Autobiographical memory

Question 1

Define autobiographical memory.

Answer 1

Memory for your own life - events as personally experienced.

Question 2

What results are found when testing a normal student population with the cue word technique?

Answer 2

A traditional forgetting function (e.g. Rubin, 1982).

Question 3

Describe the cue word technique.

Answer 3

Recalling memories associated with various cue words, dating and describing them.

Question 4

How is autobiographical memory studied?

Answer 4

Cue word technique.

Question 5

Give an example of autobiographical memory involving the cue word technique.

Answer 5

Galton (1883) gave people cue words and asked them to recall an associated memory, which they had to describe and date

Question 6

What is a problem with studying autobiographical memory?

Answer 6

It’s difficult to test the validity of participants’ memories - false memories.

Question 7

What is a way of avoiding the problem with memory accuracy?

Answer 7

Single case diary studies, such as Linton (1975) - compared time elapsed with likelihood of forgetting for different numbers of tests.

Question 8

How did Linton (1975) measure her forgetting?

Answer 8

Having no memory of the event.

Question 9

What technique did Linton use?

Answer 9

Random sampling with replacement - had cards with events and dates, tested herself on them.

Question 10

What did Linton (1975) find?

Answer 10

Forgetting increases over time elapsed, but practice (multiple tests) improves memory a lot.

Question 11

What did Wagenaar (1986) do?

Answer 11

Sampled one event a day over 4 years, more systematically than Linton.
Tried to pick more unique events, used cued recall - who, what, where and when - and randomised cue order when testing. Recalled each event once only. Also measured salience, emotional involvement and pleasantness.

Question 12

What did Wagenaar (1986) find?

Answer 12

The more cues provided, the better memory is. Knowing when an event is is very little help for recall. Standard forgetting function - but claims items still always recognised.
Overall memory was best for recent, salient, emotional, and pleasant events.
Also good memory for unpleasant self-critical (as opposed to unpleasant neutral) events (Wagenaar, 1994) - not consistent with repression.

Question 13

What do other studies than Wagenaar (1986) suggest about memory and emotion?

Answer 13

The intensity of the emotion is more important than its valence in predicting good memory (e.g. Talarico et al., 2004). Disagreement could be because of it being a case study - Wagenaar could be an unusual case!

Question 14

What is the problem with case studies’ claims of recognition?

Answer 14

There’s no control in the experiment, so can’t be tested.

Question 15

What did Barclay and Wellman (1986) do?

Answer 15

Tested roommates’ memory, with false memories from their roommate. Found that over time recognition for altered foil events increases.

Question 16

What did Horselenberg et al. (2004) Suggest?

Answer 16

That fantasy-prone individuals may actually be better at recognising their own memories, confusing them less with false ones.

Question 17

What do studies (using the cue word technique) reveal about early autobiographical memories?

Answer 17

Surprisingly few memories from the first few years of life, e.g. Waldfogel (1948), also Rubin (1982) showed a decrease in memory for very early memories.

Question 18

What did Freud refer to as infantile amnesia?

Answer 18

The fact that our memories for very early events is much worse than would be expected simply from the amount of time passed.

Question 19

What did Usher and Neisser (1993) do?

Answer 19

Asked parents and students about events - general health and other questions (birth and death of relatives can be easily dated), test memory later on.

Question 20

What did Usher and Neisser (1993) find?

Answer 20

As predicted, fall-off of memory for events under the age of two - memory improves quite a lot 3+.

Question 21

What are some problems with Usher and Neisser (1993)?

Answer 21

61% of memories were confirmed by a parent, but in 22% of cases parents’ and children’s memories conflicted.

Question 22

What did Eacott and Crawley (1998) do?

Answer 22

A replication of Usher and Neisser with siblings’ birth dates. Pins down first memories at the age of 2-2yrs 3 months.

Question 23

What has been found about autobiographical memory over the lifetime?

Answer 23

Rubin et al. (1986) (meta analysis) found that memories of 70 year olds show both childhood amnesia and evidence of a reminiscence peak - aged about 10-30 ish. Time when building up concept of self, defining who you are. Making decisions, getting jobs, making friends. Lots of first times.

Question 24

What did Conway and Bekerian (1987) propose about autobiographical knowledge?

Answer 24

Autobiographical knowledge involves lifetime periods, general events, and event specific knowledge.

Question 25

What did Burt et al. (2003) state about what an event is?

Answer 25

They comprise events, themes and episodes (?), and don’t exist in isolation - they’re linked with other memories to form stories.

Question 26

What did Conway and Pleydell-Pearce (2000) state about autobiographical memories?

Answer 26

They are transitory mental constructions within a Self-Memory System.

Question 27

What is retrieval done with reference to according to Conway and Pleydell-Pearce (2000)’s theory of autobiographical memory?

Answer 27

A Working Self, which maintains our current self-concept and goals.

Question 28

Where did Conway and Pleydell-Pearce (2000) derive their idea of the working self from?

Answer 28

Markus and Nurius’ (1986)’s theory of possible selves.

Question 29

So, according to Conway and Pleydell-Pearce (2000), what is a good predictor of accuracy in dating memories?

Answer 29

Degree of self-reference (Skowronski et al., 1991).

Question 30

What problem does reliance on the working self create?

Answer 30

The possibility of inference and bias errors (Hyman, 1999; Schacter, 2001).