Autobiographical Memory 4
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- What areas of 3 major areas of the brain light up for all autobiographical memory networks in the Svoboda et. al. metastudy?
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Left PFC
Left anterior temporal
Parietal regions - What is the medial part of the brain associated with? What is activated during autobiographical memories?
- Medial part of brain assoicated with "self" posterior cingulate for episodic memory lights up
- What did Cabeza and Jaques do in autobio memory?
- organized similar info and conceptualized it in terms of networks used
- What is feelings of rightness and how can it go wrong?
- confidence in memory, knowing something happened to self and wasn't a dream - can misattribute to movies though
- Describe how the tiers of memory for abm change from episodic to semantic:
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1. personal autobiographical memory: recollection, episodic with details -> personal
2. Autobio facts: familiarity, episodic memory with remember/know distincition, less detail than before
3. generic personal memory: semantic side, "part scenery," context or routine, don't remember specific days but routines etc.
4. self-schema: broader semantic knowledge that helps organize abm - More recent events and hippocampal activation:
- episodic memories, more detailed, activates the hippo anteriorly
- Older events are more __ memory and activate this part of the hippocampus:
- semantic, posterior and dorsal parts of hippo
- AD pts with greater MTL volume had better __ memory?
- autobiographcial - episodic end of the continum
- Pts with greater anterior temporal cortex vol had better __ memories?
- semantic - relative personal memories
- _ __ __ involves memory for events in time
- a little episodic
- _ __ __ well practice memories and may not remember details
- a little semantic
- 3 ways to study ABM:
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1. diary method
2. autobio memory scheduel
3. Galton cue-word method - Describe the Wagenarr diary study:
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Wagenarr chose the most important events daily for over 4 years and tested self 6 months to five years later
who, what, where cues effective, when not
salient, emotional, and pleasant memories recalled best
usual forgetting curve - 3 weaknesses of journal studies w/ explanations:
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1. selection bias for memories: memroies chosen b/c they are distnictive
2. selection bias for people: usually only 1 person, and is this person a fair rep of general pop - weird ppl do this for 4 years!
3. memories are atypically well encoded and elaboratively rehearsed: journaling events is a rehearsal with deep processing which imporves memorability - What are memory schedules:
- Divides a person's life into segments and asks for more semantic or episodic episodes - asks for memories from diff parts of persons life
- People who are good at recalling one type of detail are good or bad at recalling the other?
- good
- How accurate are memory schedule memories?
- usually acurate and correlate highly with family member's memory
- what is telescoping:
- compress or expand time, often uses an anchor pt to compress/expand around the pt
- In the Janseen dating study did people prefer relative or absolute judgement for nonpersonal/genertic items and why?
- Prefered relative judgement b/c may not have percise memory for these events
- What did the Means et. al study on pts visits to doctors show in interference, avalibility/accessibility, and schemas?
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People who had 4+ visits to docs had worse memories for any visit b/c of interference, the cue had more memories associated with it
With right cue could access memory: memory was avaliable just right cue needed to access it
Schemas: cues provided to help organize memory - like a timeline - did better at memory task - What is the cue word method? who devised it?
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devised by Galton
give subjects a cue word and must describe memory related to word, date of the memory, and rate vivideness of the memory - what age do we see a lot of ABM center around? what is this called?
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age 15-30
"Memory bump" - To see the memory bump what must you do?
- remove memories from the last year of analysis because the recent things tend to overwhealm rest of the curve
- not remembering much from age 0-3 is called:
- infantile amnesia
- Why can't study memory bump in 20 year olds?
- b/c they're at the peak of the bump- this is more recent stuff not the actual bump
- does the memory bump just happen for cue words? prof
- Bump doesn't just happen for cue-word: people see this when reading autobiographies, number of memories recorded tend to be in the memory bump time frame
- 4 thins Rubin study ruled out for life bumps?
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1.ppl didn't spend more time looking for bump memories than other non-bump abm (rxn time same)
2. bump memories not more emoitional
3. bump memories no more likely to be described as 1st time
4. not the case that instructions biased retrieval - got bump every time w/ diff insturction sets - What were mixed results from the Rubin study on memory bumps? 2 things to explian this
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People tended to rank bump memories as more/less important depending on instructions.
1. more memories important to the concept of self (personal)
2. life scripts (cultural) - what are life scripts?
- within cultures there are certain ideas or scripts about when certian events are likely to happen
- What did the Bernsten and Rubin study show for life scripts?
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Ask older adults and college students when people are normally happiest, saddest, etc. ask older adults to think of memory and time for that.
