Episodic autobiographical memory in depression: Specificity, autonoetic consciousness, and self-perspective

Autobiographical memory (AM) and the self are closely linked. AM retrieval in depression is characterized by a lack of specificity, suggesting an impairment of episodic AM. Autonoetic consciousness and self-perspective, which are critical to episodic AM, have never been addressed in depression. Twenty-one depressed inpatients and 21 matched controls were given an episodic AM task designed to assess positive and negative memories regarding specificity, autonoetic consciousness (remember/know procedure), and self-perspective (field/observer procedure). For specificity, "remember", and "field" responses, ANOVAs revealed a main group effect and a group x valence interaction. Between groups, patients showed lower scores than controls for positive memories. Within groups, patients showed greater scores for negative memories, and controls showed greater scores for positive memories. There is a global episodic AM impairment of positive memories in depression regarding specificity, autonoetic consciousness, and self-perspective. Our results suggest new cognitive interventions to improve the self-relevance of positive memories in depression.     

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.     

Autobiographical memory, autonoetic consciousness, and self-perspective in aging

In this study, the authors examined the effects of aging on autobiographical memory in 180 participants by means of a new method designed to assess across 5 lifetime periods the nature of memories-that is, specificity and spontaneity--and the phenomenal experience of remembering--that is, self-perspective and autonoetic consciousness--via the field/observer and remember/know paradigms respectively. Age-related differences were found for the specificity and spontaneity of memories and the phenomenal experience of remembering. There was an increase in observer and know responses with age, but a decrease in field and remember responses and in the ability to justify them by recalling sensory-perceptive, affective, or spatiotemporal specific details. This pattern confirms the existence of a semantic-episodic dissociation in autobiographical memory in aging. Moreover, the data support the view that older participants can subjectively "travel back in time" to relive personal events in the most distant past better than those in the recent past.     

A test of the functional avoidance hypothesis in the development of overgeneral autobiographical memory

Overgeneral memory (OGM) refers to the failure to recall memories of specific personally experienced events, which occurs in various psychiatric disorders. One pathway through which OGM is theorized to develop is the avoidance of thinking of negative experiences, whereby cumulative avoidance may maladaptively generalize to autobiographical memory (AM) more broadly. We tested this, predicting that negative experiences would interact with avoidance to predict AM specificity. In Study 1 (N = 281), negative life events (over six months) and daily hassles (over one month) were not related to AM specificity, nor was avoidance, and no interaction was found. In Study 2 (N = 318), we revised our measurements and used an increased timeframe of 12 months for both negative life events and daily hassles. The results showed no interaction effect for negative life events, but they did show an interaction for daily hassles, whereby increased hassles and higher avoidance of thinking about them were associated with reduced AM specificity, independent of general cognitive avoidance and depressive symptoms. No evidence was found that cognitive avoidance or AM specificity moderated the effect of negative experiences on depressive symptoms. Our findings suggest that life events over 6–12 months are not associated with AM specificity, but chronic daily hassles over 12 months predict reduced AM specificity when individuals avoid thinking about them. The findings provide evidence for the functional-avoidance hypothesis of OGM development and future directions for longitudinal studies.     

“Why” or “How”: The Effect of Concrete Versus Abstract Processing on Intrusive Memories Following Analogue Trauma

Emergency service workers, military personnel, and journalists working in conflict zones are regularly exposed to trauma as part of their jobs and suffer higher rates of posttraumatic stress compared with the general population. These individuals often know that they will be exposed to trauma and therefore have the opportunity to adopt potentially protective cognitive strategies. One cognitive strategy linked to better mood and recovery from upsetting events is concrete information processing. Conversely, abstract information processing is linked to the development of anxiety and depression. We trained 50 healthy participants to apply an abstract or concrete mode of processing to six traumatic film clips and to apply this mode of processing to a posttraining traumatic film. Intrusive memories of the films were recorded for 1 week and the Impact of Events Scale–Revised (IES-R; Weiss & Marmar, 1997) was completed at 1-week follow-up. As predicted, participants in the concrete condition reported significantly fewer intrusive memories in response to the films and had lower IES-R scores compared with those in the abstract condition. They also showed reduced emotional reactivity to the posttraining film. Self-reported proneness to intrusive memories in everyday life was significantly correlated with intrusive memories of the films, whereas trait rumination, trait dissociation, and sleep difficulties were not. Findings suggest that training individuals to adopt a concrete mode of information processing during analogue trauma may protect against the development of intrusive memories.     

