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.     

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.     

Visual object imagery and autobiographical memory: Object Imagers are better at remembering their personal past

In the present study we examined whether higher levels of object imagery, a stable characteristic that reflects the ability and preference in generating pictorial mental images of objects, facilitate involuntary and voluntary retrieval of autobiographical memories (ABMs). Individuals with high (High-OI) and low (Low-OI) levels of object imagery were asked to perform an involuntary and a voluntary ABM task in the laboratory. Results showed that High-OI participants generated more involuntary and voluntary ABMs than Low-OI, with faster retrieval times. High-OI also reported more detailed memories compared to Low-OI and retrieved memories as visual images. Theoretical implications of these findings for research on voluntary and involuntary ABMs are discussed.     

Narrative perspective shift at retrieval: The psychological-distance-mediated-effect on emotional intensity of positive and negative autobiographical memory

The present study manipulated participants’ narrative perspectives (1st-personal pronoun “I” and 3rd-personal pronoun “He/She”) to vary their field and observer visual perspectives that they took to retrieve autobiographical events and examine how the shifts in narrative perspective could influence the self-rated emotional intensity of autobiographical memory. Results showed that when narrative perspectives effectively shifted participants’ visual perspectives from field to observer, they felt attenuated emotional intensities of positive and negative autobiographical memories. However, this did not occur when narrative perspectives effectively shifted the visual perspectives from observer to field. Multiple mediator models further showed that the changes in psychological distance and imagery vividness (a distance-related construct) of autobiographical memory mediated the relationship between the narrative perspective shift from the 1st- to 3rd-person and the reduction in the intensities of negative and positive emotion. This provides support for the role of psychological distancing in reducing the emotional intensity of autobiographical memory.     

Visual perspective in remembering and episodic future thought

According to the constructive episodic simulation hypothesis, remembering and episodic future thinking are supported by a common set of constructive processes. In the present study, we directly addressed this assertion in the context of third-person perspectives that arise during remembering and episodic future thought. Specifically, we examined the frequency with which participants remembered past events or imagined future events from third-person perspectives. We also examined the different viewpoints from which third-person perspective events were remembered or imagined. Although future events were somewhat more likely to be imagined from a third-person perspective, the spatial viewpoint distributions of third-person perspectives characterizing remembered and imagined events were highly similar. These results suggest that a similar constructive mechanism may be at work when people remember events from a perspective that could not have been experienced in the past and when they imagine events from a perspective that could not be experienced in the future. The findings are discussed in terms of their consistency with—and as extensions of—the constructive episodic simulation hypothesis.     

Looking the past in the eye: Distortion in memory and the costs and benefits of recalling from an observer perspective

Jordi Fernández (2015) discusses the possible benefits of two types of allegedly distorted memories: observer memories and fabricated memories. Fernández argues that even when memory does not preserve the past, some memories can still provide an adaptive benefit for the subject. I explore Fernández’s claims focussing on the case of observer perspective memories. For Fernández, observer perspectives are distorted memories because they do not preserve past experience. In contrast, I suggest that observer perspectives can accurately reflect past experience: observer perspectives are not necessarily distorted memories. By looking at the complexity of the relation between remembering trauma from an observer perspective and emotional closure, I also sound a note of caution against Fernández’s assertion that observer memories of trauma can be adaptively beneficial. Finally, I suggest that because observer perspectives are not necessarily distorted, but involve a distinct way of thinking about one’s past, such memories can be epistemically beneficial.     

Field perspective deficit for positive memories characterizes autobiographical memory in euthymic depressed patients

Research on autobiographical memory (AM) and the ability to retrieve specific autobiographical events in euthymic depressed patients yielded divergent results. The main goal of the present study was to further explore episodic specificity of AM among fully remitted depressed patients. Twenty euthymic depressed patients and 20 matched healthy controls were given a semi-structured interview, which assesses episodic specificity of positive and negative autobiographical memories regarding event and details' specificity, autonoetic consciousness (remember/know procedure) and visual perspective (field/observer procedure). Results showed an impairment of episodic specificity of AM in euthymic depressed patients. This impairment was explained by a field perspective deficit for positive memories only. These results suggest that euthymic patients continue to exhibit discrepancy between their current self and their self for positive past behaviors, which maintains an unfavorable view of their current self. Specific cognitive interventions may improve the self-relevance of their positive memories.     

