Visual object imagery and autobiographical memory: Object Imagers are better at remembering their personal past

In the present study we examined whether higher levels of object imagery, a stable characteristic that reflects the ability and preference in generating pictorial mental images of objects, facilitate involuntary and voluntary retrieval of autobiographical memories (ABMs). Individuals with high (High-OI) and low (Low-OI) levels of object imagery were asked to perform an involuntary and a voluntary ABM task in the laboratory. Results showed that High-OI participants generated more involuntary and voluntary ABMs than Low-OI, with faster retrieval times. High-OI also reported more detailed memories compared to Low-OI and retrieved memories as visual images. Theoretical implications of these findings for research on voluntary and involuntary ABMs are discussed.     

Psychopathic personality traits are linked to reduced false memories for negative events

Individuals scoring high on psychopathic personality traits process emotional material to a different extent than individuals with few psychopathic traits. Evidence exists that these individuals have impaired emotional memory. The question arises whether this emotional memory impairment has ramifications for the production of emotional false memories. In the present study, we investigated the production of false and true memories for emotional events in a community sample (N = 120) of individuals varying in psychopathic traits (evaluated with the Psychopathic Personality Inventory–Revised [PPI-R] questionnaire). The fearless dominance (FD) component of psychopathy interacted with the emotional impact of to-be-remembered events in the production of false memories, showing fewer negative false memories with increasing levels of FD. At the subjective level, negative false memories were not perceived as vivid memory experiences in high FD individuals. Concerning true memories, higher scores in cold-heartedness were related to fewer true memories for neutral and negative (but not positive) events. These results show that individuals with high psychopathy traits – in particular, FD – do not have a general emotional memory impairment but they process negative material in a different way than individuals with low psychopathic traits and thus are less susceptible to producing false memories for negative events.     

错误记忆的无意识机制初探

研究表明,错误记忆十分顽固,一经产生便难以消退,即使是在严格的有意识控制之下,比如预先警告条件下等。这就引起研究者对错误记忆中无意识机制的探讨。本文以错误记忆的这一顽固性特征为切人点,结合多种形式错误记忆的研究成果,尝试剖析错误记忆发生过程中无意识的作用机制,并对近年来兴起的错误记忆无意识机制的实证研究进行了介绍。     

Working memory affects false memory production for emotional events

Whereas a link between working memory (WM) and memory distortions has been demonstrated, its influence on emotional false memories is unclear. In two experiments, a verbal WM task and a false memory paradigm for negative, positive or neutral events were employed. In Experiment 1, we investigated individual differences in verbal WM and found that the interaction between valence and WM predicted false recognition, with negative and positive material protecting high WM individuals against false remembering; the beneficial effect of negative material disappeared in low WM participants. In Experiment 2, we lowered the WM capacity of half of the participants with a double task request, which led to an overall increase in false memories; furthermore, consistent with Experiment 1, the increase in negative false memories was larger than that of neutral or positive ones. It is concluded that WM plays a critical role in determining false memory production, specifically influencing the processing of negative material.     

The effect of mood on false memory for emotional DRM word lists

In the present study, we investigated the effect of participants’ mood on true and false memories of emotional word lists in the Deese–Roediger–McDermott (DRM) paradigm. In Experiment 1, we constructed DRM word lists in which all the studied words and corresponding critical lures reflected a specified emotional valence. In Experiment 2, we used these lists to assess mood-congruent true and false memory. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three induced-mood conditions (positive, negative, or neutral) and were presented with word lists comprised of positive, negative, or neutral words. For both true and false memory, there was a mood-congruent effect in the negative mood condition; this effect was due to a decrease in true and false recognition of the positive and neutral words. These findings are consistent with both spreading-activation and fuzzy-trace theories of DRM performance and have practical implications for our understanding of the effect of mood on memory.     

Growing old: A psychoanalyst’s point of view1

With the help of clinical examples, the author shows that psychoanalysis or psychotherapy after the age of 70 can be a fascinating experience, one that enables patients to reconstruct their internal history in such a way that their final years can be given their rightful place in the overall journey through life. Often it will be a matter of going beyond the conflict between paralysing time with the illusion of keeping death at bay and taking the transient nature of life into account in order to perceive its true flavour. We can grow old passively, juxtaposing different periods of our life without linking them together, thereby creating the illusion of time without end; or we can grow old actively, integrating the different phases of our life into a coherent historical narrative. This representation of time leaves the door open for experiences which the author calls ‘small seconds of eternity’. We can all experience such moments when we are deeply moved – joyfully or painfully – by something, so that we perceive another quality of time that goes beyond its chronological dimension without all the same negating it. Helping elderly people to identify these seconds of eternity and catch hold of them can be an invaluable experience for them. Perhaps we need to see our life unfold through the chronology of its different phases in order to discover, second by second, how to express on an everyday basis something of which we have had an inkling in some second of eternity.     

On simulating one-trial learning using morphological neural networks

“Learning once, remembering forever”, this wonderful cognitive phenomenon sometimes occurs in the learning process of human beings. Psychologists call this psychological phenomenon “one-trial learning”. The traditional artificial neural networks can simulate the psychological phenomenon of “implicit learning”, but can’t simulate the cognitive phenomenon of “one-trial learning”. Therefore, cognitive psychology gives a challenge to the traditional artificial neural networks. From two aspects of theory and practice in this paper, the possibility of simulating this kind of psychological phenomenon was explored by using morphological neural networks. This paper takes advantage of morphological associative memory networks to realize the simulation of “one-trial learning” for the first time, and gives 5 simulating practical examples. Theoretical analysis and simulation experiments show that the morphological associative memory networks are a higher effective machine learning method, and can better simulate the cognitive phenomenon of “one-trial learning”, therefore provide a theoretical basis and technological support for the study of intelligent science and cognitive science.