Going global: Functions of autobiographical remembering world tour

This special issue showcases research from around the world that takes a functional approach to autobiographical remembering. In doing so, it inspires researchers to reach out to new populations. This commentary begins with a brief history of the functional approach. Person–environment interactions, in this case how individuals use memory in their current cultural context, are at the core of that approach. Based on current theoretical thinking in this area, I review the papers in this issue with the aim of exploring: (1) where culture and function might fit in current conceptualisations of autobiographical memory, (2) the relation of culture to socio-structural variables such as gender and life phase in shaping the functions of memory and (3) differences in cultural tendencies to use autobiographical memory as a resource to fulfil universal human needs.     

The functions of autobiographical memory: An integrative approach

Recent research in cognitive psychology has emphasised the uses, or functions, of autobiographical memory. Theoretical and empirical approaches have focused on a three-function model: autobiographical memory serves self, directive, and social functions. In the reminiscence literature other taxonomies and additional functions have been postulated. We examined the relationships between functions proposed by these literatures, in order to broaden conceptualisations and make links between research traditions. In Study 1 we combined two measures of individual differences in the uses of autobiographical memory. Our results suggested four classes of memory functions, which we labelled Reflective, Generative, Ruminative, and Social. In Study 2 we tested relationships between our four functions and broader individual differences, and found conceptually consistent relationships. In Study 3 we found that memories cued by Generative and Social functions were more emotionally positive than were memories cued by Reflective and Ruminative functions. In Study 4 we found that reported use of Generative functions increased across the lifespan, while reported use of the other three functions decreased. Overall our findings suggest a broader view of autobiographical memory functions that links them to ways in which people make meaning of their selves, their environment, and their social world more generally.     

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.     

Nostalgia,reflection, brooding: Psychological benefits and autobiographical memory functions

We sought to clarify the psychological profile of experimentally induced nostalgia, compared to two other modes of thinking about one’s past—reflection and brooding—also experimentally induced. We tested both British and Chinese participants. Our main hypothesis was that nostalgia’s profile is more positive in terms of six psychological benefits and seven autobiographical memory functions. The results were consistent with the hypothesis. In regard to psychological benefits, nostalgia (vs. reflection and brooding) increased positive affect, self-esteem, self-continuity, social connectedness, and meaning in life. Furthermore, nostalgia increased optimism relative to brooding (but not reflection). In regard to autobiographical memory functions, nostalgia (vs. reflection and brooding) led to higher boredom reduction, conversation, intimacy maintenance, and death preparation, as well as lower bitterness revival. Nostalgia also elevated teach/inform relative to brooding (but not reflection). The findings were similar for British and Chinese participants.     

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.     

Functions of autobiographical memory in Taiwanese and American emerging adults

The study addresses cultural and person-level factors contributing to emerging adult's use of memory to serve adaptive functions. The focus is on three functions: self-continuity, social-bonding and directing-behaviour. Taiwanese (N = 85, 52 women) and American (N = 95, 51 women) emerging adults completed the Thinking about Life Experiences scale, and measures of trait personality, self-concept clarity and future time perspective. Findings show that individuals from both cultures use memory to serve these three functions, but Taiwanese individuals use memory more frequently than Americans to maintain self-continuity. Culture also interacted with person-level factors: in Taiwan, but not America, memory is more frequently used to create self-continuity in individuals high in conscientiousness. Across cultures, having lower self-concept clarity was related to greater use of memory to create self-continuity. Findings are discussed in terms of how memory serves functions in context and specific aspects of the Taiwanese and American cultural context that may predict the functional use of memory in emerging adulthood.     

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 voluntary autobiographical memories: Implications for the organisation of autobiographical memory and voluntary recall processes

The goal of this study was to show that voluntary autobiographical memories could be primed by the prior activation of autobiographical memories. Three experiments demonstrated voluntary memory priming with three different approaches. In Experiment 1 primed participants were asked to recall memories from their elementary school years. In a subsequent memory task primed participants were asked to recall memories from any time period, and they produced significantly more memories from their elementary school years than unprimed participants. In Experiment 2 primed participants were asked to recall what they were doing when they had heard various news events occurring between 1998 and 2005. Subsequently these participants produced significantly more memories from this time period than unprimed participants. In Experiment 3 primed participants were asked to recall memories from their teenage years. Subsequently these participants were able to recall more memories from ages 13–15 than unprimed participants, where both had only 1 second to produce a memory. We argue that the results support the notion that episodic memories can activate one another and that some of them are organised according to lifetime periods. We further argue that the results have implications for the reminiscence bump and voluntary recall of the past.     

