Characterisation of music-evoked autobiographical memories

Despite music's prominence in Western society and its importance to individuals in their daily lives, very little is known about the memories and emotions that are often evoked when hearing a piece of music from one's past. We examined the content of music-evoked autobiographical memories (MEAMs) using a novel approach for selecting stimuli from a large corpus of popular music, in both laboratory and online settings. A set of questionnaires probed the cognitive and affective properties of the evoked memories. On average, 30% of the song presentations evoked autobiographical memories, and the majority of songs also evoked various emotions, primarily positive, that were often felt strongly. The third most common emotion was nostalgia. Analyses of written memory reports found both general and specific levels of autobiographical knowledge to be represented, and several social and situational contexts for memory formation were common across many memories. The findings indicate that excerpts of popular music serve as potent stimuli for studying the structure of autobiographical memories.     

Characterization of music-evoked autobiographical memories

Despite music's prominence in Western society and its importance to individuals in their daily lives, very little is known about the memories and emotions that are often evoked when hearing a piece of music from one's past. We examined the content of music-evoked autobiographical memories (MEAMs) using a novel approach for selecting stimuli from a large corpus of popular music, in both laboratory and online settings. A set of questionnaires probed the cognitive and affective properties of the evoked memories. On average, 30% of the song presentations evoked autobiographical memories, and the majority of songs also evoked various emotions, primarily positive, that were felt strongly. The third most common emotion was nostalgia. Analyses of written memory reports found both general and specific levels of autobiographical knowledge to be represented, and several social and situational contexts for memory formation were common across many memories. The findings indicate that excerpts of popular music serve as potent stimuli for studying the structure of autobiographical memories.     

Comparing music- and food-evoked autobiographical memories in young and older adults: A diary study

Previous research has found that music brings back more vivid and emotional autobiographical memories than various other retrieval cues. However, such studies have often been low in ecological validity and constrained by relatively limited cue selection and predominantly young adult samples. Here, we compared music to food as cues for autobiographical memories in everyday life in young and older adults. In two separate four-day periods, 39 younger (ages 18–34) and 39 older (ages 60–77) adults recorded their music- and food-evoked autobiographical memories in paper diaries. Across both age groups, music triggered more frequent autobiographical memories, a greater proportion of involuntary memories, and memories rated as more personally important in comparison to food cues. Age differences impacted music- and food-evoked memories similarly, with older adults consistently recalling older and less specific memories, which they rated as more positive, vivid, and rehearsed. However, young and older adults did not differ in the number or involuntary nature of their recorded memories. This work represents an important step in understanding the phenomenology of naturally occurring music-evoked autobiographical memories across adulthood and provides new insights into how and why music may be a more effective trigger for personally valued memories than certain other everyday cues.     

Childhood remembered: Reports of both unique and repeated events

To explore the significance of repeated memories for individuals' personal histories, we compared the characteristics of young adults' unique and repeated memories of childhood experiences. Memory type (unique vs. repeated) was a within-participant variable. In Experiment 1, college-age participants generated as many early memories as possible in 4 minutes; in Experiment 2, another sample provided complete reports of five early memories in each condition. In both experiments, participants rated the vividness, biographical importance and personal meaning of each memory and labelled the accompanying emotion. Unique memories were more vivid than repeated memories as well as more likely to include negative emotion, regardless of the method of reporting. Most importantly, college students rated their memories for unique and repeated events as equivalently infused with personal meaning. Analysis of the content of the memories reported in Experiment 2 established that unique and repeated memories did not differ in word count or percentages of perceptual terms or words indicating positive affect, although unique memories contained a greater percentage of negative affect. Additional analyses of content provided evidence for differences in the functions served by unique and repeated memories. The results have implications for the study of autobiographical memory and for identifying over-general memories.     

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 impact of depression and PTSD symptom severity on trauma memory

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression frequently co-occur following a traumatic event. Differences in the processing of autobiographical memory have been observed in both disorders in the form of overgeneralised memories and negative intrusive memories. The current study examined how symptoms of PTSD and depression influence the phenomenological characteristics of trauma memories. Undergraduate students who had experienced a traumatic event (n?=?696) completed questionnaires online including measures of PTSD and depressive symptom severity. They rated their trauma memory on several phenomenological characteristics using the Memory Experiences Questionnaire [Sutin, A. R., &; Robins, R. W. (2007). Phenomenology of autobiographical memories: The memory experiences questionnaire. Memory.]. Moderated multiple regression was used to examine how PTSD and depressive symptom severity related to each phenomenological characteristic. Symptoms of PTSD and depression were related separately and uniquely to the phenomenological characteristics of the trauma memory. PTSD severity predicted trauma memories that were more negative, contained higher sensory detail, and were more vivid. In contrast, depressive symptom severity predicted trauma memories that were less accessible and less coherent. These findings suggest that depressive and PTSD symptomatology affect traumatic memory differently and support a distinction between these two disorders.     

