Autobiographical memory
________________________________________
1. Convince you that autobiographical memory is
important no matter what kind of psychology you find
interesting.
2. Briefly describe experimental techniques used to
evaluate autobiographical memory.
3. Discuss the three major components of the distribution
of autobiographical memories across the lifespan:
 Childhood amnesia
 Reminiscence bump
 ‘Standard’ retention
4. Introduce a variety of other issues associated with
autobiographical memory behavior including:
 Dating of memories
 Timing of memories
 Social construction of memory
5. Review data related to flashbulb memories.
Why is AM interesting?
________________________________________
1. Personality

2. Developmental

3. Social

4. Cognitive

5. Neuropsychology

Narrative Reasoning
(Right Frontal & Parietal)
Search & Retrieval
(Dorsolateral Frontal Lobes)
Olfactory
Imagery
Auditory
Imagery
Visual
Imagery
(Olfactory
Cortex)
(Auditory
Cortex)
(Visual
Cortex)
Emotion
(Amygdala/Orbital Frontal)
Other
Sensory
Imagery
(Other
Sensory
Cortices)
Spatial
Imagery
(Right
Parietal
Cortex)
Explicit Memory
(Medial Temporal Lobes)
Semantic
Memory
Language
(Left
Temporal,
(Lateral
Parietal,
Temporal Frontal)
Lobes)
Techniques for studying AM
________________________________________
Diary studies – the experimenter (or subject) records
his/her own memories for an extended period of time;
EX: Linton
Beeper Studies – the subjects are cued ‘at random’
EX: Brewer
Cue-Word (Galton) technique – subjects hear cue words
EX: Rubin, et al.
Schulkind, Rahhal, Lacher, & Klein
Story of your life – the subject is asked to tell the story of
his/her life.
EX: Larsen and Larsen (1991)
Expected Distribution of AM across the lifespan
___________________________________________
60
Frequency
50
40
30
20
10
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
Age at Time of Event
50
55
60
65
70
Typical Distribution of AM across the lifespan
________________________________________
60
Frequency
50
40
Chld Amn
The Bump
Middle Age
Retention
30
20
10
0
5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70
Age at Time of Event
Retention / Middle Age
________________________________________
Why ‘retention’?
(e.g.: Power function decline)
Shape of retention portion:
Implications:
 Contradicts increased forgetting explanation of agerelated changes in memory.
 Perhaps interference is the problem:
o They have lots of memories, but struggle to
Childhood amnesia
________________________________________
Childhood Amnesia – typically people cannot remember
any events that transpired prior to age 2 or 3.
When?
Estimates vary based on technique
Problems:
 High variability
 Leakage of
Theoretical Explanations
 Freudian Trauma
 Neural maturation
 Neural / representational re-organization
EX: Magical Shrinking Machine
Could be
Could be
Predictors of childhood amnesia
 Moving
 Gender
Eacott & Crawley (1998)
________________________________________
Theoretical Question: What are the boundaries of
childhood amnesia?
Empirical Question: What do subjects remember about
the birth of a younger sibling? What do older
siblings ‘remember’ about the birth of the subject?
Method:
Subjects completed a questionnaire
o Recall vs. report conditions
Results:
1. Age at birth differences in recall condition
2. No age at birth differences in report condition
3. Mothers contradict fair amount of memories
Interpretation:
1. Childhood amnesia ends at  2.5 years of age
2. Why do they argue for memory rather than family
lore?
Reminiscence Bump
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Reminiscence bump – people tend to remember a
disproportionately large number of memories from
When?
Estimates vary depending on technique
Problems:
 Type of question asked
 Number of memories collected
60
Frequency
50
40
Chld Amn
The Bump
Middle Age
Retention
30
20
10
0
5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70
Age at Time of Event
Theoretical explanations for the bump
________________________________________
1. Biased Search Strategy (Rubin & Schulkind, 1997)
Prediction:
2. Nature of ‘bump’ events (R&S, 1997)
Prediction:
3. Identity formation (R&S, 1997)
Prediction:
4. Evolutionary explanation (R, S, & Rahhal, 1999)
Prediction:
5. Cognitive markers (Schrauf & Rubin, 2000)
Prediction:
Rubin, Schulkind, and Rahhal (1999)
________________________________________
Theoretical Question: Is the ‘bump’ in AM a ‘memory
phenomenon?
Empirical Question: Will evidence of the bump be
Method:
Questionnaire study covering, politics, sports,
entertainment, and current events
Results:
 Bump for each content domain
 Gender differences
Points to ponder:
 Are boys smarter than girls?
o Cohort effects
o Test type
Gender differences in Autobiographical Narratives
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Consistent gender differences:
1.
2. Women tell stories about
stories about
; men tell
Why?
Socialization
How does socialization create the observed effects?
1. Better memory, in general

2. Autobiographical memory / Narrative ability

3. Selection biases

Problems:
1. Is the admission story
2. Computer data collection?
Solution:
Other Interesting Data
________________________________________
Timing
We recall more events that occurred at the beginnings
and ends of time periods (early in semester, late in
the semester)
Dating
 Unbiased estimates
 Reconstruction effects
 Frequency effects
Organization
 Temporal
 Themes
 First events
o Why might first events be important?


Specificity

Flashbulb memories
________________________________________
Flashbulb Memory – memory for
 level of detail
 sense of reliving
 common experience
EX: September 11th
________________________________________
Brown & Kulik
 Special biological mechanism triggered by
 Consequentiality
o
 Other main contribution
o
Neisser questioned
 Assumption of accuracy
 Differential
 Consequentiality
 Data result from
More on the Evolution of the FM debate:
Neisser and Harsch (1992)
________________________________________
Theoretical Question: Is there something special about
Empirical Question: Will undergraduates’ recollection of
the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster remain
Method:
SS recorded their story the next morning
Were re-tested  2 years later
Two stories were compared
Results:
 25% changed location, activity AND informant 50%
remembered one or fewer of these
 Accuracy unrelated
 People dissociated
 Accounts tended towards
Implications:
 Schema-based retrieval
 Source memory (time slice explanation)
 Social construction
Flashbulb Memories: A Summary
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1. Reports of the accuracy of flashbulb memories are
greatly exaggerated.
 However, it’s not clear how FMs compare to
‘ordinary memories’.
 Or is it (Talarico & Rubin, 2004)?
2. Consistency is affected by
3. Experiencing the event makes a difference (Neisser,
Winograd, et al., 1996)
 Narrative account
4. The primary difference between FMs and other kinds
of memories does not appear to be
 Social construction
5. Identity formation may also contribute to this
phenomenon.