Emotion knowledge and autobiographical memory across the preschool years: a cross-cultural longitudinal investigation

Knowledge of emotion situations facilitates the interpretation, processing, and organization of significant personal event information and thus may be an important contributor to the development of autobiographical memory. This longitudinal study tested the hypothesis in a cross-cultural context. The participants were native Chinese children, Chinese children from first-generation Chinese immigrant families in the U.S., and European American children. Children's developing emotion knowledge and autobiographical memory were assessed three times at home, when children were 3, 3.5, and 4.5 years of age. Children's emotion knowledge uniquely predicted their autobiographical memory ability across groups and time points. Emotion knowledge further mediated culture effects on autobiographical memory. The findings provide important insight into early autobiographical memory development, and extend current theoretical understandings of the emotion-memory interplay. They further have implications for the phenomenon of infantile amnesia and cross-cultural differences in childhood recollections.     

Rumination and overgeneral autobiographical memory

Two studies investigated the effects of rumination on the retrieval of autobiographical memories in high-depressed and low-depressed individuals. Experiment 1 administered either a rumination or distraction task prior to a cued autobiographical memory task. High-depressed participants recalled more overgeneral memories following rumination relative to distraction, whereas experimental inductions did not influence low-depressed participants. Experiment 2 administered either a positive or negative rumination task prior to a cued autobiographical memory task. Negatively valenced rumination led high-depressed participants to recall more overgeneral memories than positively valenced rumination; this effect was not observed in low-depressed participants. These findings accord with the proposal that rumination is a mediating mechanism in the retrieval of overgeneral memories, and extends this proposal by indicating that negatively valenced ruminative content is particularly instrumental in inducing overgeneral retrieval.     

Gender differences in autobiographical memory: Developmental and methodological considerations

Gender differences have surfaced in inconsistent ways in autobiographical memory studies. When apparent, researchers find gender differences such that women report more vivid memory experiences than men and women include more details about emotions, about other people, and about the meaningfulness of their memories. Specifically, females include more emotion, more elaboration, and a greater sense of connectedness to others in their narratives, and we consider the possible connection between these tendencies and women’s advantage on a number of autobiographical and episodic memory tasks. However, not all studies of autobiographical memory find gender differences. We propose that gender differences in autobiographical memory development and interpersonal socialization contribute to the differences found, and that gender differences can be attributed, at least in part, to the influence of conversations with parents when autobiographical memory skills are developing. An examination of studies in which gender differences are not found suggests that specific instructions, context, gender salience, and the type of autobiographical memory measure used can mitigate gender differences. We conclude by outlining future directions for research, including longitudinal studies and experiments designed to systematically examine gender in autobiographical memory for its own sake.     

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.     

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.     

Autobiographical memory functions in young Japanese men and women

The present study examined whether the three major functions of autobiographical memory observed in Western societies (i.e., directing-behaviour, social-bonding and self-continuity) also exist in an East Asian society. Two self-report measures were used to assess the autobiographical memory functions of Japanese men and women. Japanese young adults (N = 451, ages 17–28 years) first completed the original Thinking About Life Experiences (TALE) Questionnaire. They subsequently received three TALE items that represented memory functions and attempted to recall a specific instance of memory recall for each item. Confirmatory factor analyses on the TALE showed that the three functions were replicated in the current sample. However, Japanese participants reported lower levels of all three functions than American participants in a previous study. We also explored whether there was an effect of gender in this Japanese sample. Women reported higher levels of the self-continuity and social-bonding functions than men. Finally, participants recalled more specific instances of memory recall for the TALE items that had received higher ratings on the TALE, suggesting that the findings on the first measure were supported by the second measure. Results are discussed in relation to the functional approach to autobiographical memory in a cross-cultural context.     

The role of working memory capacity in autobiographical retrieval: Individual differences in strategic search

Remembering previous experiences from one's personal past is a principal component of psychological well-being, personality, sense of self, decision making, and planning for the future. In the current study the ability to search for autobiographical information in memory was examined by having college students recall their Facebook friends. Individual differences in working memory capacity manifested itself in the search of autobiographical memory by way of the total number of friends remembered, the number of clusters of friends, size of clusters, and the speed with which participants could output their friends' names. Although working memory capacity was related to the ability to search autobiographical memory, participants did not differ in the manner in which they approached the search and used contextual cues to help query their memories. These results corroborate recent theorising, which suggests that working memory is a necessary component of self-generating contextual cues to strategically search memory for autobiographical information.     