Visual memory for agents and their actions

Humans spend a considerable amount of time remembering other individuals' actions. Nevertheless, it is unclear how the visual system stores information about the identities of agents and their actions. To address this, I used a change detection method where observers were asked to remember agents and the actions they performed. Results show that observers can maintain information about both 2-3 agents and 2-3 actions simultaneously. However, they are highly impaired for remembering which agent performed which action, indicating that agent and action information are retained separately in visual working memory. Further experiments show that agent and action information can be bound together when the visual input contains the appropriate cues. However, this binding process significantly reduces the total amount of information that can be retained. Together, these results show that (1) an additional, resource-demanding process is needed to integrate agent and action information stored in separate working memory stores, and (2) the extent to which these two types of information are bound into integrated units depends largely on the presence of specific cues in the visual input.     

Visual perspective as a two-dimensional construct in episodic future thought

Visual perspective (first-person vs. third-person) is a salient characteristic of memory and mental imagery with important cognitive and behavioural consequences. Most work on visual perspective treats it as a unidimensional construct. However, third-person perspective can have opposite effects on emotion and motivation, sometimes intensifying these and other times acting as a distancing mechanism, as in PTSD. For this reason among others, we propose that visual perspective in memory and mental imagery is best understood as varying along two dimensions: first, the degree to which first-person perspective predominates in the episodic imagery, and second, the degree to which the self is visually salient from a third-person perspective. We show that, in episodic future thinking, these are anticorrelated but non-redundant. These results further our basic understanding of the potent but divergent effects visual perspective has on emotion and motivation, both in everyday life and in psychiatric conditions.     

Visual perspective and genetics: A commentary on Lemogne and colleagues

Lemogne and colleagues offer an interesting extension to their previous work on visual perspective and depression: Individuals at-risk for depression (defined as higher scores on Harm Avoidance), without a history of mood disorders, report retrieval of positive memories from the 3rd person perspective. Their findings suggest that the retrieval of positive experiences from the 3rd person perspective may be a risk-factor for depression, not just a lingering consequence of it. Their study, however, also reports a genetic association in a severely underpowered sample. Rather than focusing on gene x environment interactions, which large, well-powered studies on related phenotypes have failed to detect, a greater understanding of the phenomenology of visual perspective may be a more fruitful avenue for future research.     

The effects of autobiographical memory and visual perspective on working memory

The present research aims to explore whether recalling and writing about autobiographical memory from different perspectives (first-person perspective vs. third-person perspective) could affect cognitive function. The participants first performed a working memory task to evaluate their working memory capacity as a baseline and then were instructed to recall (Study 1) or write about (Study 2) personal events (failures vs. successes) from the first-person perspective or the third-person perspective. Finally, they performed the working memory task again. The results suggested that autobiographical memory and perspective influence working memory interactively. When recalling a success, the participants who recalled from the third-person perspective performed better than those who recalled from the first-person perspective on the working memory capacity task; when recalling a failure, the opposite was true.     

Sensory features of mental images in the framework of human actions

What determines the sensory impression of a self-generated motor image? Motor imagery is a process in which subjects imagine executing a body movement with a strong kinesthetic and/or visual component from a first-person perspective. Both sensory modalities can be combined flexibly to form a motor image. 90 participants of varying ages had to freely generate motor images from a large set of movements. They were asked to rate their kinesthetic as well as their visual impression, the perceived vividness, and their personal experience with the imagined movement. Data were subjected to correlational analyses, linear regressions, and representation similarity analyses. Results showed that both action characteristics and experience drove the sensory impression of motor images with a strong individual component. We conclude that imagining actions that impose varying demands can be considered as reexperiencing actions by using one’s own sensorimotor representations that represent not only individual experience but also action demands.     

Follow-up of a cross-national comparison on flashbulb and event memory for the September 11th attacks

Flashbulb memories are defined as vivid and long-lasting memories for the reception context of an important public event (Brown & Kulik, 1977). They are supposed to be triggered by both emotional reactions to the original event and rehearsal processes (Brown & Kulik, 1977; Finkenauer, Luminet, Gisle, El-Ahmadi, van der Linden, & Philippot, 1998; Neisser & Harsch, 1992). A test-retest design (21 vs 524 days after the event on average) was employed to assess flashbulb memory and event memory for the September 11th attacks and the impact of their emotional and rehearsal predictors in a sample of 985 respondents coming from six countries (i.e., Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands, Romania, Japan, and the USA). Results showed that national membership had a significant impact on event memory, and the emotional and rehearsal variables, but flashbulb memories for the September 11th attacks were found to be high and consistent across different countries. The implications of these findings for the debate about the nature and maintenance of flashbulb memories are discussed.     

Remembering from any angle: the flexibility of visual perspective during retrieval

When recalling autobiographical memories, individuals often experience visual images associated with the event. These images can be constructed from two different perspectives: first person, in which the event is visualized from the viewpoint experienced at encoding, or third person, in which the event is visualized from an external vantage point. Using a novel technique to measure visual perspective, we examined where the external vantage point is situated in third-person images. Individuals in two studies were asked to recall either 10 or 15 events from their lives and describe the perspectives they experienced. Wide variation in spatial locations was observed within third-person perspectives, with the location of these perspectives relating to the event being recalled. Results suggest remembering from an external viewpoint may be more common than previous studies have demonstrated.     

