Reminiscence bump in memory for public events

People tend to recall more personal events from adolescence and early adulthood than from other lifetime periods. Most evidence suggests that differential encoding causes this reminiscence bump. However, the question why personal events are encoded better in those periods is still unanswered. To shed more light on this discussion, we examined memory for public events. Since it is often impossible to ascertain that queried events are equally difficult, we circumvented the issue of equivalence by calculating deviation scores for each trial. We found that participants more frequently answered questions correctly about events that occurred in the period in which they were between 10 and 25 years old. Furthermore, we found that the reminiscence bump was more pronounced for cued recall than for recognition. We argue that these results support the biological account that events are stored better, because the memory system is working more efficiently during adolescence and early adulthood. These results do not falsify the other accounts for differential encoding, because they are not mutually exclusive.     

Reminiscence bump in autobiographical memory: Unexplained by novelty,emotionality, valence,or importance of personal events

People tend to recall a disproportionately large number of personal events from their adolescence and early adulthood. This “reminiscence bump” has been examined extensively, but its causes remain unclear. In this Internet-based experiment, nearly 3,500 participants were given 10 cue words and were asked to describe the personal events that came to mind. Furthermore, they were asked to date each event and to indicate whether it was a first-time experience. Finally, the participants were asked to rate the strength of the emotional reaction to the event or the valence or the importance of the event. Surprisingly, the reminiscence bump consisted of relatively fewer novel, emotional, important positive or negative events. This result increases the likelihood of an alternative explanation—namely, that memory is generally enhanced in adolescence and early adulthood. However, this account has not been tested directly.     

Temporal-spatial memory: retrieval of spatial information does not reduce recency

Factors influencing the shape of serial position curves in non-verbal serial short-term memory were examined, using a task testing memory for the position of dots. Similar recency slopes were found when both position and order were recalled (Experiment 1A) and when order only was required (Experiment 1B). This observation was confirmed and tested further in conditions requiring the same encoding but different amounts of spatial information at retrieval (Experiment 2). However, Experiment 2 also revealed an effect of spatial information retrieval on the overall level of memory for recency items. Overall, the results indicate that spatial items produce bow-shaped serial positions curves in tasks requiring the maintenance of order information and that recency is affected by the demand on spatial information retrieval in terms of the overall level of performance but not in terms of the recency slope. These findings are contrary to what is found in the literature on serial verbal recall when both item and order information are required.     

Depression, self-focused attention, and expectancies for positive and negative future life events for self and others

In two studies, we examined depressed and nondepressed persons' judgments of the probability of future positive and negative life events occurring to themselves and to others. Study 1 demonstrated that depressed subjects were generally less optimistic than their nondepressed counterparts: Although nondepressed subjects rated positive events as more likely to happen to themselves than negative events, depressed subjects did not. In addition, relative to nondepressed subjects, depressed subjects rated positive events as less likely to occur to themselves and more likely to occur to others and negative events as more likely to occur to both self and others. Study 2 investigated the role that differential levels of self-focused attention might play in mediating these differences. On the basis of prior findings that depressed persons generally engage in higher levels of self-focus than nondepressed persons do and the notion that self-focus activates one's self-schema, we hypothesized that inducing depressed subjects to focus externally would attenuate their pessimistic tendencies. Data from Study 2 supported the hypothesis that high levels of self-focus partially mediate depressive pessimism: Whereas self-focused depressed subjects were more pessimistic than nondepressed subjects, externally focused depressed subjects were not. The role of attentional focus in maintaining these and other depressive pessimistic tendencies was discussed.     

The effects of interference tasks on recency in the free recall of action events

Summary Lists of verbal instructions were read aloud and each was enacted either by the subject (SPTs) or by the experimenter (EPTs). In Experiment 1 free recall was made of lists of SPTs and EPTs either immediately after presentation, after an empty 20-s delay interval, or after a 20-s delay interval filled with backward counting. The recall of recency items was unaffected by the empty delay interval, but was somewhat reduced by the counting task. In Experiment 2 free recall was made of lists of SPTs and EPTs either immediately after presentation or after a delay that was filled with a single SPT or a single EPT, 20 s in length. The recency effect evident in the immediate-recall condition was virtually wiped out in the delay conditions, irrespective of whether the delay task matched those in the free-recall list or not. These results are discussed in terms of the mnemonic similarity of the two types of action event.     

