The valence and the functions of autobiographical memories: Does intensity matter?

Autobiographical memories serve psychosocial functions in daily life and the use of memories is related to their valence. In the present study, we examined whether functions are also related to the intensity of positive and negative memories. Our sample included 110 participants (57–89 years of age). Memories were prompted with 30 emotionally neutral cue words. Participants rated the emotional quality of each memory and indicated how frequently they had recalled it for self-continuity, directing behavior, social-bonding, and mood-enhancement. We used multilevel modeling to test whether individual differences in the use of memories can explain why individuals recall different numbers of positive and negative memories as well as memories high or low in intensity. Each function revealed its specific pattern regarding valence and intensity but also regarding within-person and between-person effects. Mood-enhancement showed the strongest relations, which points to the importance of considering emotion regulation as a function of autobiographical memory.     

Emotional valence and the functions

Differences between positive and negative autobiographical memories are often explained with reference to hypothesized evolutionary functions. Generally, it has been proposed that autobiographical memory serves directive, self-, and social functions. However, the relationship between emotional valence and the three functions has never been studied. In Study 1, participants generated memories that mapped onto each of the three functions. Directive memories were dominated by negative emotion, whereas self- and social memories were dominated by positive emotion. In Study 2, participants generated their most positive and most negative memories, as well as their most frequent involuntary and most vivid flashbulb memories, and the three functions were measured through rating-scale questions. The directive function had the lowest ratings across all memory classes, but, consistent with the results of Study 1, positive memories were rated higher on the self- and social functions, whereas negative memories were rated higher on the directive function.     

Knowledge of memory functions in European and Asian American adults and children: The relation to autobiographical memory

This study investigated explicit knowledge of autobiographical memory functions using a newly developed questionnaire. European and Asian American adults (N = 57) and school-aged children (N = 68) indicated their agreement with 13 statements about why people think about and share memories pertaining to four broad functions—self, social, directive and emotion regulation. Children were interviewed for personal memories concurrently with the memory function knowledge assessment and again 3 months later. It was found that adults agreed to the self, social and directive purposes of memory to a greater extent than did children, whereas European American children agreed to the emotion regulation purposes of memory to a greater extent than did European American adults. Furthermore, European American children endorsed more self and emotion regulation functions than did Asian American children, whereas Asian American adults endorsed more directive functions than did European American adults. Children's endorsement of memory functions, particularly social functions, was associated with more detailed and personally meaningful memories. These findings are informative for the understanding of developmental and cultural influences on memory function knowledge and of the relation of such knowledge to autobiographical memory development.     

Identifying distinct sets of predictors of specific functions of autobiographical memory

ABSTRACT

Grounded in the ecological approach, research has charted several adaptive functions of autobiographical remembering. Each represents a rather different psychosocial domain (i.e., self, social, directive). The goal of this research was to determine the contributions of each of a set of variables, controlling for all others, in predicting use of autobiographical memory to serve each specific function. In two studies, participants (N?=?100; N?=?195) rated frequency of functional use of specific event memories and completed a brief battery of memory-related measures. Most Study One results were replicated in Study Two. Self-relevance of memories was related to their functional use regardless of domain. Each function was also, however, predicted by a unique set of variables consistent with its use in a given psychosocial domain. Findings emphasise how a combination of factors come into play to allow humans to use autobiographical memory to serve various different functions in navigating daily life.     

Factor structure of overall autobiographical memory usage: The directive,self and social functions revisited

According to theory, autobiographical memory serves three broad functions of overall usage: directive, self, and social. However, there is evidence to suggest that the tripartite model may be better conceptualised in terms of a four-factor model with two social functions. In the present study we examined the two models in Danish and German samples, using the Thinking About Life Experiences Questionnaire (TALE; Bluck, Alea, Habermas, & Rubin, 2005), which measures the overall usage of the three functions generalised across concrete memories. Confirmatory factor analysis supported the four-factor model and rejected the theoretical three-factor model in both samples. The results are discussed in relation to cultural differences in overall autobiographical memory usage as well as sharing versus non-sharing aspects of social remembering.     