Cognitive avoidance of intrusive memories: recall vantage perspective and associations with depression

Although recent research demonstrates that intrusive memories represent an overlapping cognitive feature of depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), there is still a general paucity of research investigating the prevalence and maintenance of intrusive memories in depression. The current study investigated the association between a range of cognitive avoidant mechanisms that characterize PTSD samples (i.e., suppression, rumination, emotional detachment, and an observer vantage perspective) and intrusive memories of negative autobiographical events in relation to dysphoria. Hypotheses were based on the proposition that employment of these cognitive mechanisms would hinder the emotional processing of the negative event, thus contributing to the maintenance of intrusions. Results supported an association between negative intrusive memories, dysphoria, and avoidant mechanisms. Significant differences were also found between field and observer memories and measures of emotional detachment and rumination. Implications relating to intrusive memory maintenance and treatment approaches are discussed.     

Levels of specificity of autobiographical memories and of biographical memories of the deceased in bereaved individuals with and without complicated grief

Traumatized individuals experiencing posttraumatic stress have difficulty retrieving specific autobiographical memories to cue words on the Autobiographical Memory Test (AMT; J. M. G. Williams & K. Broadbent, 1986). This may represent a generalized, functional avoidance of the personal past. However, such individuals also often report specific intrusive memories of their trauma in the day-to-day. This raises the possibility that memories tied to the source of the person's distress are immune to this putative avoidance process. This was investigated in bereaved individuals with complicated grief (CG) who reported intrusive, specific memories from the life of their deceased loved one, and matched bereaved controls without CG. Participants performed the AMT and two Biographical Memory Tests (BMTs), cueing memories from the life of the deceased (BMT-Deceased) and from a living significant other (BMT-Living). To negative word cues, the CG group showed reduced specificity for the AMT and BMT-Living, relative to controls, but this effect was reversed on the BMT-Deceased. These data support the proposal that memories tied to the source of an individual's distress are immune to the processes that underlie the standard reduced specificity effect.     

Assessment of behavioural markers of autonoetic consciousness during episodic autobiographical memory retrieval: a preliminary analysis

There is ongoing theoretical debate regarding episodic memory and how it can be accurately measured, in particular if the focus should be content-based recall of episodic details or something more experiential involving the subjective capacity to mentally travel back in time and "re-live" aspects of the original event. The autonoetic subscale of the Episodic Autobiographical Memory Interview (EAMI) is presented here as a new test instrument that attempts to redress theoretical and methodological shortcomings in autobiographical memory assessment. The EAMI merges a phenomenological detail-based approach with an assessment of autonoetic consciousness, departing considerably from traditional Remember/Know paradigms used within this field. We present findings from an initial pilot study investigating the potential markers of autonoetic consciousness that may accompany episodic retrieval. Key behavioural indices of autonoetic consciousness, notably those of viewer perspective, visual imagery, and emotional re-experiencing, emerged as being inextricably bound with the level of phenomenological detail recalled and the overall re-living judgment. The autonoetic subscale of the EAMI permits conceptually refined assessment of episodic personal memories and the accompanying subjective experience of mental re-living, characteristic of episodic memory.     

