The association of personal semantic memory to identity representations: insight into higher-order networks of autobiographical contents

Identity representations are higher-order knowledge structures that organise autobiographical memories on the basis of personality and role-based themes of one’s self-concept. In two experiments, the extent to which different types of personal semantic content are reflected in these higher-order networks of memories was investigated. Healthy, young adult participants generated identity representations that varied in remoteness of formation and verbally reflected on these themes in an open-ended narrative task. The narrative responses were scored for retrieval of episodic, experience-near personal semantic and experience-far (i.e., abstract) personal semantic contents. Results revealed that to reflect on remotely formed identity representations, experience-far personal semantic contents were retrieved more than experience-near personal semantic contents. In contrast, to reflect on recently formed identity representations, experience-near personal semantic contents were retrieved more than experience-far personal semantic contents. Although episodic memory contents were retrieved less than both personal semantic content types to reflect on remotely formed identity representations, this content type was retrieved at a similar frequency as experience-far personal semantic content to reflect on recently formed identity representations. These findings indicate that the association of personal semantic content to identity representations is robust and related to time since acquisition of these knowledge structures.     

Priming autobiographical memories: How recalling the past may affect everyday forms of autobiographical remembering

This study investigated the idea that when one recalls past episodes, that the content of those memories will activate additional episodic memories with like content, and such memories will then have the potential of surfacing in subsequent acts of involuntary and voluntary recall. We tested the episodic content priming hypothesis in two experiments. In Experiment 1, priming group participants first recalled memories about specific activities or events and then they were subsequently engaged in a word-cue voluntary autobiographical memory task. The results showed that priming group participants produced more episodic memories involving the primed content on this task than control participants occupied in the same task. In Experiment 2, episodic content priming was further tested on a measure of involuntary autobiographical memory (i.e., the vigilance task). The results on this task also revealed support for the episodic content priming hypothesis, including after a delay of 24 h.     

The role of lifetime periods in the organisation of episodic memories

ABSTRACT

Research on the nature of episodic memory associations has suggested that episodic memories are associated by conceptual knowledge, where memories cluster around the same content (e.g. memories about the same people) or general-event knowledge, where memories cluster around extended events (e.g. a holiday in London), repeated events (e.g. Sunday walks in the park), or causally related events (i.e. where one event leads to another). Research has also suggested that episodic memories are associated by lifetime periods (e.g. when I was in high school), where memories cluster within lifetime periods. However, it is unclear whether episodic memories can be associated solely by lifetime periods, or if such associations are subordinate to conceptual or general-event associations. To answer this question, we reanalysed a large sample of involuntary memory chains (Mace, J. H., Clevinger, A. M., & Bernas, R. S. (2013). Involuntary memory chains: What do they tell us about autobiographical memory organisation? Memory, 21, 324–335). The results of this analysis suggested that lifetime periods associations are subordinate to conceptual and general-event associations, as lifetime periods were found to cluster within the latter two associations. The potential functions of this organisation are discussed.     

Placing events in time: The role of autobiographical recollection

Episodic experience is argued to be rich in temporal information, but it remains unclear whether temporal information is directly coded in the event memory or is reconstructed at retrieval. The two experiments reported here emphasise the role of reconstructive processes of autobiographical context in establishing the date of memories. Younger and older participants were presented with famous public events, although only the latter had actually lived through them. Participants were asked to make forced-choice judgements about the date of the event and other event-related facts. Overall, while the older group showed better fact knowledge of the events, this did not translate into better dating performance. This older group showed similar dating performance across events with high and low factual knowledge. In contrast, the younger group's dating accuracy was determined by their level of knowledge. This suggests that older individuals who have direct episodic experience of an event may perform the task in a qualitatively different manner, eschewing semantic facts in favour of other sources of information. Crucially, this process does not appear to enhance performance. A second experiment addressed the issue of whether older participants date events based on general qualities of the event memory (e.g., vividness), the availability of other event-related semantic facts, or autobiographical context. It was found that the ability to place an event in autobiographical context is related to dating accuracy, but not to other aspects of memory.     

