Autobiographical memory

Autobiographical memory

1. LIFESPAN RETRIEVAL CURVE

   • Childhood amnesia
     • Remember little from before 5yrs
       • Could be linked to goal hierarchy - so diff no longer accessible
   • Reminiscence bump
     • More than pre & post period
       • BUT easy to get stuck in a period
     • Easier to access - also seen with films, books & events
       • Period significant, not events
     • Judged to be more accurate
     • RUBIN - period of rapid change & novel experiences = stronger encoding?
       • Could be binding WS to specific reality
   • Recency
     • Newer easier to recall
       • Not subject to interference/decline
     • BUT shown recall can improve through guidance - bias of access?

2. ORGANISATION OF MEMORIES

   • General events - location, activities, goals.
     • Represented in different ways - emotional, context, repeated, etc
     • leads to episodic memories (Day trips)
       • Specific
   • Lifetime periods
     • represented by and linked to goals
       • could provide limitations on how AM's are accessed
   • Life stories
     • BLUCK & HABERMAS - schemas supporting coherent theme & meaning to life
       • Schemas - various fixed parts with variable slots - provide evidence to own evaluation
   • CONWAY - Partonomic knowledge structure - event specific - general event - lifetime events - schemas

3. TYPE OF MEMORIES

   • Tulving
     • Episodic - experiences
       • CONWAY - sensory/perceptual - highly specific
       • Must contain some semantic
       • CONWAY - Don't endure unless linked to more stable AM knowledge in LTM
     • Semantic - conceptual knowledge
   • Recollective - self in past, know it's a memory
     • Doesn't mean 'true' memory

4. WORKING SELF - CONWAY

   • Influences accessibility and construction
     • AM controlled as high cog processing demands
   • Goal hierarchy & self conceptions
     • Contains life schemas, stories & currently active goals
   • experience encoded through
     • Turned into memories
   • Controls retrieval mode so current processing not disrupted
   • Goal related experience prioritised
     • MARKUS - ind/dependent traits preferential access to memories supporting these
     • McADAMS - memory bias for power/intimacy recalls
     • WOIKE et al - explicit/implicit motives. Explicit more self description memories, implicit more affective memories
   • BUT - WS vague concept
     • Goal hierarchy under specified
       • Over emphasis on goals at expense of knowledge structures - values, attitudes

5. RETRIEVAL

   • Generative
     • intentional using cues
       • WS needs to have satisfied retrieval model before recall
     • Highly disruptive to cog processes
   • Direct
     • Specific
     • Bypasses autobiographical knowledge
   • WS prevent full recall if disruptive to higher priority goal
   • HAGUE & CONWAY - both types occur in a person

6. MODELS

   • Correspondence - accuracy of memory & capacity
   • Coherence - fundamental to guiding retention & remembering
   • AM = adaptive coherence
     • Episodic filtered through WS
       • Integrated pre-exising LTM
       • Interpreted in terms of self

7. Contextualised through autobiographical knowledge