Characteristics of intrusive memories in a community sample of depressed, recovered depressed and never-depressed individuals

An accumulating body of evidence has revealed that intrusive autobiographical memories of negative events play a role in depression. Despite increasing understanding of the phenomenological experience of these memories, previous research in this area has been conducted in either nonclinical samples, or in clinical samples without an adequate control group. This study aimed to replicate and extend findings with dysphoric samples by comparing the content and characteristics of intrusive memories in clinically depressed (n = 25), recovered (n = 30) and never-depressed (n = 30) participants. Participants completed mood measures, and a battery of self-report questionnaires that indexed intrusive memory frequency, avoidance and characteristics. Intrusive memories were common and shared strikingly similar characteristics across the three groups. The key finding was that depressed participants reported higher levels of intrusion-related distress, associated emotions (especially sadness and helplessness), interference as a result of the memories and memory vividness compared to the never-depressed group. Despite similar levels of intrusion, there were group differences in avoidance such that depressed participants reported higher levels of avoidance than the never-depressed group. These results provide further support for the proposal that clinical interventions for depression could usefully incorporate components that aim to reduce intrusive autobiographical memories and target avoidance strategies.     

Memory and coping with stress: the relationship between cognitive-emotional distinctiveness, memory valence, and distress

Cognitive-emotional distinctiveness (CED), the extent to which an individual separates emotions from an event in the cognitive representation of the event, was explored in four studies. CED was measured using a modified multidimensional scaling procedure. The first study found that lower levels of CED in memories of the September 11 terrorist attacks predicted greater frequency of intrusive thoughts about the attacks. The second study revealed that CED levels are higher in negative events, in comparison to positive events and that low CED levels in emotionally intense negative events are associated with a pattern of greater event-related distress. The third study replicated the findings from the previous study when examining CED levels in participants' memories of the 2004 Presidential election. The fourth study revealed that low CED in emotionally intense negative events is associated with worse mental health. We argue that CED is an adaptive and healthy coping feature of stressful memories.     

An investigation of the cognitive and experiential features of intrusive memories in depression

Intrusive autobiographical memories of negative past events are a clinical feature common to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression. Recent investigations provide increasing evidence that shared cognitive processes are linked to the maintenance of intrusive memories in both conditions. Still absent from the existing literature, however, is a systematic examination of the basic content and defining characteristics of intrusive memories in depression. This study sought to: (i) outline the content and features of intrusive memories in depression, and (ii) investigate whether intrusion characteristics linked to the persistence of intrusive memories in PTSD are also characteristic of intrusive memories in depression. A sample of undergraduate students (n=250) were interviewed and assessed for the presence of an intrusive memory in the past week, and completed a battery of measures that indexed cognitive and affective responses to the memory. Consistent with prediction, intrusive memories contained high levels of sensory experience and were marked by a sense of "nowness". In accord with studies with PTSD samples, sensory features accounted for unique variance in the prediction of depression severity, over and above that accounted for by intrusion frequency. This pattern of findings was replicated in a dysphoric (BDI-II>or=12) sub-sample of participants. Our results underscore the value of drawing on theoretical conceptualisations and empirical findings from the post-traumatic stress literature to extend our understanding of intrusive memories in depression.     

An investigation of the cognitive and experiential features of intrusive memories in depression

Intrusive autobiographical memories of negative past events are a clinical feature common to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression. Recent investigations provide increasing evidence that shared cognitive processes are linked to the maintenance of intrusive memories in both conditions. Still absent from the existing literature, however, is a systematic examination of the basic content and defining characteristics of intrusive memories in depression. This study sought to: (i) outline the content and features of intrusive memories in depression, and (ii) investigate whether intrusion characteristics linked to the persistence of intrusive memories in PTSD are also characteristic of intrusive memories in depression. A sample of undergraduate students (n=250) were interviewed and assessed for the presence of an intrusive memory in the past week, and completed a battery of measures that indexed cognitive and affective responses to the memory. Consistent with prediction, intrusive memories contained high levels of sensory experience and were marked by a sense of “nowness”. In accord with studies with PTSD samples, sensory features accounted for unique variance in the prediction of depression severity, over and above that accounted for by intrusion frequency. This pattern of findings was replicated in a dysphoric (BDI-II≥12) sub-sample of participants. Our results underscore the value of drawing on theoretical conceptualisations and empirical findings from the post-traumatic stress literature to extend our understanding of intrusive memories in depression.     

