Autobiographical Memory

Question 1

what is an autobiographical memory?

Answer 1

• Memory for your
  own life
• memory
  for events as
  personally experienced

Question 2

Remembering our lives: Cue word technique

Answer 2

• Safety, Product, Ship, Time… Recall one memory associated with each word. Describe and date the memories
• estimate when the memory was

Question 3

what are the problems of autobiographical memory?

Answer 3

• knowing whether to believe the reports people come up with cf. False Memories.
• asking people to date memories introduces an extra source of bias

Question 4

single-case diary study Wagenaar, 1986

Answer 4

• Samples approximately one event per day, over a period of 4 years and records details of the event.
• Each event contains 4 cues, plus one critical detail, and is rated on three additional dimensions.
• Each event recalled once only - testing takes one year
• Cued Recall testing with 24 different cuing orders.

Question 5

what are the event types in autobiographical memory?

Answer 5

• recent
• salient
• emotional
• pleasant

analyses of the original data suggest good memory for unpleasant
self-critical events (Wagenaar, 1994) - not consistent with repression.

Others find intensity of emotion is more important than valence for producing
good memory (e.g. Congleton & Berntsen, 2019; Talarico et al., 2004).

Question 6

what are foil events?

Answer 6

• things which might have happened to the ppts but actually didn’t
• over time the more likely ppts were to accept (foil) memories things which actually happened in their lives

Question 7

Everyday memories can be much worse Misra et al., 2018 studies

Answer 7

• If you choose random events (e.g. 2 second video clips from a person walking around a town, or around a museum) you can do precise 2AFC (2 alternative force choice) recognition tests for everyday events.
• ps video their walk with a go pro and come back next day, shown 2 second clip and asked to identify if it was theirs
• People are almost unable to distinguish videos from their own walks from videos of other people (as long as the weather conditions are similar).

Question 8

Early autobiographical memories

Answer 8

• Studies using the cue word technique reveal surprisingly few memories from the first few years of life e.g. Waldfogel (1948)

Question 9

childhood amnesia

Answer 9

• Cue word studies of early amnesia give you no way of specifically probing early memories, and no way to tell if the reports are correct
• Usher & Neisser (1993) get round this problem by using parents to verify specific events that happened in childhood.
• Negative events generally well remembered. But only when they happened after age 3.

Question 10

problems with the Usher and Neisser study

Answer 10

• Are the memories correct?
  61% of memories in Usher & Neisser’s study were confirmed by a parent. In 22% of cases the parent’s memory conflicted with the child’s.
• Are these real autobiographical memories – could they be based on family narratives or informed guesswork?

Question 11

Autobiographical memoryfor 70 year olds

Answer 11

Memories of 70 year olds show both childhood amnesia, but also evidence for a reminiscence peak (Rubin et al., 1986).

Question 11

Burt, Kemp & Conway (2003)
study on people’s autobiographical memory

Answer 11

Explore people’s AMs with diary entries and photographs sorted by participants.

What is an event in autobiographical memory?

The associative structure surrounding one person’s memory for an individually-defined event.

Events can involve multiple specific episodes spanning multiple days and link to higher order personal themes

Question 12

why aren’t Autobiographical Memories simple, single Episodic Memories?

Answer 12

• They can involve specific episodic memories (Event Specific Knowledge) but are retrieved with respect to themes and periods within an individual’s life story.
• Specific episodes can play multiple different roles in different Autobiographical Memories at different times
• they are are transitory mental constructions
  within a Self-Memory System (SMS).

Question 13

how is the self-memory system (SMS) about more than memory?

Answer 13

• Autobiographical Memory is memory for our past life
• But the same SMS is intimately involved in understanding our present selves
• And in our understanding of our future selves.