Autobiographical

Memory
Chapter 6
 Do You Remember?

• Your first time flying in a plane?

• When was your younger sibling born?
• The day you got your driver’s license?
• The first time you got stitches?
• Your 6th birthday party?
• The name of your 3rd grade teacher
• Your first romantic kiss?
 Overview

• Characteristics of Autobiographical memory

• Conway’s model
• Hyperthymesia (discussion forum)
• How to study autobiographic memories
• Reminiscent bump
• Childhood Amnesia
• Flashbulb Memories
 Autobiographical Memory

• Autobiographical memory refers to the specific

memories of your life as well as self-knowledge.
• Autobiographical memory combines information from
episodic events (“your first day at SMU”) and semantic
knowledge (“I was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia”).
 Autobiographical Memory

• Autobiographical memory
• To a large degree they make up our “self ”
• Clive Wearing has virtually no autobiographical memories
and therefore little sense of who he is…
 Theory of Autobiographical
Memory (Conway)
• A system that retains and interprets knowledge about
the self (the “me”)
• Depends on the interaction between the “knowledge
base” and the “working self ”
• Knowledge base is personalized LTM
• Working self is personal, current memories (how you are
currently thinking about yourself and your memories of
your life)
• More of a monitoring function (like a self-schema)
 Theory of Autobiographical
Memory (Conway)
• Depends on the interaction between the “knowledge
base” and the “working self ”
• Working self and knowledge base have a reciprocal
relationship
• What you remember is based on how you view your
current self, and your knowledge base reflects how you
view your self
• Not a store of episodic memories in chronological order
 Theory of Autobiographical
Memory (Conway)
• Depends on the interaction between the “knowledge
base” and the “working self ”
• Forrest Gump: good example of how autobiographical
memory works
• Significance of events depends on working self
• Forrest see his life events not as war hero, businessman,
inspiration or philanthropist but in relation to Jenny and
his mother
 Theory of Autobiographical
Memory (Conway)
• Depends on the interaction between the “knowledge
base” and the “working self ”
• [Link]
t=729
• Do You Know Yourself ? - Mind Field 12:10
 Theory of Like other memories,
autobiographical memories are
Autobiographical reconstructive; dynamic –
susceptible to change
Memory (Conway)
• A system that retains and interprets knowledge about the
self (the “me”)
• The push and pull of
• Correspondence (accuracy)
• Coherence: Conform memories to be consistent with
our current self
• Your ‘facts’ about yourself can change (e.g., remember that
you always were concerned about fitness or sad break-up
now viewed as a lucky escape)
• Interpret your past from today’s perceptions*
 Theory of Autobiographical
Memory (Conway)
• The autobiographical knowledge base (facts about
ourselves and our past) can be organized into a
hierarchy of levels.
 Levels of Autobiographical
• Event level – detailed, referring to specific, individual
events. (tend to be more perceptual, detailed)
• Lots of firsts or turning point in life
• General level – referring to extended sequences or repeated
series of events sharing a common component.
• E.g., during lockdown, a trip to Greece
• E.g., such as going to work everyday
• Lifetime period – broad, theme-based portions of a
person’s life.
• Relationship theme, work theme, sports theme.
 Endless Memory (Hyperthymesia)

• Quite recently, there has been several studies of

HSAM (Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory)
• Fewer than 100 documented
 Endless Memory

• Quite recently, there has been several studies of

HSAM (Highly Superior Autobiographical
Memory
• Referred to as Calendric ability
• Discussion forum
 Studying Autobiographic Memory

• Methodological Difficulties
• You will see some of these in video on Endless
Memory
• Can we assume that what we remember is actually
what happened? (correspondence)
 Studying Autobiographic Memory

• Classic Diary Method

• Participants asked to record events in a diary at set intervals
• Later memories can be objectively compared to the original
account of the events in the diary entries
 Studying
Autobiographic
Memory
• Classic Diary Method
• Willem Wagenaar, recorded
over 2,400 events over six
years
• Two events per day on index
cards
• Found that what, where, and
who cues were better at
retrieving information than
when cues.
 Studying Autobiographic Memory
Feature of Example
• Classic Diary Method Event
Who? Driving alone
• Similar results with other What? A car accident
research: Where? By the corner bank

• With cues, could recall 60-80% When? 10/8/08 @ 8:00 AM

Salience? Once per 15 years
• Better when consistent with life Emotionality? Etreme
theme
Pleasantness Extremely
? unpleasant
Critical detail Other driver failed to
stop at a red light
 Studying Autobiographic Memory

• Can be more naturalistic (like a series of letters over

a period of time)
• E.g., letters Baddeley wrote to his mother 40 years ago
• Categorize each recognized memory as either:
• Knew it happened but could not recall experience
• Remembered
• Could not recall
• 62 events – forgotten 26 completely
 Studying Autobiographic Memory

• Some problems with this methodology (selection bias

of events – more memorable ones recorded)
 Studying Autobiographic Memory

• The Cue-word Technique for Eliciting

Autobiographical Memories
• Ordinary words are provided to participants, and they are
asked to provide the first memory – from any point in their
life – which the word elicits
• Still need to test correspondence (family members, coworkers,
etc.)
• Good but people are bad at dating memories and retrieving
them based on temporal cues
 Studying Autobiographic Memory

• Not just words that cue autobiographical memories

• Music often evokes strong memories (and feelings)
• Most events-specific but some more general (like high
school)
 Studying Autobiographic Memory

• Smells also evokes strong memories (and feelings)

• Smell processed through limbic system (amygdala,
hippocampus)
• Smells often produce older, more emotional
memories
• Most in childhood
• More emotional
 Studying Autobiographic Memory

