Differential effects of age on involuntary and voluntary autobiographical memory

"This article may not exactly replicate the final version published in the APA journal. It is not the copy of record." Original article can be found at: http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/pag/24/2/397/ Copyright American Psychological Association. DOI: 10.1037/a0015785Research on aging and autobiographical memory has focused almost exclusively on voluntary autobiographical memory. However, in everyday life, autobiographical memories often come to mind spontaneously without deliberate attempt to retrieve anything. In the present study, diary and word-cue methods were used to compare the involuntary and voluntary memories of 44 young and 38 older adults. The results showed that older adults reported fewer involuntary and voluntary memories than did younger adults. Additionally, the life span distribution of involuntary and voluntary memories did not differ in young adults (a clear recency effect) or in older adults (a recency effect and a reminiscence bump). Despite these similarities between involuntary and voluntary memories, there were also important differences in terms of the effects of age on some memory characteristics. Thus, older adults’ voluntary memories were less specific and were recalled more slowly than those of young adults, but there were no reliable age differences in the specificity of involuntary memories. Moreover, older adults rated their involuntary memories as more positive than did young adults, but this positivity effect was not found for voluntary memories. Theoretical implications of these findings for research on autobiographical memory and cognitive aging are discussedPeer reviewe

Why are we not flooded by involuntary thoughts about the past and future? Testing the cognitive inhibition dependency hypothesis

© The Author(s) 2018In everyday life, involuntary thoughts about future plans and events occur as often as involuntary thoughts about the past. However, compared to involuntary autobiographical memories (IAMs), such episodic involuntary future thoughts (IFTs) have become a focus of study only recently. The aim of the present investigation was to examine why we are not constantly flooded by IFTs and IAMs given that they are often triggered by incidental cues while performing undemanding activities. One possibility is that activated thoughts are suppressed by the inhibitory control mechanism, and therefore depleting inhibitory control should enhance the frequency of both IFTs and IAMs. We report an experiment with a between-subjects design, in which participants in the depleted inhibition condition performed a 60-min high-conflict Stroop task before completing a laboratory vigilance task measuring the frequency of IFTs and IAMs. Participants in the intact inhibition condition performed a version of the Stroop task that did not deplete inhibitory control. To control for physical and mental fatigue resulting from performing the 60-min Stroop tasks in experimental conditions, participants in the control condition completed only the vigilance task. Contrary to predictions, the number of IFTs and IAMs reported during the vigilance task, using the probe-caught method, did not differ across conditions. However, manipulation checks showed that participants’ inhibitory resources were reduced in the depleted inhibition condition, and participants were more tired in the experimental than in the control conditions. These initial findings suggest that neither inhibitory control nor physical and mental fatigue affect the frequency of IFTs and IAMs.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

Involuntary autobiographical memories in and outside the laboratory: How different are they from voluntary autobiographical memories?

Original article can be found at: http://www.psychonomic.org/ Copyright Psychonomic Society. DOI: 10.3758/MC.36.5.920Two studies compared the characteristics and retrieval times of involuntary and voluntary autobiographical memory under controlled laboratory conditions. A new laboratory task of involuntary autobiographical memories involved detecting vertical lines in a stream of stimuli with horizontal lines (an undemanding vigilance task) and recording any involuntary memories during the session. The majority of these memories were reported as being triggered by irrelevant cue-phrases presented on the screen. Voluntary autobiographical memories were sampled via a standard word-cue method in Session 2. The results showed that involuntary memories were more specific and retrieved significantly faster than voluntary memories. They were also more likely to be triggered by negative cues while cue valence did not have any effect on the number of voluntary memories. Furthermore, laboratory involuntary memories did not differ from naturalistic involuntary memories recorded in a diary by the same participants (Study 2). Taken together, these results have important implications for current theories of autobiographical memory and open up interesting avenues for future research.Peer reviewe

A content analysis of involuntary autobiographical memories : examining the positivity effect in old age

