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.     

Emotion regulation,autobiographical memories and life narratives

Few studies have examined the relationships between emotion regulation, autobiographical memory and autobiographical narrative despite evidence that suggests that these constructs are linked. The lack of research is likely ascribed to the specificity of the construct of emotion regulation. The present review examines this area of investigation and indicates two directions for the research: first, emotion regulation is considered to be an effect of autobiographical narratives; thus, individuals engage in the construction of a life story to regulate emotions. Second, emotion regulation is an ability that improves the processes of encoding and retrieving memories. The results of this research are presented, and the potential developments are discussed in terms of the relations among these three constructs.     

Musculoskeletal pain complaints and performance on cognitive tasks over the adult life span

The present study aimed at comparing participants with and without self reported musculoskeletal pain in a normal population with regard to performance on a range of tests for episodic memory, semantic memory, and other cognitive functions and to see if expected differences interacted with age. The results showed that participants with pain performed worse on a range of tasks as compared to participants without pain, and that these differences occurred regardless of age. The most robust effects of pain were displayed on tests for vocabulary and construction ability as these were the only effects that remained significant after controlling for years of education and reported depression in separate analyses. When depression and education were controlled for in the same analysis, even these effects were eliminated, suggesting interplay between pain, depressive status, and educational level in the negative effects on cognitive functioning.     

Cytokines and memory across the mature life span of women

Increasing evidence suggests a role of the immune system in modulation of cognition, but details on affected memory systems are largely lacking. We therefore aimed to study the relation between selected cytokines and subsets of memory, and the impact of age in these relations. From a random population-based sample (the Betula Prospective Cohort Study), 298 women (age 45-90) were studied in terms of episodic recall and recognition, semantic fluency and knowledge, and prospective memory. Circulating cytokines of relevance for cognition and aging were measured with ELISA. Levels of interleukin (IL)-6 and sIL-2R were significantly and negatively associated with most cognitive variables, while the opposite was true for IL-1β. Age shared substantial variance with both cytokines and memory, and turned most correlations non-significant when controlled for together with education, BMI and presence of disease. Interactions between age and cytokines were further analyzed in multiple regressions. For IL-6, significant negative interactions with age were found for semantic fluency (p<0.05) and prospective memory (p<0.01), and for sIL-2R in predicting semantic knowledge (p<0.05), indicating an increased negative impact of these cytokines on memory with increasing age. In conclusion, the study indicates a relation between cytokines and memory that appears to be largely mediated by age, and supports the suggestion that cytokine dysregulation with higher age may interact with cognitive aging.     

The relationship between early life stress and working memory in adulthood: A systematic review and meta-analysis

ABSTRACT

Exposure to early life stress has been linked to impairment in cognitive functioning in adulthood. The aim of this study was to systematically review the literature on the relationship between early life stress and working memory, a central component of cognitive functioning. Database searches yielded 358 abstracts matching the search terms. Abstract screening followed by full-text review resulted in 26 publications suitable for inclusion, of which 23 were included in the meta-analysis. Results of the meta-analysis suggested exposure to early life stress was associated with poorer working memory. Even though there were a wide variety of working memory tasks used, this effect was significant for both phonological and visuospatial working memory tasks, and both visual and aural task presentation modalities. The effect was also found in samples with and without clinical psychopathology. This review provides recommendations for future research and implications for clinical practice.     

There is more to life stories than memories

Current theories focus on the role of specific memories in organising the life story. However, temporally extended structures of autobiographical memory, like lifetime periods and mini-narratives (here termed chapters), may also play a central role in the organisation of the life story. Here, 30 elderly participants were asked to tell their life story in a free format. The life stories were divided into components and coded as chapters, specific memories, categoric memories, facts, chapters about other people, and autobiographical reasoning categories, i.e., reflections, evaluations, life lessons, and inferences about personality. The results show that chapters were much more common than specific memories in the life stories, indicating that chapters may play a role in the structuring of life stories. The number of chapters and specific memories in the life stories were unrelated, suggesting that the recounting of chapters versus specific memories does not reflect a preferred recall style.     

Purpose in life and cognitive functioning in adulthood

With an increasingly aging population, more work is needed to identify factors which may promote the maintenance of normal cognitive functioning. The current study tested the concurrent association between sense of purpose in life and the cognitive variables of episodic memory, executive functioning, and composite cognitive functioning in adults (N = 3489, M_age = 56.3 years, SD = 12.27, Range = 32–84 years) from the Midlife in the United States study (MIDUS). Correlational analyses suggested that purpose in life was associated with higher scores for memory, executive functioning, and overall cognition. Bootstrapping tests of moderation found no evidence for a moderating effect of age on purpose and the cognitive variables. Future studies should attempt to explain the mechanisms behind this relationship and explore the potential for interventions to promote healthy cognitive and purposeful aging.     

The reminiscence bump in older adults' life story transitions

Older adults' memories of events that occurred in adolescence and early adulthood are over-represented compared to other lifetime periods. Prior research on this reminiscence bump has focused on qualities of individual memories. The present study used a novel interview method to examine the potential role played by mental representations of extended lifetime periods. Older adults provided oral life stories, and they divided their transcribed narratives into “chapters”. Participants' ages at chapter beginnings and endings showed pronounced reminiscence bumps. The results are consistent with the idea that personal episodes occurring near the boundaries of extended lifetime periods receive preferential processing that enhances long-term memory.     

Abstracting and extracting: Causal coherence and the development of the life story

This study compared life story memories of emerging adults and early adolescents to other autobiographical memories. Participants described three scenes of their respective life stories, a high point, low point, and turning point narrative, and described the connections between them in a fourth narrative. Participants also related four autobiographical narratives from corresponding time periods for comparison. Narratives were analysed for two measures of causal coherence, narrative complexity and meaning making, and for thematic coherence. Life story narratives contained more self-related lessons and insights and greater recognition of complexity than non-life-story narratives, but these differences were confined to narratives of turning points and connections between events. Thematic connections between narratives were more abstract and self-related in life story narratives. Emerging adults' narratives, when compared to those of early adolescents, showed more evidence of self-related abstract thinking and recognition of multiple dimensions. Findings indicate consistent ways in which life story memories differ from other autobiographic memories, and show evidence of development in adolescence.     

Age differences in prospective memory for everyday life intentions: A diary approach

The age benefit found in many naturalistic prospective memory (PM) tasks has been taken as evidence that PM performance in real life may be spared from aging. However, this conclusion lacks empirical confirmation. Hence, the aim of the present study was to examine possible age differences in the content of everyday PM intentions and their performance. Everyday PM was assessed in young and older adults using a diary approach. Results confirmed a general age benefit for real-life PM tasks. Importantly, this finding was qualified by revealing that the benefit only held true for specific types of intentions such as health and social intentions. Further, moderation analyses showed that the relationships between cognitive functioning and everyday PM were different for young and older adults. While better inhibition, short-term and long-term memory were related with successful PM performance in the young, this was not the case in the older adults. The present findings suggest that the age benefit found in naturalistic experimenter-given tasks extends to real-life PM performance, but may differ depending on the type of intention. Furthermore, cognitive functioning predicts performance in the young, but not in the older adults.     

Generalization of deferred imitation during the first year of life

Infants first generalize across contexts and cues at 3 months of age in operant tasks but not until 12 months of age in imitation tasks. Three experiments using an imitation task examined whether infants younger than 12 months of age might generalize imitation if conditions were more like those in operant studies. Infants sat on a distinctive mat in a room in their home (the context) while an adult modeled actions on a hand puppet (the cue). When they were tested 24 h later, 6-month-olds generalized imitation when either the mat or the room (but not both) differed, whereas 9-month-olds generalized when both the mat and the room differed. In addition, 9-month-olds who imitated immediately also generalized to a novel test cue, whereas 6-month-olds did not. These results parallel results from operant studies and reveal that the similarity between the conditions of encoding and retrieval-not the type of task-determines whether infants generalize. The findings offer further evidence that memory development during infancy is a continuous function.     

Ways of sampling voluntary and involuntary autobiographical memories in daily life

Cognitive psychologists have often equaled retrieval of personal events with voluntary recall from autobiographical memory, but more recent research shows that autobiographical memories often come to mind involuntarily—that is, with no retrieval effort. Voluntary memories have been studied in numerous laboratory experiments in response to word-prompts, whereas involuntary memories primarily have been examined in an everyday living context, using a structured diary procedure. However, it remains unclear how voluntary memories sampled in the laboratory map onto self-prompted voluntary memories in daily life. Here, we used a structured diary procedure to compare different types of voluntary autobiographical memories to their involuntary counterparts. The results replicated previous findings with regard to differences between word-prompted voluntary and involuntary memories, whereas there were fewer differences between self-prompted voluntary and involuntary memories. The findings raise the question as to what is the best way of sampling voluntary memories and the best comparison for involuntary memories.     

