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Chapter 8
Remembering the Personal Past
c. 2008 Pearson Allyn & Bacon
Everyday Memory
Overview
 There has been a recent
emphasis on the study of
memory in everyday contexts
 An increase in ecological
validity

Critics worry about sufficient
controls; attempt to focus on
simpler questions
c. 2008 Pearson Allyn & Bacon
Autobiographical Memory
Overview
 Autobiographical Memory:
 Memory for a specific life experience
 Autobiographical Fact
 General (context-free) knowledge about oneself
and one’s personal history
c. 2008 Pearson Allyn & Bacon
Autobiographical Memory
Methods of Investigation
 Targeted Event Recall
 Subjects recall particular events or life periods
 Diary Technique
 Subjects keep track of daily events;
 Allows for assessment of memory accuracy
 Cue-Word Technique
 Memories generated in response to word cues
 Allows for assessment of autobiographical
retention function
c. 2008 Pearson Allyn & Bacon
Autobiographical Memory
Autobiographical Retention Function
 Lifespan recall of
autobiographical memories
reveals a consistent pattern

Features:
 Forgetting curve
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Reminiscence Bump
Childhood Amnesia
c. 2008 Pearson Allyn & Bacon
Autobiographical Retention Function
Childhood Amnesia
 Childhood amnesia refers to a relative paucity of
memories from early childhood

Virtually no memories from prior to age 3 or 4

Usher and Neisser (1993)
had subjects recall events
that could be corroborated
 Varying patterns as a
function of event
c. 2008 Pearson Allyn & Bacon
Autobiographical Retention Function
Childhood Amnesia
 Possible reasons for childhood amnesia:

Brain development
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Declarative memory (basis for episodic memory)
slow to develop, relative to procedural
Doesn’t account for finding that episodic memories
can be formed well before age 3-4
c. 2008 Pearson Allyn & Bacon
Autobiographical Retention Function
Childhood Amnesia
 Possible reasons for childhood amnesia:

Development of Language

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Remembering personal past depends on ability to
converse with others about it
Development of Self

Remembering personal past depends on the
knowledge that one has unique set of experiences
c. 2008 Pearson Allyn & Bacon
Autobiographical Retention Function
Childhood Amnesia
 Social-Cognitive Development

Nelson & Fivush emphasize the gradual
emergence of autobiographical memory

Emergence depends upon memory talk, a
developing sense of time and “theory of mind”

Emergence of autobiographical memory will vary
across individuals and cultures as a function of
these variables.
c. 2008 Pearson Allyn & Bacon
Autobiographical Retention Function
Reminiscence Bump
 Autobiographical retention function features
disproportionate recall from ages 15-35.
 A “reminiscence bump”

Accounts of the reminiscence bump:
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Important and distinctive events, often-rehearsed
Peak brain functioning occurs in early adulthood
Identity formation occurs
c. 2008 Pearson Allyn & Bacon
Autobiographical Retention Function
Forgetting
 Retention function reveals a standard forgetting
function for recent events

Forgetting due to event similarity and interference

Lack of distinctiveness
c. 2008 Pearson Allyn & Bacon
Autobiographical Memory
Retrieval Factors
 Encoding specificity in autobiographical memory

Cues for personal memories will be more effective
to the degree that they provide overlap with
encoding circumstances

Marian and Neisser (2000) investigated
autobiographical memory in Russian-English
bilinguals
c. 2008 Pearson Allyn & Bacon
Autobiographical Memory
Retrieval Factors

Gave subjects cue words in
one of their 2 languages


Memory retrieved tended to
match language of cue
In a second study, varied both
interview language and cue
word language

Interview language was the
more powerful cue
c. 2008 Pearson Allyn & Bacon
Autobiographical Memory
Retrieval Factors
 Wagenaar (1986) and Brewer (1986) investigated
“W” cues for autobiographical memory
 “What” – activity cues; most effective
 “Where” – location cues
 “When” – time cues
 “Who” – people cues
 Odors tend to be effective cues for personal memories
 Proust phenomenon: the apparent power of odors to
elicit memories that are especially old and vivid
c. 2008 Pearson Allyn & Bacon
Autobiographical Memory
Self-Memory System
 Conway and colleagues propose a
self-memory system

Autobiographical memories as
constructed from personal
knowledge base with three levels
 Lifetime Periods
 General Events
 Event-Specific Knowledge

Particular construction depends
on plans and goals c. 2008 Pearson Allyn & Bacon
Autobiographical Memory
Involuntary Memories
 Many autobiographical memories occur
spontaneously, in the absence of an explicit cue

Relative to voluntary memories, involuntary
memories are more likely to be:

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For specific rather than general events
For positive events rather than negative events
(a Pollyanna Effect)
For recent events
Associated with a vivid “re-living”
c. 2008 Pearson Allyn & Bacon
Autobiographical Memory
Emotion and Autobiographical Memory
 Flashbulb Memory

a detailed, vivid, and confidently held memory for
the circumstances surrounding when you heard
some startling bit of news
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They typically contain five components
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Location
Activity
Source
Emotion
Aftermath
c. 2008 Pearson Allyn & Bacon
Emotion and Autobiographical Memory
Flashbulb Memory
 What produces a flashbulb memory?

Special physiological mechanism? Not likely:
flashbulb errors can include (serious) inaccuracies

Neisser and Harsch studied flashbulb memories for
the 1986 Challenger disaster

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“Phantom flashbulbs”
Distortions revealed TV priority and time-slice errors.
c. 2008 Pearson Allyn & Bacon
Emotion and Autobiographical Memory
Flashbulb Memory
 Vividness of flashbulb memories is most likely due to:
 Distinctiveness
 Rehearsal
 Personal Salience
 Emotion
 Memories for September 11 attacks
 Pezdek (2004) investigated flashbulb memory in
subjects differing in proximity to the attacks
c. 2008 Pearson Allyn & Bacon
Emotion and Autobiographical Memory
Flashbulb Memory

Pezdek (2004) compared New Yorkers and nonNew Yorkers on two types of memory
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Event memory – Aspects of the actual event
Autobiographical memory – How a person learned
about the event
Found that stress enhanced memory for aspects of
event being closely monitored

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New Yorkers: The event itself
Non-New Yorkers: How they heard about the event
c. 2008 Pearson Allyn & Bacon
Emotion and Autobiographical Memory
Mood and Autobiographical Memory
 Mood-Dependent Memory

Retrieval of a previously encoded event is
enhanced when the mood experienced at retrieval
matches the mood present at encoding

Depressed individuals are more likely to retrieve
negative memories

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Tendency is to recall overly general memories
Obstructs problem solving?
c. 2008 Pearson Allyn & Bacon
Autobiographical Memory
Functions of Autobiographical Memory
 Autobiographical remembering serves a number of
important functions:
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Communicative
 Offer a greater sense of intimacy and connection
Emotional
 Helps us think through life problems
Directive
 Can serve to guide future life course
c. 2008 Pearson Allyn & Bacon