Changing history: doctored photographs affect memory for past public events

We investigated how doctored photographs of past public events affect memory for those events. Italian participants viewed either original images or misleading digitally doctored images depicting the 1989 Tiananmen Square protest in Beijing and a 2003 protest in Rome against the war in Iraq, and they subsequently answered questions about those events. Viewing the doctored images affected the way participants remembered the events. Those who viewed the doctored photograph of the Beijing event estimated that a larger number of people participated in it. Those who viewed the doctored photograph of the Rome event rated the event as more violent and more negative, recalled more physical confrontation, damage to property, and injuries to demonstrators, and were less inclined to participate in future protests. Both younger and older adult participants were affected by the manipulation. Results indicate that doctored photographs of past public events can influence memory, attitudes and behavioural intentions. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Cognitive resources, valence, and memory retrieval of emotional events in older adults

In 2 studies with older adults, the authors investigated the effect of executive attention resources on the retrieval of emotional public events. Participants completed a battery of working memory tasks, as a measure of executive attention, and a battery of tasks assessing memory, as well as subjective experiences associated with the retrieval of remote public events. Participants also rated the valence of each public event story. The group-rated valence of the public event stories predicted retrieval and the quality of experiences associated with them, such that emotionally arousing events elicited the highest memory rates and the richest experiences. Furthermore, positive public events elicited the highest memory rates. Executive attention moderated only the relationship between event valence and how participants' associated memories are experienced at retrieval, such that superior executive attention resources predicted richer experiences associated with positive relative to neutral and negative stories. The current results extend previous findings on the effects of aging on emotion regulation, suggesting that cognitive control resources modulate subjective experiences associated with retrieved memories for remote real life events, but not memory retrieval itself. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2008 APA, all rights reserved).     

Encoding and retrieval processes in the memory for conceptually distinctive events

Memory for conceptually isolated (distinctive) words was investigated in two experiments. In Experiment 1, recognition of distinctive targets was compared with recognition of targets from homogeneous lists and with recognition of background information. Distinctive targets were better recognized than the same words presented in homogeneous lists. No effects of distinctiveness on the recognition accuracy of background items were observed. These results fail to support the hypothesis that distinctive information receives extra resources during encoding at the expense of surrounding background information. In Experiment 2 the effects of distinctiveness on recall were evaluated. Distinctive targets were more likely to be recalled than targets from homogeneous lists. However, unlike the effects found in recognition, background items were more poorly recalled from lists containing distinctive targets than from homogeneous lists. Organizational processes in recall were also evaluated. There was greater subjective organization for target and background items from lists containing distinctive targets than from lists containing nondistinctive targets. These results were discussed in terms of encoding and retrieval explanations of the effects of distinctiveness.     

Retrospective duration estimation of public events

In three experiments, we investigated subjects' retrospective estimation of the duration of publicly reported events such as, for example, the Falkland's war. In Experiment 1, duration estimates were found to be positively correlated with event knowledge, in keeping with Ornstein's (1969) model of duration estimation. Event duration was, however, generally underestimated, suggesting that the relationship between event knowledge and estimated duration might reflect an increase in estimation accuracy. Other results of Experiment 1 were consistent with this interpretation and suggested that the duration estimates might be largely reconstructed. In Experiment 2, duration estimates of specific events and general categories of events were found to be highly correlated, and the subjects in Experiment 3 indicated that they used knowledge of the general characteristic of different types of events to estimate event duration. Overall, reallife duration estimates appear to be based on a combination of specific event information and knowledge derived about that category of event.     

Remembering events related to close relationships,self-growth,and helping others: Intrinsic autobiographical memories,need satisfaction,and well-being

The present research examined the relationships between memories with intrinsic versus non-intrinsic themes, need satisfaction, and well-being. In Study 1, participants (n = 244) who included intrinsic themes when asked to describe an autobiographical memory reported greater well-being than participants who did not. The degree of need satisfaction characterizing these memories mediated the relationship between intrinsic memories and well-being. In Study 2, participants (n = 126) were assigned to describe a memory characterized by intrinsic (e.g., helping others) or extrinsic (e.g., popularity) values. Need satisfaction characterizing the intrinsic, but not extrinsic, memories, was associated with well-being. Describing an intrinsic (but not an extrinsic) memory positively increased situational well-being. Need satisfaction in the intrinsic memories predicted the subsequent increase in well-being.     