Operant conditioning of autobiographical memory retrieval

Functional avoidance is considered as one of the key mechanisms underlying overgeneral autobiographical memory (OGM). According to this view OGM is regarded as a learned cognitive avoidance strategy, based on principles of operant conditioning; i.e., individuals learn to avoid the emotionally painful consequences associated with the retrieval of specific negative memories. The aim of the present study was to test one of the basic assumptions of the functional avoidance account, namely that autobiographical memory retrieval can be brought under operant control. Here 41 students were instructed to retrieve personal memories in response to 60 emotional cue words. Depending on the condition, they were punished with an aversive sound for the retrieval of specific or nonspecific memories in an operant conditioning procedure. Analyzes showed that the course of memory specificity significantly differed between conditions. After the procedure participants punished for nonspecific memories retrieved significantly more specific memories compared to participants punished for specific memories. However, whereas memory specificity significantly increased in participants punished for specific memories, it did not significantly decrease in participants punished for nonspecific memories. Thus, while our findings indicate that autobiographical memory retrieval can be brought under operant control, they do not support a functional avoidance view on OGM.     

Personality and mental time travel: a differential approach to autonoetic consciousness

Recent research on autonoetic consciousness indicates that the ability to remember the past and the ability to project oneself into the future are closely related. The purpose of the present study was to confirm this proposition by examining whether the relationship observed between personality and episodic memory could be extended to episodic future thinking and, more generally, to investigate the influence of personality traits on self-information processing in the past and in the future. Results show that Neuroticism and Harm Avoidance predict more negative past memories and future projections. Other personality dimensions exhibit a more limited influence on mental time travel (MTT). Therefore, our study provide an additional evidence to the idea that MTT into the past and into the future rely on a common set of processes by which past experiences are used to envision the future.     

Do intrusive memory characteristics predict depression at 6 months?

Two prospective studies have investigated whether the presence, intrusion, and avoidance of negative intrusive memories predict depression, and have reported conflicting findings. We aimed to replicate and extend these investigations by exploring the role of intrusion and avoidance of intrusive memories, as well as memory characteristics, in the prediction of depression prospectively. At Time 1 a mixed sample of community participants (N=85) were interviewed and completed self-report measures of depression, anxiety, and intrusive memory features. At Time 2 (6 months later, N=64) depression and anxiety symptoms were reassessed. Results were partly consistent with hypotheses for the sub-sample of participants who did not receive treatment between the baseline and follow-up assessments. Baseline levels of intrusion and some memory features (uncontrollability, distress, interference, numbness, detachment) predicted follow-up depression, controlling for baseline depression symptoms. Unexpectedly, avoidance of intrusive memories and other features (e.g., here and now quality) did not predict depression. Levels of intrusion and avoidance did not predict anxiety at follow-up. These results provide further evidence that intrusive memories are not simply an epiphenomenon of depression, but predict depression prospectively. Our results suggest that novel, depression-specific theories that emphasise the role of memory disturbances in the maintenance of depression are needed.     

Mnemonic differences and similarities across opposing social groups: The linguistic conflict at the University of Leuven as a case study

In the 1960s, a historical event occurred at one of Europe's most prestigious universities: The Dutch-speaking students forced the French-speaking students to relocate and establish their own university. We compared the extent to which members of each social group developed elaborate memories of the events surrounding the conflict and whether they were associated with differences in rehearsal type (media, conversational, rumination) and initiating conditions (importance, political engagement, and negative/positive emotions). All participants were university students at the time of the conflict. We found that Dutch-speakers exhibited more elaborate memories compared to French-speakers and that importance was associated with elaborate memories only for the Dutch-speakers. However, positive emotions appear to be critical in the formation of elaborate memories across the social groups. We found no such associations for negative emotions. We discuss these results in terms of the social/cognitive processes transcending social group membership in understanding how individuals remember past conflicts.     