Examining the life story account of the reminiscence bump: Why we remember more from young adulthood

The reminiscence bump is a robust finding demonstrated mostly with the cue-word method in Western cultures. The first aim of the study was to replicate the reminiscence bump using a life history timeline method and to extend reminiscence bump research to a Turkish sample. The second aim was to empirically examine the recently proposed life story account (Glück & Bluck, 2007) for the reminiscence bump. The sample consisted of 40 women and 32 men aged 52 to 66 years. Participants’ lives were divided into 5-year intervals and they verbally reported as many memories as possible in a standard timeframe from each interval (in random order) and provided ratings of several memory characteristics. As expected, the lifespan distribution of the resulting 6373 memories demonstrated a reminiscence bump. In support of the life story account, bump memories were found to be more novel, more important for identity development, more distinct, and more likely to involve developmental transitions than memories from other age periods. Findings are discussed in terms of the life story account, which synthesises lifespan developmental theory and life story theory.     

Meaning making during high and low point life story episodes predicts emotion regulation two years later: How the past informs the future

Memory processes are commonly thought to relate to a host of personality systems. The current study specifies a particular way that memory relates to personality. Highly-valenced, identity-rich memories – high and low point episodes in the life story – were analyzed to see if aspects of these memories predicted self-reports of emotion regulation two years later. Meaning making in high and low points predicted emotion regulation. Moreover, valence mattered. Positive meaning making in high and low point stories predicted positive emotion regulation while negative meaning making in low point stories predicted negative emotion regulation. These relationships held while controlling for baseline extraversion, neuroticism, and memory word count. Limitations due to study design are discussed.     

Event centrality of positive and negative autobiographical memories to identity and life story across cultures

The aim of this study was to investigate whether cultural differences exist in event centrality, emotional distress and well-being in a total of 565 adults above age 40 from Mexico, Greenland, China and Denmark. Participants completed questionnaires to determine their level of post-traumatic stress disorder and depression symptoms, and of life satisfaction. They also completed event centrality scales for their most positive and most negative life events. Across cultures, participants rated positive events as more central to their identity and life stories, compared with negative events. Furthermore, participants with higher levels of emotional distress rated negative events as more central to their identity and life story, compared with participants with lower scores. However, a converse pattern was not found for positive events. Finally, participants with higher scores of life satisfaction tended to rate positive events as more central and negative events as less central to their identity and life story, compared with participants with lower scores. It is concluded that across cultures, positive events are considered more central to identity and life story than negative events and that event centrality ratings tend to be affected in similar ways by higher versus lower levels of emotional distress or well-being.     

The Italian version of the Thinking About Life Experiences Questionnaire and its relationship with gender,age, and life events on Facebook

The present study provided a cross-cultural validation of the Thinking About Life Experiences Scale-revised (TALE-R) in an Italian sample of Facebook users (n = 492; female = 378; male = 114; mean age 26.1) to test for replication and universality of the TALE-R three-factor model. Furthermore, it explored the interrelations among gender, age, the scores at the TALE-R and the frequency of posting textual/visual information about individuals' life events on Facebook. Results at exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis gave empirical support to both of a tripartite model for the functions of autobiographical memory (i.e., directive-behavior, social-bonding, and self-continuity) and measurement invariance of this three-factor model across gender and age. Further results at linear correlation and regression analyses showed that directive-behavior and self-continuity functions of autobiographical memory are significantly related to the ways people use Facebook for personal documentation. Age differences more than gender influence this association. Discussion and conclusion reported both theoretical and empirical implications of the findings of the study.     

Mental time travel into the episodic future,episodic past,and episodic counterfactual past in everyday life

To date, studies exploring the relationship of counterfactual thoughts with episodic memories and episodic future thoughts have focused mainly on voluntary mental time travel. We explore mental time travel in everyday life and find that episodic counterfactual thinking occurs to a much lesser extent than thinking about the past or the future (12%, 22%, and 54%, respectively), is used mainly for mood regulation purposes, and the temporal distribution decreases as a function of time. We observe similarities in phenomenological detail: memories and counterfactual thoughts sharing similar ratings of sensory detail, memories and future thoughts sharing similar ratings of positivity, and counterfactual and future thoughts sharing similar ratings of mental time travel. We discuss the implications of episodic counterfactual thinking in everyday life.