Reviving inert knowledge: analogical abstraction supports relational retrieval of past events

We present five experiments and simulation studies to establish late analogical abstraction as a new psychological phenomenon: Schema abstraction from analogical examples can revive otherwise inert knowledge. We find that comparing two analogous examples of negotiations at recall time promotes retrieving analogical matches stored in memory—a notoriously elusive effect. Another innovation in this research is that we show parallel effects for real-life autobiographical memory (Experiments 1–3) and for a controlled memory set (Experiments 4 and 5). Simulation studies show that a unified model based on schema abstraction can capture backward (retrieval) effects as well as forward (transfer) effects.     

When emotions of others affect decisions in public good dilemmas: An instrumental view

The present research examines whether the emotional display (i.e. anger vs. guilt) of another group member affects people's decision‐making in a public good dilemma. In two experiments we investigated whether the expressed emotion is particularly informative when communicated by a group member who is highly instrumental in reaching the provision point. A first experiment demonstrated that participants were more likely to exit the group when anger as opposed to guilt was communicated, but especially when the group member displaying the emotion was able to contribute many endowments to the public good. Expected justice (based on past inferences) in the group mediated this effect, suggesting that communicated anger signals more than guilt that the group will not set out to achieve fairness. In agreement with this, a second experiment showed that when it was not possible to exit the group, participants preferred to install a democratic leader more when a wealthy group member communicated anger as opposed to guilt. Additionally, this study provided experimental evidence that a communicated emotion is only used for subsequent decision‐making when more explicit information (i.e. a promise to contribute) is absent. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The effect of shame on anger at others: awareness of the emotion-causing events matters

Numerous studies have found that shame increases individuals’ anger at others. However, according to recent theories about the social function of shame and anger at others, it is possible that shame controls individuals’ anger at others in specific conditions. We replicated previous findings that shame increased individuals’ anger at others’ unfairness, when others were not aware of the individual’s experience of shameful events. We also found for the first time that shame controlled or even decreased individuals’ anger at others’ unfairness, when others were aware of the individual’s experience of shameful events. The results were consistent when shame was induced by either a recall paradigm or an imagination paradigm, and in either the ultimatum game or the dictator game. This suggests that shame strategically controls individuals’ anger at others to demonstrate that they are willing to benefit others, when facing the risk of social exclusion. Our findings highlight the interpersonal function of shame and deepen the understanding of the relationship between shame and anger at others.     

Memory for media: investigation of false memories for negatively and positively charged public events

Despite a large body of false memory research, little has addressed the potential influence of an event's emotional content on susceptibility to false recollections. The Paradoxical Negative Emotion (PNE) hypothesis predicts that negative emotion generally facilitates memory but also heightens susceptibility to false memories. Participants were asked whether they could recall 20 "widely publicised" public events (half fictitious) ranging in emotional valence, with or without visual cues. Participants recalled a greater number of true negative events (M=3.31/5) than true positive (M=2.61/5) events. Nearly everyone (95%) came to recall at least one false event (M=2.15 false events recalled). Further, more than twice as many participants recalled any false negative (90%) compared to false positive (41.7%) events. Negative events, in general, were associated with more detailed memories and false negative event memories were more detailed than false positive event memories. Higher dissociation scores were associated with false recollections of negative events, specifically.     

A comparison of Chinese and American memories for public events

Memory for public events was compared across Chinese and U.S. participants to explore competing explanations for cultural differences in flashbulb memories. Participant recall of the canonical features of events was more detailed and more likely to include a specific time in the United States than in the Chinese reports. Vividness was positively correlated with the flashbulb memory scores only in the U.S. sample. In both cultures, emotion, national importance, and thinking about the event predicted vividness and recall of memory details. Chinese participants reported primarily disasters and social events, and their memories were more likely to include international events than U.S. participants. The U.S. participants recalled primarily political events and terrorism. These results suggest that culture has important influences on the quantity, level of detail, completeness, and vividness of autobiographical memories as well as on the types of events triggering flashbulb memories.     

Remembering the forgotten? Reminiscence, hypermnesia and memory for order

Three experiments established that repeated testing affects item and order retention differently: Hypermnesia was found with repeated free recall tests, whereas net performance declined significantly across successive free reconstruction of order tests. Overall order performance declined over tests under a variety of encoding conditions (pictures, words, and relational and item-specific processing) and retrieval conditions (intentional and incidental learning). Although net performance dropped across tests, participants did show reliable order recovery (reminiscence) between tests. The implications of these data for general theories of hypermnesia and order are discussed.