Autobiographical Memory

Autobiographical memory ________________________________________ 1. Convince you that autobiographical memory is important no matter what kind of psychology you find interesting. 2. Briefly describe experimental techniques used to evaluate autobiographical memory. 3. Discuss the three major components of the distribution of autobiographical memories across the lifespan: • Childhood amnesia • Reminiscence bump • ‘Standard’ retention 4. Introduce a variety of other issues associated with autobiographical memory behavior including: • Dating of memories • Timing of memories • Social construction of memory 5. Review data related to flashbulb memories. Why is AM interesting? ________________________________________ 1. Personality • Basis of our sense of self (McAdams, 2004) 2. Developmental • What is your earliest memory? 3. Social • Culture and gender exert strong influences 4. Cognitive • Draws on many cognitive skills… 5. Neuropsychology • …mediated by a variety of brain circuits. Narrative Reasoning (Right Frontal & Parietal) Search & Retrieval (Dorsolateral Frontal Lobes) Olfactory Imagery Auditory Imagery Visual Imagery (Olfactory Cortex) (Auditory Cortex) (Visual Cortex) Emotion (Amygdala/Orbital Frontal) Other Sensory Imagery (Other Sensory Cortices) Spatial Imagery (Right Parietal Cortex) Explicit Memory (Medial Temporal Lobes) Semantic Memory Language (Left Temporal, (Lateral Parietal, Temporal Frontal) Lobes) Techniques for studying AM ________________________________________ Diary studies – the experimenter (or subject) records his/her own memories for an extended period of time; cues are used to recall those memories EX: Linton Beeper Studies – the subjects are cued ‘at random’ and record information about their ongoing activities EX: Brewer Cue-Word (Galton) technique – subjects hear cue words (baby) and are asked to retrieve a memory in response to the cue EX: Rubin, et al. Schulkind, Rahhal, Lacher, & Klein Story of your life – the subject is asked to tell the story of his/her life. The experimenter goes back and records individual events from the interview. EX: Larsen and Larsen (1991) Expected Distribution of AM across the lifespan ___________________________________________ 60 Frequency 50 40 30 20 10 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 Age at Time of Event 50 55 60 65 70 Typical Distribution of AM across the lifespan ________________________________________ 60 Frequency 50 40 Chld Amn The Bump Middle Age Retention 30 20 10 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70 Age at Time of Event Retention / Middle Age ________________________________________ Why ‘retention’? Because it fits the trend observed with the retention function for information learned in the laboratory (e.g.: Power function decline) Shape of retention portion: Implications: • Contradicts increased forgetting explanation of agerelated changes in memory. How? • Perhaps interference is the problem: o They have lots of memories, but struggle to select a particular one from the many (RT data). Childhood amnesia ________________________________________ Childhood Amnesia – typically people cannot remember any events that transpired prior to age 2 or 3. When? Estimates vary based on technique Problems: • High variability due to low numbers • Leakage of family lore • Reliability of memories / estimates Theoretical Explanations • Freudian Trauma • Neural maturation • Neural / representational re-organization EX: Magical Shrinking Machine Could be inaccessible Could be lost due to lack of integration Predictors of childhood amnesia • Moving • Gender Morris, et al. (2009) ______________________________________________ Why can’t adults remember memories from childhood? Macro-level • Language • Sense of self Micro-level • Distinctiveness • Significance • Rehearsal What is Morris, et al.’s hypothesis? • Evidence to support their hypothesis? • Limitations to past work? Experimental Design Parent/child interviews Measure of coherence: context, chronology, theme Measure of content Results Content and coherence across age and time Complicated analyses Pieces of the pie Coherence or content Between-child (macro) vs. within-child (Micro) Why? Reminiscence Bump ________________________________________ Reminiscence bump – people tend to remember a disproportionately large number of memories from their young adult years. When? Estimates vary depending on technique Problems: • Type of question asked • Number of memories collected 60 Frequency 50 40 Chld Amn The Bump Middle Age Retention 30 20 10 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70 Age at Time of Event Theoretical explanations for the bump ________________________________________ 1. Biased Search Strategy (Rubin & Schulkind, 1997) Prediction: 2. Nature of ‘bump’ events (R&S, 1997) Prediction: 3. Identity formation (R&S, 1997) Prediction: 4. Evolutionary explanation (R, S, & Rahhal, 1999) Prediction: 5. Cognitive markers (Schrauf & Rubin, 2000) Prediction: Gender differences in Autobiographical Narratives ________________________________________ Consistent gender differences: 1. Women tell richer, more coherent, more emotional, stories than men. 2. Women tell stories about relationships; men tell stories about achievements Why? Socialization More emotional, more emphasis on story-telling How does socialization create the observed effects? 