• Smells evokes strong memories (and feelings)

• [Link]
Phenomena associated with
Autobiographical Memory
 Memory Biases and the
Reminiscence Bump
• People of all ages tend to recall numerous memories from
the very recent past
• Recency effect
• More interesting is the Reminiscence Bump
• People over the age of 40 tend to report more memories
from the period between ages 15–30 than from other eras
• The reminiscence bump refers to a spike in recalled
memories corresponding to late adolescence to early
adulthood, or roughly between the ages of 16 and 25.
• Tend to be more positive than negative memories (the good
ol’ days)
The Reminiscence Bump
 Explanations for the Reminiscence
Bump
• Cognitive view (memory fluency) occurs because the
memories around 20 are the often first experiences – unique
and novel.
• Life scripts may guide recall with positive life transitions around the
bump times.
• Neurological view – people reach their peak at this time,
declines after.
• Identity formation view – people decide who they are at that
time in life; develop sense of self which memories are tied to
 Childhood Amnesia
• What is your first memory? How old would you have
been?
 Childhood Amnesia

• Childhood amnesia (or infantile amnesia) refers to the

observation that adults have almost no episodic
memories from the first three to five years of their life.
 Childhood Amnesia
• This is does NOT mean that children cannot form
memories before the age of 3**
• Just that they cannot recall them when they are adults
• Think about the amazing amount of learning that
happens during the first two years
• Much of that sticks but nearly all events are lost.
 Childhood Amnesia
• Most psychologists believe that reported memories
from earlier ages are not true memories but from seeing
photos or hearing family stories.
• Illusory self-memories (misattribution)
 Studying Childhood Amnesia
• Tricky to research – how to verify accuracy?
• Easy to create false memories in childhood
• Methods:
• Ask people to report earliest memory.
• Estimated mean is 3.1 years.
• Target particular memories, like birth of sibling, moving.
• Age 3 is the estimate here.
• Not all have these transitions; do the transitions themselves
create potentially earlier memories?
 Studying Childhood Amnesia
• Methods:
• Exhaustive search of all memories from earliest on
• A few early memories; much more from aged 7 onward
• Cue-word method: researchers provide a cue word and
subject must remember earliest memory associated with
that word
• Slightly lower estimate – perhaps below 3
 Studying Childhood Amnesia
• Methods:
• Exhaustive search of all memories from earliest on
• A few early memories; much more from aged 7 onward
• Cue-word method: researchers provide a cue word and
subject must remember earliest memory associated with
that word
• Slightly lower estimate – perhaps below 3
 Childhood Amnesia – Why?

• Psychodynamic - repressed because they involve sexual

fantasies with parent (not supported by research)
 Childhood Amnesia – Why?
• Language development: language is needed to form a
coherent narrative.
• Children cannot translate memories into verbal representations
until they learn how to talk
• Maybe the memories are there but not in language codes so we
cannot retrieve them
• But the fact that non-human mammals also show this pattern
makes it unlikely
 Childhood Amnesia – Why?

• Emergent self concept

• Infants lack a sense of themselves as separate from
environment (starts around 1.5) , no “I” as causal agent.
• Autobiographical memories form around sense of self.
 Childhood Amnesia – Why?

• Poorer encoding of memories

• Which might be related to language, self-concept or even
brain development
 Childhood Amnesia – Why?
• Neurological View
• the relevant brain structures are not developed enough to form
proper Autobiographical memories
• The hippocampus and prefrontal lobe are under-developed
 Childhood Amnesia – Why?

• A different Neurological explanation**

• Not so much that the hippocampus is underdeveloped but
that the rapid neural growth in that area during early
childhood disrupts the brain circuitry that stores old
memories and makes them inaccessible
• Neurogenesis
• If you vary the speed of neural growth, you affect childhood
amnesia
 Childhood Amnesia – Why?

• Neurogenesis-dependent decay
• New neurons generate new synaptic connection and
potentially alter the strength of existing connections
• [Link]
you-remember-being-a-baby
 Childhood Amnesia – Why?

• Why Can't You Remember Being a Baby?

• [Link]
 Photo-taking Impairment
Effect
• Some research suggests we have poorer memories of objects or
events if we take photos of them
• Photographs are not memories (even though they often serve as
great retrieval cues)
• Seems to be related to a trade-off with our attention on the
camera and attention to what is happening
• Also, cognitive offloading (we don’t need to remember it
because it is recorded)
• Problematic with photos of children – parents are the ones that
store their children’s childhood memories so they can tell them
their stories.
• Suggestion is to take fewer photos and be more mindful in the
moment
 Do you have
any Flashbulb
Flashbulb Memories Memories??

• Flashbulb memories are highly confident personal

memories of (usually) surprising events. In order to
study them, researchers have focused on memory of
public tragedies (but can be personal)
Flashbulb Memories
• The defining feature of flashbulb memories is
that people are very confident that their
memories are accurate
• Where they were, what they were doing, who they
were
• Usually has little to do with the actual event
Flashbulb Memories – are
they accurate as they feel?
• More recent research from flashbulb memories of the
start of first Gulf War (1991) and 9/11 (2001).
• Compared memory of event to ordinary memory (e.g.,
interaction with classmate)
• Flashbulb memories appear no more accurate than
ordinary memory
• But vividness ratings, confidence ratings were all higher for the
flashbulb memory.
• Maybe defining feature of Flashbulb memories is the high
confidence we place on the memory?
 Flashbulb Memories – are they
accurate as they feel?
• SciShow Psyc
• [Link]
 Looking Back

• Definition
• Conway’s Model
• Data Collection
• Phenomena
• Reminiscence Bump
• Childhood Amnesia
• Photo-taking Impairment
• Flashbulb Memories