Placing events in time: the role of autobiographical recollection

Episodic experience is argued to be rich in temporal information, but it remains unclear whether temporal information is directly coded in the event memory or is reconstructed at retrieval. The two experiments reported here emphasise the role of reconstructive processes of autobiographical context in establishing the date of memories. Younger and older participants were presented with famous public events, although only the latter had actually lived through them. Participants were asked to make forced-choice judgements about the date of the event and other event-related facts. Overall, while the older group showed better fact knowledge of the events, this did not translate into better dating performance. This older group showed similar dating performance across events with high and low factual knowledge. In contrast, the younger group's dating accuracy was determined by their level of knowledge. This suggests that older individuals who have direct episodic experience of an event may perform the task in a qualitatively different manner, eschewing semantic facts in favour of other sources of information. Crucially, this process does not appear to enhance performance. A second experiment addressed the issue of whether older participants date events based on general qualities of the event memory (e.g., vividness), the availability of other event-related semantic facts, or autobiographical context. It was found that the ability to place an event in autobiographical context is related to dating accuracy, but not to other aspects of memory.     

Out of one's mind: a study of involuntary semantic memories

The study of memories that pop into one's mind without any conscious attempt to retrieve them began only recently. While there are some studies on involuntary autobiographical memories (e.g., ) research on involuntary semantic memories or mind-popping is virtually non-existent. The latter is defined as an involuntary conscious occurrence of brief items of one's network of semantic knowledge. The recall of these items (e.g., a word, a name, a tune) is not accompanied by additional contextual information and/or involvement of self-a standard feature of involuntary autobiographical memories. The paper reports several diary and questionnaire studies which looked into the nature and frequency of occurrence of these memories. The data show that people do experience involuntary semantic memories which tend to occur without any apparent cues while being engaged in relatively automatic activities. Possible mechanisms of involuntary semantic memories are discussed (e.g., very long-term priming), and the results of the study provide information on the possible duration of the priming effects in everyday life. Related theoretical and methodological issues and future avenues of research in this neglected area are outlined.     

Remote Memory Function and Dysfunction in Korsakoff’s Syndrome

Korsakoff's syndrome (KS) is a pervasive disorder of memory characterized by both anterograde and retrograde amnesia. Although retrograde memory impairment in KS has been less frequently studied, the status of remote memory in KS has been tested across a number of different tasks that measure knowledge of public information (e.g., famous faces/news events), general semantic information (e.g., vocabulary words), personal semantic information (e.g., facts about oneself), and autobiographical events (e.g., events from one's personal past). In each of these domains, Korsakoff patients demonstrate remote memory impairments that can extend back many years or decades. In addition, a majority of studies report that the extensive remote memory impairment in KS is temporally graded, with relative preservation of memories from childhood and early adulthood. The current paper reviews published experimental studies of remote memory in KS, with particular attention paid to (a) the selectivity of the deficit with respect to the age of the memory and (b) the relationship of memory impairment to underlying neuropathology. We discuss the significance of the reported pattern and extent of remote memory impairment with respect to theories about the nature of the underlying cognitive deficits in KS.     

自我相关未来思考:两种基本类型及其主要心理成分比较

自我相关未来思考是个体产生自我相关未来想法的心理加工,它包括未来情景思考和未来个人语义思考两种基本类型。两类思考都需记忆、自我和主观时间三种主要心理成分参与,但参与的具体形式可能有所不同:未来情景思考可能主要依赖于情景记忆和语义记忆、情景自我知识和语义自我知识、经验时间;未来个人语义思考可能主要依赖于语义记忆、语义自我知识和知道时间。三种主要心理成分在两种思考类型中的作用可能是相同的,其中,记忆是原材料,自我起引导作用,主观时间是先决条件。将来可以参照思考未来公众抽象问题的研究进一步明确自我和记忆在未来个人语义思考中的作用,还可以通过探究不同心理成分内部及成分间的交互作用进而了解各成分在自我相关未来思考中的作用机制。     

When sex isn't special: Priming onto a sex decision

Recognition of famous faces is speeded by prior exposure. This repetition priming has been shown for familiarity judgements (familiar/unfamiliar), semantic judgements (British/American), and naming. However, no benefit of priming has been found onto a sex judgement made to an image of a face. The absence of priming is normally explained by appealing to the fact that sex judgements can be made to a face without needing to access memory for that person, and that priming has its effects within the memory system. Here we ask subjects to make sex judgements to famous people's surnames (e.g., Tyson, Geldof), a task that requires them to access their memories for people. Under these conditions we observe the normal pattern of priming. We argue that structural, rather than episodic models of processing fit the data most naturally.     

Selective deficits in episodic feeling of knowing in ageing: A novel use of the general knowledge task

Failure to recall an item from memory can be accompanied by the subjective experience that the item is known but currently unavailable for report. The feeling of knowing (FOK) task allows measurement of the predictive accuracy of this reflective judgement. Young and older adults were asked to provide answers to general knowledge questions both prior to and after learning, thus measuring both semantic and episodic memory for the items. FOK judgements were made at each stage for all unrecalled responses, providing a measure of predictive accuracy for semantic and episodic knowledge. Results demonstrated a selective effect of age on episodic FOK resolution, with older adults found to have impaired episodic FOK accuracy while semantic FOK accuracy remained intact. Although recall and recognition measures of episodic memory are equivalent between the two age groups, older adults may have been unable to access contextual details on which to base their FOK judgements. The results suggest that older adults are not able to accurately predict future recognition of unrecalled episodic information, and consequently may have difficulties in monitoring recently encoded memories.     

Remembering,imagining, false memories & personal meanings

The Self-Memory System encompasses the working self, autobiographical memory and episodic memory. Specific autobiographical memories are patterns of activation over knowledge structures in autobiographical and episodic memory brought about by the activating effect of cues. The working self can elaborate cues based on the knowledge they initially activate and so control the construction of memories of the past and the future. It is proposed that such construction takes place in the remembering–imagining system – a window of highly accessible recent memories and simulations of near future events. How this malfunctions in various disorders is considered as are the implication of what we term the modern view of human memory for notions of memory accuracy. We show how all memories are to some degree false and that the main role of memories lies in generating personal meanings.     

Animal models of source memory

Source memory is the aspect of episodic memory that encodes the origin (i.e., source) of information acquired in the past. Episodic memory (i.e., our memories for unique personal past events) typically involves source memory because those memories focus on the origin of previous events. Source memory is at work when, for example, someone tells a favorite joke to a person while avoiding retelling the joke to the friend who originally shared the joke. Importantly, source memory permits differentiation of one episodic memory from another because source memory includes features that were present when the different memories were formed. This article reviews recent efforts to develop an animal model of source memory using rats. Experiments are reviewed which suggest that source memory is dissociated from other forms of memory. The review highlights strengths and weaknesses of a number of animal models of episodic memory. Animal models of source memory may be used to probe the biological bases of memory. Moreover, these models can be combined with genetic models of Alzheimer's disease to evaluate pharmacotherapies that ultimately have the potential to improve memory.     

Object specificity and personal relevance in long-term visual remembering

The personal relevance of an object is multi-faceted, each facet being capable of contributing to the effects on object memory attributed to personal relevance. An object's status as an individual object (object specificity), rather than just a category of object, is one such facet and its impact on the long-term visual remembering of everyday objects is assessed in two experiments. Images and drawings were produced under generic (e.g., “Please draw a bed”) and personal exemplar (e.g., “Please draw your bed”) instructions, and participants indicated the degree to which the image on which their drawing was based was of a specific object or a generic object. Object specificity induced a sense of time and place for a remembered object, the most recent encounter with the object being most salient. Other aspects of personal relevance collectively facilitated the retrieval of an object's category-irrelevant features (thereby increasing the vividness of the object image), the other objects with which it was seen, and a more general episodic sense of place. Against a broader theoretical perspective, it is proposed that visual episodic memory and visual knowledge are primary sources of information for specific personally relevant objects and generic objects, respectively.     

Music evokes vivid autobiographical memories

Music is strongly intertwined with memories—for example, hearing a song from the past can transport you back in time, triggering the sights, sounds, and feelings of a specific event. This association between music and vivid autobiographical memory is intuitively apparent, but the idea that music is intimately tied with memories, seemingly more so than other potent memory cues (e.g., familiar faces), has not been empirically tested. Here, we compared memories evoked by music to those evoked by famous faces, predicting that music-evoked autobiographical memories (MEAMs) would be more vivid. Participants listened to 30 songs, viewed 30 faces, and reported on memories that were evoked. Memories were transcribed and coded for vividness as in Levine, B., Svoboda, E., Hay, J. F., Winocur, G., & Moscovitch, M. [2002. Aging and autobiographical memory: Dissociating episodic from semantic retrieval. Psychology and Aging, 17, 677–689]. In support of our hypothesis, MEAMs were more vivid than autobiographical memories evoked by faces. MEAMs contained a greater proportion of internal details and a greater number of perceptual details, while face-evoked memories contained a greater number of external details. Additionally, we identified sex differences in memory vividness: for both stimulus categories, women retrieved more vivid memories than men. The results show that music not only effectively evokes autobiographical memories, but that these memories are more vivid than those evoked by famous faces.     

Organization in autobiographical memory

Three experiments investigated timed autobiographical memory retrieval to cue words and phrases. In the first experiment, subjects retrieved memories to cues that named semantic category members and were primed with the superordinate category name or with a neutral word. No prime effects were observed. In the second experiment, subjects retrieved memories to primed and unprimed semantic category cues and to personal primes and personal history cues. Personal primes named lifetime periods (e.g., “school days”) and personal history cues named general events occurring in those lifetime periods for each subject (e.g., “holiday in Italy”). Only personal primes were found to significantly facilitate memory retrieval. A third experiment replicated this finding and also failed to find any prime effects to primes and cues naming activities not directly related to an individual’s personal history. In this experiment, characteristics of recalled events (e.g,, personal importance, frequency of rehearsal, pleasantness, and specificity of the memory) were found to be strongly associated with memories retrieved to personal cues and only mildly associated with memories retrieved to other types of cues. These findings suggest that one way in which autobiographical memories may be organized is in terms of a hierarchically structured abstracted personal history.     

Episodic representations support early semantic learning: evidence from midazolam induced amnesia

Current controversy exists regarding the role of episodic representations in the formation of long-term semantic memories. Using the drug midazolam to induce temporary amnesia we tested participants' memories for newly learned facts in a semantic cue condition or an episodic and semantic cue condition. Following midazolam administration, memory performance was superior in the episodic and semantic condition, suggesting early semantic learning is supported by episodic representations.     

Increasing confidence in remote autobiographical memory and general knowledge: extensions of the revelation effect

In recognition tests, items presented in unusual ways (e.g., degraded, revealed in stages, or presented as anagrams) are often judged to be old more than are intact items. This revelation effect has been observed only in episodic judgments about the occurrence or frequency of relatively recent events. The present work extends the boundary conditions of this effect. In three experiments, subjects unscrambled anagrams in the context of answering questions about their childhood (e.g., broke a dwniwo playing ball) or while answering questions pertaining to world knowledge (e.g.,fastest animal-elpraod). In each case, a revelation effect was observed: Solving an anagram increased confidence in remote autobiographical memories and in memory for world facts. These results contradict claims that the effect is an episodic memory phenomenon and challenge existing explanations of the revelation effect.     

Priming of semantic autobiographical knowledge: a case study of retrograde amnesia

The case of a 36-year-old man who suffers dense retrograde and anterograde amnesia as a result of closed-head injury that caused extensive damage to his left frontal-parietal and right parieto-occipital lobes is described. Patient K.C. has normal intelligence and relatively well-preserved perceptual, linguistic, short-term memory, and reasoning abilities. He possesses some fragmentary general knowledge about his autobiographical past, but he does not remember a single personal event or happening from any time of his life. He has some preserved expert knowledge related to the work he did for 3 years before the onset of amnesia, although he has no personal recollections from that period. Some features of K.C.'s retrograde amnesia can be interpreted in terms of the distinction between episodic and semantic memory, and in terms of the distinction between episodic and semantic autobiographical knowledge. K.C.'s semantic knowledge, but not his episodic knowledge, showed progressive improvement, or priming, in the course of the investigation.     

Coping style and memory specificity in adolescents and adults with histories of child sexual abuse

Individuals with histories of childhood trauma may adopt a nonspecific memory retrieval strategy to avoid unpleasant and intrusive memories. In a sample of 93 adolescents and adults with or without histories of child sexual abuse (CSA), we tested the hypothesis that nonspecific memory retrieval is related to an individual's general tendency to use avoidant (i.e., distancing) coping as a personal problem-solving or coping strategy, especially in victims of CSA. We also examined age differences and other individual differences (e.g., trauma-related psychopathology) as predictors of nonspecific memories. Distancing coping was significantly associated with less specific autobiographical memory. Younger age, lower vocabulary scores, and non-CSA childhood maltreatment (i.e., physical and emotional abuse) also uniquely predicted less autobiographical memory specificity, whereas trauma-related psychopathology was associated with more specific memory. Implications for the development of autobiographical memory retrieval in the context of coping with childhood maltreatment are discussed.