The effects of thought suppression on autobiographical memory recall

While it is well documented that autobiographical memory (ABM) recall is affected in Posttraumatic Stress Disorders (PTSD), less is known about the cognitive mechanisms that underlie this pattern. This paper presents two research studies which investigated the role of thought suppression in the recall of ABMs. Study 1 assessed the role of thought suppression as a correlate of ABM retrieval in an undergraduate student sample (n = 50). The results showed that higher levels of trait thought suppression were significantly correlated with faster recall of negative episodic memories as well as reduced recall of personal semantic memories. Thought suppression remained as a significant predictor of ABM recall, even when the participants' levels of depression and post-traumatic stress reactions were considered. Study 2 investigated the causal effects of thought suppression on ABM recall. 64 undergraduate students were shown a negative video clip and were asked either to suppress any thought of the video or simply to monitor their thoughts immediately thereafter. Results showed that suppression directly led to significantly enhanced negative episodic ABM recall, as well as a significantly reduced ability to recall personal semantic memories.     

The self in autobiographical memory: Effects of self-salience on narrative content and structure

Contemporary models of autobiographical memory attribute a prominent role to the conceptualisation of the self. In an attempt to better understand the impact of the self as an organising feature of autobiographical memory, narratives of personal episodes were elicited, either after a questionnaire about the self (self-prime condition) or after a distractor task (control condition). Participants also wrote a narrative of a turning-point memory, which is by definition a self-focused narrative. Narratives were divided into propositions and analysed for the types of statements used. As predicted, when writing self-focused turning-point narratives participants included more statements relating to the meaning of an event and connecting it to the self, and fewer statements focusing on the who, what, where, and when of the narrative. Narratives written after the self-prime also demonstrated characteristics that were similar to turning-point narratives, although not on all measures. This shift in narrative focus in turning-point and self-primed memory narratives indicates an increased attempt to fulfil goals of coherence rather than correspondence (Conway, 2005). These findings lend insight into the nature of the relationship between the semantic conceptualisation of the self, and the process of retrieving event-specific knowledge in episodic memory.     

Towards a bio-psycho-social model of autobiographical memory

Self-awareness and identity are important cornerstones of thinking in social psychology. On the basis of current knowledge and theories from the social, cultural, and biological sciences, this paper attempts to outline an integrative approach to the phenomena of memory and reminiscence. Reference to psycho-dynamic argumentation is made in addition, where appropriate. The central topic to our argumentation is autobiographical memory, which we analyse according to evolutionary, neuroscientific, and cultural findings. The emotional context and the ontogenetic development of reminiscences (or memories directly relating to one's own self) provide the preliminary framework for an integrated view which includes interactions between the life span, brain development, the social and cultural environment, and genetic predispositions.     

Ruminative self-focus and autobiographical memory

Many studies have shown a positive relationship between elevated dispositional self-focus and emotional disorder. Trapnell and Campbell (1999) proposed that this relationship was only true for ruminative forms of self-focus, reflective self-focus being associated with psychological health. The present study aimed: (1) to examine the replicability of Trapnell and Campbell's (1999) questionnaire-based differentiation of reflective and ruminative dispositional self-focus; (2) to see whether reflection and rumination could also be differentiated using measures of autobiographical memory; (3) to see whether such memory measures could elucidate mechanisms underlying different forms of dispositional self-focus. 130 volunteers retrieved autobiographical memories to neutral cue words and completed questionnaires. Questionnaires differentiated reflection and rumination: reflection correlated with openness to experience, whereas rumination correlated with neuroticism, replicating previous findings that it is specifically ruminative self-focus that is maladaptive. Memory measures also differentiated reflection and rumination: reflection was unrelated to the affective qualities of memories, whereas rumination correlated with measures of the happiness, unhappiness and at-oneness of memories. Dispositional ruminative self-focus, like neuroticism, was specifically related to increased accessibility of memories of events where individuals felt “not at all at-one with things”. This style of memory access could underpin dispositional ruminative self-focus, which is closely linked to neuroticism.