Reduction in Memory Specificity Following an Approach/Avoidance Scrambled Sentences Task Relates to Cognitive Avoidant Coping

Overgeneral autobiographical memory (OGM) refers to the tendency to retrieve less specific personal memories. According to the functional avoidance hypothesis, OGM might act as a cognitive strategy to avoid emotionally distressing details of negative memories. In the present study, we investigated the effect of an experimentally induced avoidant state on memory specificity. We primed an avoidant state in half of the participants and an approaching state in the other half by means of a Scrambled Sentences Task (SST). Memory specificity was measured before and after priming. Trait cognitive avoidant coping was assessed prior to the experiment. Analyses indicated that higher trait avoidance was significantly associated with lower memory specificity after the SST and stronger reductions in memory specificity from pre- to post-SST, irrespective of the priming condition. The latter suggests that the SST triggered high avoiders’ avoidance schema in both conditions, possibly because it was experienced as a stressor.

     

Autonoetic consciousness in autobiographical memories after medial temporal lobe resection

This study aims to investigate autonoetic consciousness associated with episodic autobiographical memory in patients who had undergone unilateral medial temporal lobe resection for intractable epilepsy. Autonoetic consciousness, defined as the conscious feeling of mentally travelling back in time to relive a specific event, was assessed using the Remember/Know (R/K) paradigm across different time periods as proposed in the autobiographical memory task developed by Piolino et al. (TEMPau task). Results revealed that the two patient groups (left and right temporal resection) gave reduced sense of reliving (R) responses and more familiarity (K) responses than healthy controls. This poor autonoetic consciousness was highlighted when patients were asked to justify their Remember responses by recalling sensory-perceptive, affective or spatiotemporal specific details across all life periods. These results support the bilateral MTL contribution to episodic autobiographical memory covering the entire lifespan, which is consistent with the multiple trace theory of MTL function. This study also demonstrates the bilateral involvement of MTL structures in recalling specific details of personal events characterized by autonoetic consciousness.     

Memory and coping with stress: The relationship between cognitive–emotional distinctiveness,memory valence,and distress

Cognitive–emotional distinctiveness (CED), the extent to which an individual separates emotions from an event in the cognitive representation of the event, was explored in four studies. CED was measured using a modified multidimensional scaling procedure. The first study found that lower levels of CED in memories of the September 11 terrorist attacks predicted greater frequency of intrusive thoughts about the attacks. The second study revealed that CED levels are higher in negative events, in comparison to positive events and that low CED levels in emotionally intense negative events are associated with a pattern of greater event-related distress. The third study replicated the findings from the previous study when examining CED levels in participants’ memories of the 2004 Presidential election. The fourth study revealed that low CED in emotionally intense negative events is associated with worse mental health. We argue that CED is an adaptive and healthy coping feature of stressful memories.     

Impaired strategic regulation of contents of conscious awareness in schizophrenia

Conscious awareness comprises two distinct states, autonoetic and noetic awareness. Schizophrenia impairs autonoetic, but not noetic, awareness. We investigated the strategic regulation of relevant and irrelevant contents of conscious awareness in schizophrenia using a directed forgetting paradigm. Twenty-one patients with schizophrenia and 21 normal controls were presented with words and told to learn some of them and forget others. In a subsequent test, they were asked to recognize all the words they had seen previously and give remember, know or guess responses according to whether they recognized words on the basis of autonoetic awareness, noetic awareness, or guessing. Overall, patients showed the same degree of a directed forgetting effect as normal subjects. However, whereas the effect was observed both for remember and know responses in normal subjects, it was observed for know, but not for remember, responses in patients. These results indicate that patients with schizophrenia exhibit an impaired strategic regulation of contents of autonetic awareness for relevant and irrelevant information.