When the "I" looks at the "Me": autobiographical memory, visual perspective, and the self

This article presents a theoretical model of the self processes involved in autobiographical memories and proposes competing hypotheses for the role of visual perspective in autobiographical memory retrieval. Autobiographical memories can be retrieved from either the 1st person perspective, in which individuals see the event through their own eyes, or from the 3rd person perspective, in which individuals see themselves and the event from the perspective of an external observer. A growing body of research suggests that the visual perspective from which a memory is retrieved has important implications for a person’s thoughts, feelings, and goals, and is integrally related to a host of self-evaluative processes. We review the relevant research literature, present our theoretical model, and outline directions for future research.     

Retrieval properties of negative vs. positive mental images and autobiographical memories in social anxiety: outcomes with a new measure

High (n = 41) and low (n = 39) socially anxious (SA) participants completed the Waterloo Images and Memories Interview (WIMI), a new assessment tool that measures the accessibility and properties of mental images and associated autobiographical memories that individuals may experience across both anxiety-provoking (negative) and non-anxiety-provoking (positive) social situations. Results indicated that both high and low SA individuals experience negative images and associated autobiographical memories in anxiety-provoking social situations, but the rates of endorsement of such images and memories among high SA participants were substantially lower than those reported in recent studies. Moreover, whereas low SA individuals were capable of accessing a relatively balanced array of both negative and positive self-representations that were rich in episodic detail, high SA individuals retrieved a higher, more unbalanced ratio of negative-to-positive images and memories, as well as impoverished positive images that were significantly degraded in episodic detail. Finally, negative images influenced the two groups differently, with high SA individuals experiencing more negative emotional and cognitive consequences associated with bringing such images to mind. These results are discussed in relation to theoretical models of learning and memory within the context of contemporary cognitive behavioral models of social anxiety.     

Selective interference with image retention and generation: Evidence for the workspace model

We address three types of model of the relationship between working memory (WM) and long-term memory (LTM): (a) the gateway model, in which WM acts as a gateway between perceptual input and LTM; (b) the unitary model, in which WM is seen as the currently activated areas of LTM; and (c) the workspace model, in which perceptual input activates LTM, and WM acts as a separate workspace for processing and temporary retention of these activated traces. Predictions of these models were tested, focusing on visuospatial working memory and using dual-task methodology to combine two main tasks (visual short-term retention and image generation) with two interference tasks (irrelevant pictures and spatial tapping). The pictures selectively disrupted performance on the generation task, whereas the tapping selectively interfered with the retention task. Results are consistent with the predictions of the workspace model.     

Gender and emotion in everyday event memory

While women often recall more detailed and socially oriented event memories than men, it is not clear at which stage of remembering such gender differences emerge. This study investigated this question in a sample of young adults (N=60). A random sampling method was used where participants received a text message three times a day during a 1-week period and were asked to record as soon as they read the message what was happening during the past 30 minutes. At the end of the week they received a surprise memory test for the events that they had recorded. Compared with men, women recorded a greater number of event details at the encoding phase and provided more detailed and accurate memories at the delayed recall, although there was no gender difference in the forgetting function during retention. Gender difference in the social orientation of memory was not apparent until recall. In addition the effects of emotion intensity and valence were observed on the detailedness, accuracy, and content of memory. The findings shed new light on the mechanisms underlying gender differences in episodic memory.     

Autobiographical memory for shame or guilt provoking events: Association with psychological symptoms

The diagnostic criteria for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) specify that a qualifying traumatic stressor must incite extreme peritraumatic fear, horror, or helplessness. However, research suggests that events inciting guilt or shame may be associated with PTSD. We devised a web-based survey in which non-clinical participants identified an event associated with shame or guilt and completed questionnaire measures of shame, guilt, PTSD, and depression. In addition, we assessed characteristics of memory for the event, including visual perspective and the centrality of the memory to the participant’s autobiographical narrative (CES). Shame predicted depression and PTSD symptoms. There was no association between guilt and psychological symptoms after controlling statistically for the effects of shame. CES predicted the severity of depression and PTSD symptoms. In addition, CES mediated the moderating effect of visual perspective on the relationship between emotional intensity and PTSD symptoms. Our results suggest shame is capable of eliciting the intrusive and distressing memories characteristic of PTSD. Furthermore, our results suggest aversive emotional events are associated with psychological distress when memory for those events becomes central to one’s identity and autobiographical narrative.