Autobiographic Memories

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Autobiographic Memories
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A New Type of Memory?

• Why study autobiographical memories?
• What differentiates autobiographical memories
  from episodic memories?

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Interaction between Episodic and Semantic Memory

• Episodic Memories preserve knowledge of the
  spatiotemporal context in which an experience had
  taken place.
• Semantic memories preserve factual and conceptual
  knowledge abstracted from the context in which
  that knowledge had been acquired.

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How Are Autobiographical Memories Studied?

• Cue Word subjects presented with words naming
  common objects and activities and are required to
  retrieve memory of a specific event of which the
  cue word reminds them and that they themselves
  experienced
• Must respond with 1st word that comes to mind
• Personal factual knowledge appears to
  contextualize the remembered event in terms of
  rememberers personal history

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Cue Words

• Apple House
• Desk Music
• Grass City
• Book Love

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Retrieval Through Cue Word
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Robinson-type words

• Cued people with 3 types of words
• Affective, object, activity
• Describe memory
• Date memory
• Results
• Dating affective was most recent
• Response time early and most recent memories
  were accessed quickest
• Affective took longest

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How are Autobiographical Memories Accessed?
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How are Autobiographical Memories Accessed?

• Themes and temporal information are principles
  around which knowledge of the self is organized
• Distinct thematic cues organize AM
• Learning to drive organized around successes and
  failures

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Dating Autobiographical Memories
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Neissers John Dean Study
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The Self and Autobiographic Memories (Stacey)

• We know from Bjork Chapter 6 that the self plays
  a role in the retrieval of autobiographical
  memories...so in what ways might the self also
  contribute to autobiographical memory
  inaccuracies?

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Ross and Personal Memories

• Long term memory for personal attributes involves
  two steps
• Note present status
• Involve implicit theory of stability or change
• Stability assumptions of the unity and
  stability of self
• change experience may improve me age may
  detract from me
• Are people likely to see change within themselves?

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People Show Consistency

• Finding by Bem
• People exaggerate the consistency of their
  attitudes over time
• Finding of Ross
• Dating people
• Recalled past impressions of a partner as being
  more consistent with the present

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Implicit Theories of the Self

• schema-like knowledge structures that include
  specific beliefs regarding the inherent stability
  of an attributes
• a set of general principles concerning the
  conditions likely to promote personal change or
  stability.
• Implicit theories affect memory by influencing
  the kind of information retrieved from memory
• Memories consistent with a persons belief are
  often more accessible than memories inconsistent
  with beliefs.

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Is Retrieval of AM Always Monotonic?
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Katie P.

• In the chapter, they discuss how there is a
  "reminiscence bump" for autobiographical memories
  and that the majority of subjects reported
  memories that had occurred when they were between
  15 and 25 years old. The study cites the
  memories including terrorism, JFK's death,
  Vietnam, WWII, and The Depression. They say that
  this period of people's lives is a critical time
  especially in regards to people's self concepts
  meaning they would recall more memories from this
  time. Couldn't this data also be explained by
  the fact that these events were significant to
  them. People who were 15 were more likely to
  report terrorism because they had to go through
  drills in school preparing them for attacks, more
  people ages 20-26 were likely to mention the wars
  because they were the ones fighting and dying.
  Shouldn't this be taken into account?

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False Autobiographic MemoriesLindsay

• Childhood amnesia is period from the ages of 0 to
  5, in which people have a hard to impossible time
  recalling events that happened. It has been
  found that if you ask someone if they ever got
  lost in a mall, that they will create a false
  memory based on that story. What would happen if
  you showed someone a picture of when they were
  around the age of one and asked them to recall
  the circumstances of that picture, do you think
  that the person would create a false memory about
  the event (more than if they were asked about the
  event)? Do you think people really have an
  episodic memory about the events in childhood or
  is it just what they have collected from
  pictures, home videos, or information that they
  have gathered from family members over the years?