1. Better memory, in general • Small but consistent differences 2. Autobiographical memory / Narrative ability • Cross-cultural data 3. Selection biases • Admissions narratives Problems: 1. Is the admission story achievement-oriented? 2. Computer data collection? Solution: Emotional Intensity and Autobiographical Memory ________________________________________ Central vs. peripheral details • Intensity helps memory for central details • Intensity hurts memory for peripheral details Interferes with encoding… • draws attention to salient, emotion-producing aspects of environment EX: towards the weapon, away from the face • Initial memory better for neutral events …But enhances retention • Rate of forgetting is more shallow for emotional events relative to neutral events Why? • Is it because of the way emotional events are encoded? or • Is it because emotional events are rehearsed more often Laboratory/everyday memory problem Retention functions: Neutral vs. Emotional Events ________________________________________ 70 Neutral Emotional 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 Kensinger & Schacter (2006) ___________________________________________ Previous research on emotion and memory showed: • Intense vs. chill o Narrows focus or distracts • Positive vs. negative o Gist / detailed recall o Reconstruction • Laboratory vs. everyday stimuli o Fading affect bias Interpreting previous research comparing memory for negative and positive events? • Intensity • Rehearsal • Public vs. private No subjects reported that they had a history of psychiatric or neurological disorder. Kensinger & Schacter (2006) ___________________________________________ Results Normal folks Intensity Personal Same Same Same Same CONFIDENT Event More (T2) Most (T2) Details CONFIDENT Confident Negative None Consistent correlation Lower Less Less overall None Discussion 1. How do these data compare with previous literature? 2. How do these data compare with your own positive/negative memories? 3. How can we reconcile these data with fading affect bias data? Other Interesting Data ________________________________________ Timing We recall more events that occurred at the beginnings and ends of time periods (early in semester, late in the semester) Dating • Unbiased estimates • Reconstruction effects • Frequency effects Organization • Temporal • Themes • First events o Why might first events be important? ▪ Primacy ▪ Create schema against which subsequent events are evaluated Specificity • Subjects in experiments tend not to report episodes that occurred on a single day, at a single place and time Flashbulb memories ________________________________________ Flashbulb Memory – memory for consequential (surprising) public events that is distinguished by • level of detail • sense of reliving • common experience EX: September 11th ________________________________________ Brown & Kulik • Special biological mechanism triggered by emotion and/or surprise • Consequentiality o Medgar Evers vs. JFK • Other main contribution o Criteria for FM (canonical questions) Neisser questioned • Assumption of accuracy (foot forward) • Differential encoding vs. retrieval • Consequentiality (surprise / emotion) is correlated with memory outside FM • Data result from biological mechanism More on the Evolution of the FM debate: Neisser and Harsch (1992) ________________________________________ Theoretical Question: Is there something special about the processes that lead to FMs? Empirical Question: Will undergraduates’ recollection of the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster remain fixed over time? Method: SS recorded their story the next morning Were re-tested  2 years later Two stories were compared Results: • 25% changed location, activity AND informant 50% remembered one or fewer of these • Accuracy unrelated to confidence • People dissociated from their earlier stories • Accounts tended towards TV news reports Implications: • Schema-based retrieval • Source memory (time slice explanation) • Social construction Flashbulb Memories: A Summary ________________________________________ 1. Reports of the accuracy of flashbulb memories are greatly exaggerated. • However, it’s not clear how FMs compare to ‘ordinary memories’. • Or is it (Talarico & Rubin, 2004)? 2. Consistency is affected by timing of initial report. 3. Experiencing the event makes a difference (Neisser, Winograd, et al., 1996) • Narrative account 4. The primary difference between FMs and other kinds of memories does not appear to be what happens at the time of encoding. • Social construction 5. Identity formation may also contribute to this phenomenon.