Long-term autobiographical memory across middle childhood: patterns,predictors, and implications for conceptualizations of childhood amnesia

ABSTRACT

We examined recall of events by children 4–11 years to inform patterns of retention of autobiographical memories as well as factors that predict their survival. 101 children participated in a 4-year prospective study. At study inception, children were 4, 6, and 8 years. They were tested annually for three more years for a total of four waves of data collection. At each wave, we obtained narrative reports of recent (all waves) and distant (Waves 2–4) events, resulting in virtually continuous sampling of memories formed by 4- to 11-year-olds and recalled after 1–3-year delays. We also measured children's language, and domain-general and memory-specific cognitive skills. Multi-level modelling revealed age-related increases in the likelihood of survival of memories over the delays. Critically, the rate of increase in retention of individual memories was the same across the cohorts. In addition to age, thematic coherence of original memory reports predicted memory survivability. Other factors were not predictive. The dense sampling and prospective tracking of memories across the 4–11-year age period permitted an especially strong test for continuity versus discontinuity in autobiographical memory across the second half of the first decade of life. The data are strongly indicative of continuity and gradual change.     

Neural correlates of autobiographical memory retrieval in children and adults

Autobiographical memory (AM) is a critically important form of memory for life events that undergoes substantial developmental changes from childhood to adulthood. Relatively little is known regarding the functional neural correlates of AM retrieval in children as assessed with fMRI, and how they may differ from adults. We investigated this question with 14 children ages 8–11 years and 14 adults ages 19–30 years, contrasting AM retrieval with semantic memory (SM) retrieval. During scanning, participants were cued by verbal prompts to retrieve previously selected recent AMs or to verify semantic properties of words. As predicted, both groups showed AM retrieval-related increased activation in regions implicated in prior studies, including bilateral hippocampus, and prefrontal, posterior cingulate, and parietal cortices. Adults showed greater activation in the hippocampal/parahippocampal region as well as prefrontal and parietal cortex, relative to children; age-related differences were most prominent in the first 8?sec versus the second 8?sec of AM retrieval and when AM retrieval was contrasted with semantic retrieval. This study is the first to characterise similarities and differences during AM retrieval in children and adults using fMRI.     

Gender,experimenter gender and medium of report influence the content of autobiographical memory report

In this study, we examined the role of context in autobiographical memory narratives, specifically as it pertains to gender among emerging adults. Male and female participants reported stressful events in their lives in the presence of an experimenter, and were randomly assigned either to report events verbally or type them, and to report in the presence of a male or female experimenter. Narratives were coded for factual and interpretive content. Results revealed that men verbally reporting to women reported longer narratives than all other groups. Women's narrative length did not vary by medium of report or conversational partner, but women used proportionally fewer internal state phrases when verbally reporting to men than when reporting to women. Women also used proportionally fewer evaluative statements in verbal reports than in typed narratives. Of these important interactions among context, gender, and experimenter gender, some findings, such as men's longer narratives and women's reduced internal states, were counter to expectations. These findings highlight the importance of methodological influences in autobiographical memory studies, in regard to both the context generated by experimental methods, and how gender differences are understood.     

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.     

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.     

When autobiographical memory begins

The authors review competing theories concerning the emergence and early development of autobiographical memory. It is argued that the differences between these accounts, although important, may be more apparent than real. The crux of these disagreements lies not in what processes are important, but rather, the role these different processes play in the emergence of autobiographical memory and the temporal primacy of these controlling variables. These differences are explored theoretically and then extant as well as new data are brought to bear on these issues. What emerges is a new, more inclusive, multifactorial framework that integrates the controlling variables from diverse perspectives providing a more complete account of the beginnings of autobiographical memory.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

Impaired autobiographical memory in complicated grief

This study investigated the relationship between autobiographical memory and goals in complicated grief (CG). Twenty-four individuals with CG and 21 bereaved individuals without CG completed an autobiographical memory task and a personal goals task. CG participants were more likely to recall memories related to their loss, particularly in response to negative cues. There was a positive relationship between the proportion of loss-related memories recalled and the proportion of grief-related goals held by individuals after controlling for symptom level. Individuals with CG also showed impaired retrieval of specific autobiographical memories in response to both positive and negative cues. These results suggest that CG is characterised by impaired and biased retrieval of specific autobiographical memories. These patterns are consistent with propositions stemming from the self-memory models of autobiographical memory.     