Beyond Cultivation: Exploring the Effects of Frequency,Recency, and Vivid Autobiographical Memories for Violent Media

Using Shrum's (1996) heuristic processing model as an explanatory mechanism, we propose that people who hold vivid autobiographical memories for a specific past experience with media violence will overstate the prevalence of real-world crime versus individuals without vivid memories. We also explore the effects of frequency and recency on social reality beliefs. A survey was administered to 207 undergraduate students who were asked to recall one violent television program or movie seen in the past. Participants were asked to write essays describing the violence, which were coded for vividness. Results support not only cultivation theory, but also the effects of memory vividness: participants with more vivid memories of blood and gore gave higher prevalence estimates of real-world crime and violence than participants with less vivid memories. Findings also suggest that females had more vivid memories for prior media violence than males. Implications for cultivation, the heuristic processing model, and vividness research are discussed.     

Age differences in autobiographical memory across the adult lifespan: older adults report stronger phenomenology

As an individual’s life story evolves across adulthood, the subjective experience (phenomenology) of autobiographical memory likely changes. In addition to age at retrieval, both the recency of the memory and the age when a memory is formed may be particularly important to its phenomenology. The present work examines the effect of three temporal factors on phenomenology ratings: (a) age of the participant, (b) age at the event reported in the memory, and (c) memory age (recency). A large sample of Americans (N?=?1120), stratified by chronological age, recalled and rated two meaningful memories, a Turning Point and an Early Childhood Memory. Ratings of phenomenology (e.g., vividness of turning points) were higher among older adults compared to younger adults. Memories of events from the reminiscence bump were more positive in valence than events from other time periods but did not differ on other phenomenological dimensions; recent memories had stronger phenomenology than remote memories. In contrast to phenomenology, narrative content was generally unrelated to participant age, age at the event, or memory age. Overall, the findings indicate age-related differences in how meaningful memories are re-experienced.     

A comparison of Chinese and American memories for public events

Memory for public events was compared across Chinese and U.S. participants to explore competing explanations for cultural differences in flashbulb memories. Participant recall of the canonical features of events was more detailed and more likely to include a specific time in the United States than in the Chinese reports. Vividness was positively correlated with the flashbulb memory scores only in the U.S. sample. In both cultures, emotion, national importance, and thinking about the event predicted vividness and recall of memory details. Chinese participants reported primarily disasters and social events, and their memories were more likely to include international events than U.S. participants. The U.S. participants recalled primarily political events and terrorism. These results suggest that culture has important influences on the quantity, level of detail, completeness, and vividness of autobiographical memories as well as on the types of events triggering flashbulb memories.     

Positive memory enhancement training for individuals with major depressive disorder

When in a negative mood state, individuals with major depressive disorder (MDD) may have difficulties recalling positive autobiographical memories in a manner that repairs that negative mood. Using cognitive bias modification techniques, investigators have successfully altered different aspects of cognition among individuals with MDD. However, little has been done to investigate the modification of positive autobiographical memory recall. This study examined the impact of a novel positive memory enhancement training (PMET) on the memories and subjective affective experiences of individuals with MDD (N = 27). Across a series of trials, participants first recalled a sad memory to elicit a negative mood state. They then recalled a happy memory and completed procedures to elicit a vivid, here-and-now quality of the memory. PMET procedures were hypothesized to promote mood repair via the recall of increasingly vivid and specific positive memories. PMET participants demonstrated improved memory specificity and greater perceived ability to “relive” positive memories. The procedures also repaired mood; PMET participants’ affect following recall of positive memories did not differ from control participants’ affect following recall of neutral memories. Results provide preliminary support for PMET as a method to improve the quality of positive memories and facilitate emotion regulation in MDD.     

Flashbulb memories of the Paris attacks

Flashbulb memories are vivid autobiographical memories of the circumstances where an individual first learns about emotionally significant public events. Our paper assesses whether these memories were triggered by the attacks of Friday 13 November 2015 in Paris. Two hundred and ninety‐one participants answered a web‐based questionnaire that assessed their memory of the circumstances in which they first learned of the attacks. The questionnaire also assessed vividness, rehearsal, emotion, surprise and novelty. The results showed substantial and vivid recall of the context in which the participants first learned of the event. This recall was associated with fair rehearsal, negative emotional valence, surprise, and novelty. Regression analysis showed that the flashbulb recall was predicted by negative emotion. Negative emotion seems to play a key role in the formation of flashbulb memories, at least those associated with the Paris attacks.     