See the memory bump for most import/happies in older adults and students expectation for "in love," "happiest," "important" follow bump that follows closely to adults
- What happens to saddest in the Bernsten and Rubin life script study?
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No memory bump for saddest in the adult memories
Pattern for sad expectation is less regular for both adults and students and less linked between two
Because: don't have life script for negative event as for positive events - What is does the influence of scripts for the memory bump depend on?
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how the question is asked.
get the bump for cue-word method ("river" cue for memory" but larger bump for cue like "most happy" - How is the way you ask question related to encoding specificity?
- ppl have expectations about what events should get designations due to scripts and so that influences how encode/retrieve info
- What are 3 reasons for why cue-word yeilds weaker/smaller bump that life scripts cue?
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1. recency effect: more likely to recall more recent memories
2. Bump memories are not more pos w/ this method - nothing to use script
3. Scripts vs experience in aging: have more experience w/ age and can use more memories for less scripted events - Are encoding and rehersal effects seen in cue-word method?
- yes b/c tell stories and over time these stories are rehearsed and remembered better
- What did the Janssen et al study show about the bump?
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People were most likely to choose favorite soccer player who reached midpoint of career when participant was 15-30.
Bias towards recall of that particular part of lifespan not explained by scripts - scripts aren't only reason - What are Glueck and Bluck life story view?
- integrates accounts like biological mechanisms, cognitive mechanisms, life scripts and self narratives to explain bump memories
- Bump memories are: in glueck and Bluck's view
- more novel/distinctive, more involved in identity development, transition period, and more likely to occur when encoding fxn is high
- What is Conway's individual life story?
- A hierarchical structure from general themes to specific details
- What did Schraul and Rubin's immigration study show?
- People typically had a second bump around time of immigration - time of transitions and firsts
- What was Conway et. al. 2005 study on Eastern/Wester cultures impacting ABM?
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Eastern vs. western:
Timing: considered adult sooner in eastern cultures
Content: eastern focused on social, western on self - Results for Timing, content (social, self) and specificity:
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Timing: no difference b/w
Content: US remember more personal memories not relevant to self, Chinese remember more group and social activites
Western less likely to report memory where someone else the star, chinesse more soical activity
Specificity: western remember more specific detail than Chinese - Autobiographical memory definition:
- memory across a lifespan for both specific events and self related information - uses semantic and episodic memory
- 4 possible fxns of ABM:
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1. directive functions
2. social functions
3. self representations
4. adversity - mood-congruent memories:
- bias in the recall of memories such that negative mood makes negative memories more readily available than positive and vice versa - doesn't affect recall of neutral memories
- what problem is addressed by diary studies?
- Problem: knowing what is initially experienced, soln by diary: record event daily
- What are problems with the Linton and Wagnear studies:
- biased selection problem and implicit rehearsal
- Life narrative:
- a coherent and integrated account of one's life that is claimed to form the basis of ABM
- Autobiographical knowledge base:
- facts about ourselves and our past that form the basis for ABM
- Conway's overall idea about the purpose of ABM:
- system that retains knowledge concerning the experienced self - the "me"
- Two ways in which depressed pts ABM reports differ from those nondepressed?
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1. have less rich/detaild ABM
2. Negative bias recollection of the past - What autonomic nervous system dysfunctions in PTSD?
- the amygdala signals the ANS to release adrenalin and cortisol, more stress hormones for fight/flight
- What has a reduced hippocampal size shown?
- smaller hippocampus more suggestible to prolonged stress
- 4 reasons PTSD memories may be more accessible?
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1. more recent
2. more arousing
3. more likely to occur for pos events
4. more likely to show reminiscene bump - Fugue:
- sudden loss of autobio memory, usually acoomptanied by wandering
- 4 main characteristics of fugue:
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1. typically proceeded by stress
2. depression is common
3. history of transient organically based amnesia
4. diff to discousnt possibility of ulterior motive - 4 reasons situation specific amnesiia may not always be bad:
- 1. occurs w/ prisoners who self report crime and make no attempt to escape
- What kind of memory is shared across personality in MPD?
- implicit memory
- delusions:
- false beliefs, often in schizophrenic pts, seem well founded to pt but implausible to natl observer
- Confabulation and ABM:
- ABM info is false but not intentionally misleading
- Provoked vs spontaneous confabulation:
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provoked: result of amnesic pts attempt to fill gap
spontaneous: less common involves frontal lobe damage - What area of brain involved in confabulation: what 2 probs lead to?
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frontal lobe
1. difficulty setting up appropriate retrieval cue
2. diff evaluating outcome of memory search