Autobiographical memory_1

Autobiographical memory

1. The working self (Conway)

   • Made up of goal hierarchy of active goals and a set of self-conceptions which directly affect how 'experiences' are encoded into memories
   • Lifespan retrieval curve illustrates recall of AM
     • Period of childhood amnesia (birth to five years)
     • Recency (declines from present)
     • Reminiscence bump (10-30 years)
       • Rubin: 'novelty hypothesis' times in which many changes occur lead to fuller memory encoding & highly accessible in memory
       • Conway suggest that memories from RB are self-defining experiences thus help to define identity and endure in memory in a highly accessible form
   • Goal structure used to form EM and to abstract AK from experience. Goals prioritised in terms of encoding, consolidation, accessibility and construction into specific AM
     • Personality traits showed preferential access to memories in which the behaved in the associated way (Markus)
     • McAdam: goals of intimacy and power
     • Woike implicit/explicit motives. Implicit motives led to formation of memories with high affective/emotional content. Explicit motives result in memories not particularly emotional

2. Autobiographical knowledge

   • Conway
     • General events
       • Can be grouped (corresponding to achieving goals related to self
       • Can be represented in several ways but most often image based
       • Can be used to access associated sensory-perceptual episodic memories to form specific and detailed AM
     • Lifetime periods
       • Memories of first-time events can create long lasting evaluations of the self by cueing other memories
       • Bluck and Habermas 'life story' set of themes that describe persons life containing shcemas that link autobiographical knowledge

3. Episodic and semantic memory

   • Episodic: personal spatio-temporal memories
   • Semantic: social context-free facts
   • Can be problematic
     • Episodic memories must contain semantic knowledge
     • Conway put forward a revised view of the concept: stated knowledge contained in EM is largely sensory-perceptual in nature. Thus, EM is a respository of 'experience-near', highly event-specific sensory-perceptual details of recent experiences

4. Constructing AM

   • Generative retrieval
     • Effortfully constructed. Often triggered by cue. Accessed knowledge evaluated against retrieval model generated by working self
       • If constraints are satisfied, memory then formed. Usually takes several or more cycles or access, evaluation and cue elaboration
   • Direct retrieval
     • Cue causes pattern of activation in AK that stabilises as a specific AM and bypasses stages of GR. May be unwanted.
       • Haque and Conway demonstrated both GR and DR.

5. AM in distress

   • PTSD: intrusive memories related to trauma
   • Psychological problems: re-experiencing, avoidance, amnesia, hyperarousal
   • Emotional conflict: distortion or false memories
   • Hotspot: peak emotions