Sharing specific “We” autobiographical memories in close relationships: the role of contact frequency

Sharing memories in conversations with close others is posited to be part of the social function of autobiographical memory. The present research focused on the sharing of a particular type of memory: Specific memories about one-time co-experienced events, which we termed Specific We memories. Two studies with 595 total participants examined the factors that lead to and/or are influenced by the sharing of Specific We memories. In Study 1, participants reported on their most recent conversation. Specific We memories were reportedly discussed most often in conversations with others who were close and with whom the participant had frequent communication. In Study 2, participants were randomly assigned either to increase or to simply record the frequency of communication with a close other (parent). Increases in the frequency of reported sharing of Specific We memories as well as closeness to the parent resulted. Mediation analyses of both studies revealed causal relationships among reported sharing of Specific We memories and closeness. We discuss the relevance of these results for understanding the social function of autobiographical memory.     

Motivation for weight loss affects recall from autobiographical memory in dieters

Two studies examined the connection between motivation for weight loss and autobiographical memory by comparing characteristics of autobiographical memories between dieters and non-dieters. Study 1 involved 29 normal/overweight dieters and 48 non-dieters, and Study 2 involved 18 obese dieters and 18 normal weight non-dieters. Memories recalled in response to dieting-related cue words were rated as more central to the person's identity and life story and contained more body- or weight-related elements for the dieters than the non-dieters. No differences between dieters and non-dieters were found on memories recalled in response to neutral cue words. The findings are discussed in relation to the notions of the working self (Conway & Pleydell-Pearce, 2000) and current concerns (Klinger, 1978).     

The psychological distance of memories: Examining causal relations with mood and self-esteem in young,middle-aged and older adults

Three studies examined the self-enhancement function of autobiographical memory (measured with subjective temporal distance of memories). Participants recalled a memory of an attained and a failed goal and rated the subjective distance between each memory and the present. Study 1 showed that young adults with higher self-esteem felt closer to memories of attained goals and farther from failure memories than those with lower self-esteem. In Study 2, young, middle-aged and older adults with higher self-esteem felt closer to success memories, whereas self-esteem was unrelated to the temporal distance of failure memories. In both studies, feeling closer to success memories (and far from failure) led to enhanced mood. In Study 3, state self-esteem was experimentally manipulated. The manipulation had no effect on young and older adults, but middle-aged adults whose self-esteem was decreased, felt closer to success memories than failure memories. Results are discussed in relation to the temporal self-appraisal theory.     

Autobiographical Memory Functions Served by Multiple Event Types

Autobiographical memories are thought to serve three basic functions: self‐definition, social connection, and directing future behavior. Previous research suggests that the function a memory comes to serve may differ by the type of event recalled (e.g., single unique events vs. repeated or recurring events). In two studies, we compared memories for different event types on function served. Results from Study 1 suggest that narratives of single events serve more of a self and directive function compared with recurring events, whereas recurring events serve more of a social function. Extended events, however, were high on all three functions. Study 2 specifically examined single and recurring events. Results replicated and extended Study 1 using both narrative coding and questionnaire measures. Implications of the examination of multiple event types and functional approaches to autobiographical memory for understanding links between experiences and psychological outcomes are discussed. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Visual perspective in autobiographical memories: Reliability,consistency, and relationship to objective memory performance

Visual perspective in autobiographical memories was examined in terms of reliability, consistency, and relationship to objective memory performance in a sample of 99 individuals. Autobiographical memories may be recalled from two visual perspectives—a field perspective in which individuals experience the memory through their own eyes, or an observer perspective in which individuals experience the memory from the viewpoint of an observer in which they can see themselves. Participants recalled nine word-cued memories that differed in emotional valence (positive, negative and neutral) and rated their memories on 18 scales. Results indicate that visual perspective was the most reliable memory characteristic overall and is consistently related to emotional intensity at the time of recall and amount of emotion experienced during the memory. Visual perspective is unrelated to memory for words, stories, abstract line drawings or faces.     

Changing the working self alters the emotions prompted by recall

Results from three studies indicated that emotional responses to memories can be changed by altering the working self. In particular, these results showed that emotional reactions to memories: (1) were especially positive when memories were perceived to be central to the working self (Experiment 1); (2) were muted when the working self was changed by adopting a third-person perspective during recall (Experiment 1); (3) of an event in the life of each participant's mother weakened when an individual was induced to experience a self that felt less close to their mother (Experiment 2) and (4) of a childhood event provoked especially positive emotional reactions after exposure to a mortality salience manipulation that increased perceived self-worth (Experiment 3). The extent to which mother was included in the self (Experiment 2) and self-worth (Experiment 3) plausibly mediated the effects of the manipulations on participants' emotional reactions to recalled events.     

Not all semantics: Similarities and differences in reminiscing function and content between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians

This study explored why and how Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians remember the past. Indigenous Australians traditionally share a strong oral tradition in which customs, personal and cultural histories, and other narratives are passed across groups and between generations by word of mouth. Drawing on this tradition, in which inherent value is placed on sharing knowledge and maintaining connectedness with others, we hypothesised that Indigenous Australians would be more likely than non-Indigenous Australians to report reminiscing to fulfil social functions (but not self or directive functions). Furthermore, we hypothesised that Indigenous Australians would recall personal past experiences more elaborately than would non-Indigenous Australians. In Study 1, 33 Indigenous Australians and 76 non-Indigenous Australians completed Webster's Reminiscence Functions Scale. As predicted, Indigenous participants reported higher scores on subscales related to social functions than did non-Indigenous Australians: particularly “Teach/Inform” and “Intimacy Maintenance”. They also scored higher on the “Identity” subscale. In Study 2, 15 Indigenous and 14 non-Indigenous Australians shared three memories from the distant and recent past. While Indigenous and non-Indigenous narratives did not differ in either emotion or elaboration, Indigenous Australians provided more memory context and detail by including a greater proportion of semantic memory content. Taken together, these findings suggest differences in both why and how Australians remember.     

Closure of autobiographical memories: The effects of written recounting from first- or third-person visual perspective

Autobiographical memories are recalled with varying degrees of psychological closure. Closure is a subjective assessment of how far a remembered experience feels resolved, and it has been suggested that one predictor of closure is the amount of emotional detail in the memory. Study 1 examined which aspect of emotional detail is important for closure, and showed that open and closed negative memories were distinguished by ratings of emotion evoked during recall, not by remembered emotion from the time of the event. The recall of open memories was accompanied by more intense, more negative, and less positive emotion than the recall of closed memories. Biased retelling of memories has been shown to influence closure and on the basis of evidence that third-person recall serves a distancing function, Study 2 examined whether instructions to repeatedly recount an open memory from a third-person perspective would increase closure compared with a single or repeated recounting from a first-person perspective. While repeated third-person recounting had the greatest influence on closure, there were also increases in the first-person recounting groups. The results suggest that closure can be increased by reporting memories in written narrative form, particularly if repeatedly expressed from the third-person perspective.     

Are Asians forgetful? Perception, retention, and recall in episodic remembering

Cross-cultural studies have shown that Asians exhibit less accessibility to episodic memories than Euro-Americans. This difference is often attributed to differential cognitive and social influences on memory retention, although there have been no empirical data concerning the underlying mechanism. Three studies were conducted to examine encoding and retention processes that may underlie the cultural difference in episodic recall. While Asians recalled fewer personal event episodes than Euro-Americans across different retention intervals, the two groups showed similar forgetting functions over time (Study 1). Asians also recalled fewer episodes of fictional events than Euro-Americans when the retention interval was kept to a minimum (Study 2). Finally, Asians perceived fewer discrete episodes than Euro-Americans when reading events in a narrative text (Study 3). Collectively, these findings suggest that the cultural difference in episodic recall may not be a mere consequence of memory retention but culture-specific perceptual processing and encoding. They have great theoretical, developmental, and clinical relevance.     

Being American, being Asian: the bicultural self and autobiographical memory in Asian Americans

Studies of autobiographical memory have shown that the degree to which individuals focus on themselves vs. social relations in their memories varies markedly across cultures. Do the differences result from differing cultural self-views (i.e., an autonomous vs. a relational sense of self), as often suggested in the literature? Experimental evidence is required to answer this question. In the present study, Asian American participants (N=118) were primed to focus on their American or Asian self prior to recalling important autobiographical events, and participants in a control group described things in nature prior to the memory recall. Those whose American self was activated recalled more self-focused and less socially oriented memories than those whose Asian self was made salient, with the control group falling in between. The findings shed light on the mechanism underlying cultural influences on autobiographical remembering. They further highlight the dynamic nature of the memory-self interplay in cultural contexts.     

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.     

Visual imagery in autobiographical memory: The role of repeated retrieval in shifting perspective

Recent memories are generally recalled from a first-person perspective whereas older memories are often recalled from a third-person perspective. We investigated how repeated retrieval affects the availability of visual information, and whether it could explain the observed shift in perspective with time. In Experiment 1, participants performed mini-events and nominated memories of recent autobiographical events in response to cue words. Next, they described their memory for each event and rated its phenomenological characteristics. Over the following three weeks, they repeatedly retrieved half of the mini-event and cue-word memories. No instructions were given about how to retrieve the memories. In Experiment 2, participants were asked to adopt either a first- or third-person perspective during retrieval. One month later, participants retrieved all of the memories and again provided phenomenology ratings. When first-person visual details from the event were repeatedly retrieved, this information was retained better and the shift in perspective was slowed.     

Remembering and telling self-consistent and self-discrepant memories

It has been argued that memories that are inconsistent with one's self would differ from those that are consistent with the self. The present study addresses retrieval, phenomenology, rehearsal and narrative characteristics of autobiographical memories that are consistent versus discrepant with one's self. One hundred participants were asked to recall one self-consistent and one self-discrepant memory as well as an episode of telling these memories to others. They also filled out the Autobiographical Memory Questionnaire and the Centrality of Event Scale for each memory. Results showed no difference between self-consistent and self-discrepant memories in retrieval time, specificity or phenomenology. However, self-discrepant memory narratives contained more meaning-making statements and less autonomy than self-consistent memories. Compared to self-consistent memories, self-discrepant memories were told to fewer people, and listener responses were more negative when they were told. Results are discussed in relation to the functions these memories serve.     

Why recall our highs and lows: Relations between memory functions,age, and well-being

This study examined whether positive and negative memories (life story high and low points) were differentially used for reminiscence functions concerning self and social aspects of reminiscing, and relations between function use and well-being in two age groups. Life story high and low points were collected from a sample of emerging (n =56) and older (n =55) adults, as well as a measure of the use of these memories for the self-functions of death preparation, identity, and problem solving, and the social functions of conversation and teach/inform, and a measure of psychological well-being. Memories were also coded for whether or not they contained a redemptive narrative structure (from emotionally negative to emotionally positive). Results showed that the endorsement of reminiscence functions did differ by memory type, with high points more often endorsed for the functions of identity, teach/inform, and conversation than low points. These main effects were qualified by memory type × age interactions. The use of these functions for each kind of memory was also related to well-being, but differentially for older and younger people, and redemptive sequencing was especially important to the well-being of the younger group. Findings are discussed in terms of the importance of different emotional memories for self and well-being at different points in the lifespan.     

Social support from friends predicts changes in memory specificity following a stressful life event

ABSTRACT

Exposure to negative life stress has been associated with difficulty retrieving memories for specific autobiographical events, with important consequences for the emergence of emotional disorders. We examined whether social support can protect against the effects of negative events on memory specificity. University students (N?=?143) were assigned to groups based on whether or not they experienced a negative stressor, operationalised as whether or not their recent exam performance was in line with their expectations. After receiving their exam results (T1), and one month later (T2), participants completed measures of memory specificity, their attitudes towards themselves and the occurrence of other stress-related events. Participants also completed a general measure of perceived social support from friends, family, and significant others, and an equivalent measure for social support related to performance. For participants who experienced an exam-related stressor, reduced performance-specific social support from friends was associated with reduced memory specificity at T2, even when accounting for T1 memory specificity, individual differences in attitudes towards self, the experience of additional stressors, and gender. No such relation was present for participants who did not experience a stressor. These findings provide new understanding of the influence of social variables on autobiographical memory specificity.