Trauma and autobiographical memory specificity in depressed inpatients

Research on autobiographical memory has shown that clinical depression is associated with a difficulty in retrieving specific autobiographical memories in response to cue words. This study examined the relation between lack of autobiographical memory specificity and self-reported trauma in a group of depressed adults (N = 23). In addition to the Autobiographical Memory Test (AMT; Williams & Broadbent, 1986) participants completed a number of questionnaires assessing the presence of traumatic experiences in the past, level of depression and neuroticism. The number of specific responses was not related to depression severity, but was significantly associated with the presence and severity of reported physical abuse. Participants who had been victim of physical abuse were less specific than participants who had not been confronted with such physical adversities. The results are discussed in the context of a functional hypothesis about the developmental relations between memory specificity, trauma and depression.     

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.     

Going global: The functions of autobiographical memory in cultural context

This special issue of Memory brings together research from around the globe, from Japanese, Chinese and East Indian cultures, to American and European societies, to the Caribbean, to Turkey and to Australia and New Zealand, which examines how and why people, from childhood to old age, remember the personal past in daily life. This journey highlights the important role of the cultural context in shaping the functional usages of autobiographical memory. We illuminate six major contributions of cross-cultural research to a broader and deeper understanding of the functions of autobiographical memory, and call attention to the filed that memory research must “go global.”     

Recollecting positive and negative autobiographical memories disrupts working memory

The present article reports two experiments examining the impact of recollecting emotionally valenced autobiographical memories on subsequent working memory (WM) task performance. Experiment 1 found that negatively valenced recollection significantly disrupted performance on a supra-span spatial WM task. Experiment 2 replicated and extended these findings to a verbal WM task (digit recall), and found that both negative and positive autobiographical recollections had a detrimental effect on verbal WM. In addition, we observed that these disruptive effects were more apparent on early trials, immediately following autobiographical recollection. Overall, these findings show that both positive and negative affect can disrupt WM when the mood-eliciting context is based on autobiographical memories. Furthermore, these results indicate that the emotional disruption of WM can take place across different modalities of WM (verbal and visuo-spatial).     

How intention to retrieve a memory and expectation that a memory will come to mind influence the retrieval of autobiographical memories

While involuntary memories are retrieved with no intention and are usually unexpected (when one is not waiting for a memory to arise), voluntary memories are intended and expected (when one is searching and waiting for a memory to arise). The present study aimed to investigate the effects of retrieval intentionality (i.e. wanting to retrieve a memory) and monitoring processes (i.e. waiting for a memory to appear) during autobiographical memory retrieval. In addition, we introduced two novel laboratory conditions that have not been used in previous research on voluntary memories: in the first, participants were asked to report anything they could think of in response to each cue word; in the second, they could skip a word if nothing came to mind. These novel manipulations allowed us to differentiate between voluntary memories retrieved in response to experimenter-generated cues (when participants were forced to provide a memory or a thought for each cue) and self-selected cues (when participants were free to not answer a cue if they found it too difficult). We found that highly accessible memories were mostly experienced when retrieval was involuntary and unexpected, while memories with low accessibility were accessed through intentional retrieval and monitoring processes. Response times for memories recalled in the experimenter-generated cue conditions were longer compared to the self-selected cue conditions. This novel finding shows that experimenter-generated recall favours memories with low accessibility; it further supports the idea that, in a substantial number of trials, voluntary memories are directly rather than effortfully retrieved. The idea that the driving force behind differences between involuntary and voluntary memories is not the intention per se is further discussed.     

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.     

Sociocultural developmental approaches to autobiographical memory

The sociocultural developmental model of autobiographical memory development has been a highly generative theoretical framework over the past 30 years, garnering both a great deal of empirical attention and support. In this article, the author details the theoretical framework and reviews the empirical evidence that indicates that individual differences in maternal reminiscing style has profound and enduring implications for the development of autobiographical memory. Concurrent, longitudinal, and experimental intervention research has demonstrated that mothers who reminisce in more highly elaborated ways with their preschool children facilitate the development of more elaborate and coherent autobiographical memories.     

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.