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.     

Ageing and autobiographical memory for emotional and neutral events

We investigated age-related effects in recall of emotional and neutral autobiographical memories. Protocols were scored according to episodic and non-episodic detail categories using the Autobiographical Interview. Young adults recalled a greater number of episodic details compared to older adults, whereas older adults recalled more semantic details, replicating previous findings. Both young and older adults' emotional memories contained more overall detail than neutral ones, with the enhancement from emotion-specific to episodic details, but this did not alter the effect of age group on the pattern of episodic and semantic details. However, the age effect on episodic details was attenuated for neutral autobiographical memories. The findings suggest that age differences for emotional autobiographical recollection might reflect a more general pattern of age-related changes in memory, with impaired recall of episodic components and relative sparing of semantic aspects of autobiographical memory in older adults when compared to young adults.     

The effects of cue modality on the quality of personal memories retrieved

We investigated the effect of cue modality on the specificity, speed, vividness, and age of autobiographical memory retrieval. Cues were presented as either an odour, a visual image, or a word label. Odour-cued memories were older, more likely to be categoric, and were slower to be retrieved. Few gender differences were found although females reported more vivid memories than males. We suggest that cue modality directly affects retrieval processes; odour cues are more likely to initiate a perceptual search strategy, in contrast to memories cued by visual images and words, which are usually conceptually/verbally mediated.     

The effects of cue modality on the quality of personal memories retrieved

We investigated the effect of cue modality on the specificity, speed, vividness, and age of autobiographical memory retrieval. Cues were presented as either an odour, a visual image, or a word label. Odour-cued memories were older, more likely to be categoric, and were slower to be retrieved. Few gender differences were found although females reported more vivid memories than males. We suggest that cue modality directly affects retrieval processes; odour cues are more likely to initiate a perceptual search strategy, in contrast to memories cued by visual images and words, which are usually conceptually/verbally mediated.     

Michael Jackson,Bin Laden and I: Functions of positive and negative,public and private flashbulb memories

This study examined the perceived psychosocial functions of flashbulb memories: It compared positive and negative public flashbulb memories (positive: Bin Laden's death, negative: Michael Jackson's death) with private ones (positive: pregnancy, negative: death of a loved one). A sample of n = 389 young and n = 176 middle-aged adults answered canonical category questions used to identify flashbulb memories and rated the personal significance, the psychological temporal distance, and the functions of each memory (i.e., self-continuity, social-boding, directive functions). Hierarchical regressions showed that, in general, private memories were rated more functional than public memories. Positive and negative private memories were comparable in self-continuity and directionality, but the positive private memory more strongly served social functions. In line with the positivity bias in autobiographical memory, positive flashbulb memories felt psychologically closer than negative ones. Finally, middle-aged adults rated their memories as less functional regarding self-continuity and social-bonding than young adults. Results are discussed regarding the tripartite model of autobiographical memory functions.     

Involuntary autobiographical memories in dysphoric mood: A laboratory study

The frequency and characteristics of involuntary autobiographical memories were compared in 25 stable dysphoric and 28 non-dysphoric participants, using a new laboratory-based task (Schlagman & Kvavilashvili, 2008). Participants detected infrequent target stimuli (vertical lines) in a simple vigilance task and recorded any involuntary autobiographical memories that came to mind, mostly in response to irrelevant words presented on the screen. Dysphoric participants reported involuntary memories as frequently and as quickly as non-dysphoric participants and their memories were not repetitive intrusive memories of negative or traumatic events. Additional content analysis showed that dysphoric participants did not recall more memories of objectively negative events (e.g., accidents, illnesses, deaths) than non-dysphoric participants. However, significant group differences emerged in terms of a mood congruency effect whereby dysphoric participants rated their memories as more negative than non-dysphoric participants. Moreover, the proportion of negatively rated involuntary memories was related to lower mood ratings at the end of the session in the dysphoric but not in the non-dysphoric group. Finally, groups did not differ on several memory characteristics such as vividness, specificity (high in both groups) and rates of rehearsal (low in both groups). Theoretical and practical implications of these findings for research on depression and autobiographical memory are discussed.     

情绪记忆的鲜活性和准确性的关系*

采用记得/知道范式,以正性、负性和中性图片为实验材料,以32名大学本科生为被试,考察情绪记忆鲜活性和准确性的关系。结果发现,情绪记忆的记得成绩好于中性记忆,说明情绪记忆较中性记忆更具鲜活性;情绪记忆的鲜活性和准确性存在较大的关联,在正性、负性和中性图片上相关都达到了显著,表明情绪记忆的鲜活性与刺激中心细节的恢复相联系。