Although research on autobiographical memory is growing steadily, very little is known about involuntary autobiographical memories that are spontaneously recalled in everyday life. In addition, very few studies have examined the actual content of autobiographical memories and how the content might change as a function of age. The present study carried out a content analysis of involuntary autobiographical memories recorded by young (N = 11) and old (N = 10) volunteers over a period of 1 week. A total of 224 memories were classified into 17 categories according to the type of content recalled (e.g., births, holidays, school). The results support the socioemotional theory of ageing (Carstensen, Isaacowitz & Charles, 1999) by showing that although young and old adults recalled a similar number of memories with a typically positive content (e.g., holidays, special occasions), older adults recalled very few memories with a typically negative content (e.g., accidents, stressful events). Moreover, even when such negative memories were recalled, they were rated by older adults as neutral or even positive. This so-called positivity effect in old age could not be entirely explained by participants' ratings of mood at the time of recall. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings for ageing and autobiographical memory research are discussedPeer reviewedSubmitted Versio

Consistency of flashbulb memories of September 11 over long delays : implications for consolidation and wrong time slice hypotheses

Original article can be found at : http://www.sciencedirect.com/ Copyright ElsevierThe consistency of flashbulb memories over long delays provides a test of theories of memory for highly emotional events. This study used September 11, 2001 as the target event, with test–retest delays of 2 and 3 years. The nature and consistency of flashbulb memories were examined as a function of delay between the target event and an initial test (1–2 days or 10–11 days), and the number of initial tests (1 or 2) in 124 adults from the general population. Despite a reliable drop in consistency over the long delay periods, mean consistency scores were fairly high and the number of memories classed as ‘major distortions’ was remarkably low in both 2003 (9%) and 2004 (7%). The results concerning memory fluctuations across the re-tests and the qualitative analysis of ‘major distortions’ are consistent with the wrong time slice hypothesis which explains the development of distortions by hearing the news from multiple sources on the day of the flashbulb event [Neisser, U., & Harsch, N. (1992). Phantom flashbulbs: False recollections of hearing the news about Challenger. In: E. Winograd, & U. Neisser (Eds.), Affect and accuracy in recall: Studies of “flashbulb memories” (pp. 9–31). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press]. However, no support was obtained for the consolidation hypothesis [Winningham, R. G., Hyman, I. E., & Dinnel, D. L. (2000). Flashbulb memories? The effects of when the initial memory report was obtained. Memory, 8, 209–216]: memories of participants who were initially tested 10–11 days after September 11 were not more consistent than memories of participants tested 1–2 days after the event. In addition, the number of initial tests in September 2001 (one or two) and self-reported rehearsal did not have any beneficial effects on consistency. Together, these findings indicate that flashbulb memories may be formed automatically and consolidated fairly soon after an emotional eventPeer reviewedSubmitted Versio

Effects of age on phenomenology and consistency of flashbulb memories of September 11 and a staged control event

'This article may not exactly replicate the final version published in the APA journal. It is not the copy of record.' Original article can be found at : http://psycnet.apa.org/ Copyright APAIn two studies, the special status of flashbulb memories was investigated by contrasting the effects of age on the phenomenology and consistency of flashbulb memories of September 11, over a 2-year delay period, with those of a mundane staged control event: participants learning that they had not won a small prize. Flashbulb memories produced no significant age effects for either phenomenological characteristics or test–retest consistency, as predicted by Mather's (2004) emotional compensation hypothesis. By contrast, the control event resulted in significant age effects for phenomenological characteristics (e.g., specificity and the amount of detail recalled) but not for test–retest consistency. Furthermore, in both age groups, memories of September 11 were significantly more vivid, detailed, and consistent than control memories even though the test–retest interval was twice as long for flashbulb memories. In addition, correlations between consistency scores and ratings of rehearsal were positive for control memories but negative for flashbulb memories. The theoretical implications of these findings for research on cognitive aging and flashbulb memories are discussedPeer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio