self connected to present self is not realized until 4y)
- Theory of mind: understanding they have unique set of beliefs, desires and knowledge, unaccessible to others.
Reminiscence bump
- greater number of memories for ages 10 to 30 = milestones.
1. Cognitive mechanisms account: retrieval is favored (importance and distinctiveness), rehearsal and not subject to much interference.
2. Identity explanation account: identity formation (important part and remembered most).
3. Peak functioning account: cognitive and brain abilities/functions are at peak.
Forgetting
- recent events remembered well but falls off quickly from events that arent as recent.
- drops from nearly 75% correct to less than 33%
Causes:
1. Rehearsal: no rehearsal = forgotten
2. Interference: interference between autobiographical episodes = most events dont stand out.
3. AM routine: routined events blend in = lose their individualized character (transition from autobiographical episodic to autobiographical semantic facts)
self-memory model (Conway et al): components
- Autobiographical memory knowledge base: personal information at 3 levels of specificity:
- lifetime periods: major ongoing situations
- general events: repeated events and single events (related to each other)
- event-specific knowledge: images, feelings etc to general events and spanning time periods from second to hours (temporal order) - Working self: what we may become in the future and our individuals’ current goals. Influences kind of memories stored and recalled. Records of success/failure in goal attainment
self-memory model (Conway et al): accessing memories through
- Generative retrieval: combining resources of working self with autobiographical knowledge base. Relate to individual’s goals within the working self.
- Direct retrieval: does not involve working self. Triggered spontaneously by specific cues. Less effortful and less active involvement of the rememberer.
self-memory model (Conway et al): overview
- divided autobiographical memory structures into conceptual self and episodic memories.
- memories exhibit coherence (consistency with goals/beliefs) and correspondence (accuracy).
- coherence tends to win out over correspondence over time.
- prefrontal cortex = generative retrieval
- left hippocampus = direct retrieval
- autobiographical memories often inaccurate = enhance self-image and social relationships.
self-memory model (Conway et al): evaluation
- comprehensive account
- theoretical assumptions are supported
- support for the distinction between generative and direct retrieval.
Limitations: - retrieval involves several brain areas and process = does not capture this complexity
- how does the working self interacts with autobiographical knowledge base to produce recall of specific memories.
- memories vary in the extent to which they contain episodic information and semantic information (contextual details and world knowledge).
Depression and autobiographical memories
- individual differences in memory.
- depressed individuals: reduced autobiographical memory specificity. Produce over-general memories
- cognitive avoidance strategy (involved in over-general memories) = depressed people avoid retrieving specific negative memories due to intense negative emotions.
- structure:
Individuals with amnesia
- unusual memory abilities
- severe deficits in episodic memory
- retrograde amnesia: loss of memory for events that occurred prior to brain damage.
- anterograde amnesia: loss of the ability to form memories that have occurred after brain damage.
- dissociation: variable has large effect on one kind of test but little/no effect on another test.
- preserved WM, semantic memory, implicit memory and intelligence
Developmental amnesia:
- Early age: lower efects (grow up with so you adjust)
- Specific brain areas: not everyone will have the same deficits?
3.
Neurological underpinnings of amnesia: consolidation
- hypothesis that memory traces are fragile and become more resistant to forgetting with time.
- assumed that it depends on the hippocampus and related areas. Disruption interferes with the consolidation process.
- patients often suffer from both anterograde and retrograde but severity of both is not correlated = different origins
Measuring retrograde amnesia
- researchers dont have control over the learning of the material (happened before).
1. general methods (news, photgraphs etc): poor performance, earlier memories preserved. - issues with general method: degree of knowledge varies across patients, scales are continually aging.
2. Alternative methods: probe patients’ memory by requesting autobiographical recollections (laborious process = must be transcribed, checked and evaluated).
3. Autobiographical memory interview: asking people to remember specific information selected from a range of time periods. Probes a form of personal semantic memory. Validated, sensitive and reliable test.
Photo-taking impairment effect article: abstract
- photo-taking impairment effect: less likely to remember objects you photograph than objects they only observe.
- offloading hypothesis: taking photos allows people to offload organic memory onto camera’s prosthetic memory - rely on to remember.
Photo-taking impairment effect article: introduction
- photographs are powerful cues for retrieval
- photo-taking isolates an item and can lead to deeper more elaborate memories or have the opposite effect.
- offloading hypothesis of the photo-taking impairment effect draws from transactive memory theory
- attentional-disengagement hypothesis: when people take photos, they disengage from the moment and leads to low encoding.
- assumption for attentional-disengagement hypothesis: encoding suffers automatically as a consequence of taking photos, it doesn’t depend on whether the photographers relies on it.
Photo-taking impairment effect article: experiment 1
- 42 participants
- conditions: snapchat, camera, observation
- design: within subject, 3 levels.
- procedure: paintings shown, demonstration of how to use, study and MCQ questions
Photo-taking impairment effect article: experiment 2
- 51 participants
- conditions: snapchat turned into manually deleting right after taking the picture
- design: within subject, 3 levels
- same procedure
Photo-taking impairment article: results and discussion
- photo-taking impairment observed in every condition in which photos were taking.
- consistent with offloading hypothesis - memory impaired regardless of whether they relied on it.
- consistent with attentional-disengagement hypothesis - limited attention when encoding.
Possible interpretations: - suffering from metacognitive illusion: mistakenly thinking picture = encoded experience.
- disruption by a sort of automatic offloading: learned experience with cameras.
Limitations: - mechanisms and boundaries still unknown
- unclear whether effect is limited to the type of photo-taking situation.
- unclear what causes people to remember less when taking photos.