Autobiographical memory, future thinking and self-identity in Parkinson’s Disease
Autobiographical memories (AMs) are important in maintaining a
sense of self. People with Parkinson’s Disease (PD) lack detail when
recalling AMs, though there is no research looking at self identity in
PD. In addition, future thinking is impaired in PD though the idea of
exploring a ‘future self’ is novel to this group. These relationships are
explored following a between subjects design. Fifteen individuals with
PD and 15 controls carried out ‘I am’ and ‘I will be’ tasks which cued
recall of AMs and production of imagined future events. T-tests and
ANCOVAs found that PD participants’ memories and future images
were significantly less episodic than controls’ and these clustered
around times of self-emergence in both groups. In addition, PD
participants produced fewer ‘I am’ statements in timed and untimed
conditions. Results support findings of less episodic, overgeneral AM
in PD which may explain reduced access to self knowledge and weaker
sense of self in PD. Results also provide evidence for the preserved
organisational properties of current and future self concepts in
accessing memories and generating imagined future events in PD.
Introduction

AM involves episodic (specific, detailed event) and semantic
(general, factual) memory (Tulving, 1985)
 Self memory system (SMS; Conway & Pleydell-Pearce, 2000) says
a bidirectional relationship exists between self and memory:
o AM helps to form a sense of self and guides behaviour
o Self identity influences selection and recall of AMs
 AM is overgeneral and less episodic in Parkinson’s Disease (PD;
Smith, Souchay & Conway, 2010), but no self research exists.
 Less episodic future thinking in PD (De Vito et al., 2012), thus
future self may be impaired – no existing research.
Hypotheses
AM and future thinking will be impaired in PD, as will current and
future self-identity.
Method
Participants
Table 1. Demographic data of the 2 groups.
Demographic characteristic
PD (n=15)
Control (n=15)
Mean age (SD)
72.4 (8.46)
71.5 (6.42)
Male:Female
10:5
7:5
Materials
 Screening tests: Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale, Geriatric
Depression Scale, Mini Mental State Examination, National Adult
Reading Test, Verbal fluency – FAS and animals
 ‘I am’ and autobiographical memory task
o Describe yourself in ‘I am’ statements in 1 minute
o After 1 minute, keep going to try to reach 20 statements
o Pick the 3 most defining statements and date their emergence
o Recall specific memories relating to each of the self identities

20
15
‘I will be’ and future thinking task
o Describe a potential future self in ‘I will be’ statements, 1min.
o After 1 minute, keep going to try to reach 20 statements
o Pick 3 most defining statements and estimate their emergence
o Imagine and describe specific events relating to each of the 3
future self identities
10
5
0
-37-27-17 -7 3 13 23 33 43 53
Results
-46-36-26-16 -6 4 14 24 34 44 54
Years before and after time of self-formation (year 0)
1
Mean episodic scores
Abstract
Joanne Allen, Sarah Smith and Celine Souchay
University of Leeds, University of Bradford, Université de Bourgogne
Figure 2. Number of AMs generated around time of current self
formation in PD patients (left) and controls (right)
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
PD
group
Control
group
0
Memories
Future images
Figure 1. Group differences in mean episodic scores for AMs and future
images.
One way ANCOVA, with letter fluency and NART scores as covariates,
confirmed less episodic AMs and future images in PD.
Table 2. Group differences in number of self statements generated in the 2
conditions in the ‘I am’ (current self) and ‘I will be’ (future self) tasks
(means and standard deviations).
Group
‘I am’ task
‘I will be’ task
60 second
Overall
60 second
Overall
PD
7.57 (1.74)
15.73 (5.18)
3.8 (3.21)
5.8 (2.86)
Control
13.33 (3.33)
18.93 (1.75)
5.29 (2.16)
9.93 (4)
Accessibility of self identity
 Assessed by number of self statements generated in 1 minute
 One way ANCOVA, to control for verbal fluency and NART, found PD
participants produced significantly fewer ‘I am’ statements in 1 minute,
suggesting self knowledge is less accessible
 No group differences in accessibility of future self concepts from the ‘I
will be’ task
Strength of self identity
 Assessed by number of self statements produced overall (not timed)
 Independent samples T Test found PD participants generated
significantly fewer ‘I am’ statements overall, suggesting weaker overall
sense of self exists in PD
 No group differences in future-self strength from ‘I will be’ task
AMs recalled (seen in above graphs) and future images produced (not
evident in above graphs) cluster around periods of self development.
Discussion

People with PD experience difficulties remembering episodic AMs
and imagining episodic future events; these are more semantic
 Current self concepts are generally weaker and less accessible in
PD, which in the context of the SMS, may be due to impaired AM
 Self appears to have a similarly powerful organisational influence
on retrieval of AMs and production of imagined future events in
both PD patients and healthy controls
 Future thinking deficits occur with a sparing of future self deficits
suggesting importance of other factors, e.g. executive function
Implications
 Impaired AM and self identity can lead to low mood
 Potential therapeutic benefits:
o AM deficits contribute to maintaining depressed mood, but
when AMs are targeted in treatment mood can improve
(Williams et al., 2007)
o Working to improve self efficacy improves mood via better AM
and future thinking (Brown, Dorfman, Marmar &Bryant, 2011)
Conclusions
This study demonstrates, with evidence from a PD sample, that AM
impacts self and self is important for AM retrieval. Though future self
may be less important for future thinking as future thinking can be
impaired independent of any impairments of future self.
References
Brown, A,D., Dorfman, M.L., Marmar, C.R., & Bryant, R.A. (2011). The impact of perceived self-efficacy
on mental time travel and social problem solving. Consciousness and cognition, 21(1), 299-306.
Conway, M.A., & Pleydell-Pearce, C.W. (2000). The construction of autobiographical memories in the
self memory system. Psychological Review, 107, 261-288.
De Vito, S., Gamboz, N., Brandimonte, M.A., Barone, P., Amboni, M., & Della Sala, S. (2012). Future
thinking in Parkinson’s disease: An executive function? Neuropsychologia, 50, 1494-1501.
Smith, S.J., Souchay, C., & Conway, M.A. (2010). Overgeneral autobiographical memory in Parkinson’s
Disease. Cortex, 46, 787-793.
Finally,
provideand
some
evidenceCanadian
for thePsychologist,
preserved26,
organisational
Tulving E.results
(1985). Memory
consciousness.
1-12.
Williams, J.M.G., Barnhofer, T., Crane, C., Hermans, D., Raes, F., Watkins E, & Dalgleish, T. (2007).
properties
of current and future self concepts in accessing memories and
Autobiographical memory specificity and emotional disorder. Psychological Bulletin, 133, 122-148.
generating imagined future events in PD, despite self deficits.