Distinctions between autobiographical memory specificity and detail: Trajectories across cue presentations

Autobiographical memory and psychopathology: Is memory specificity as important as we make it seem?

Several decades of research have established reduced autobiographical memory specificity, or overgeneral memory, as an important cognitive factor associated with the risk for and maintenance of a range of psychiatric diagnoses. In measuring this construct, experimenters code autobiographical memories for the presence or absence of a single temporal detail that indicates that the remembered event took place on a single, specific, day (Last Thursday when I rode bikes with my son), or multiple days (When I rode bikes with my son). Studies indicate that the specificity of memories and the amount of other episodic detail that they include (e.g., who, what, and where) are related and may rely on the same neural processes to elicit their retrieval. However, specificity and detailedness are nonetheless separable constructs: imperfectly correlated and differentially associated with current and future depressive symptoms and other associated intrapersonal (e.g., rumination) and interpersonal (e.g., social support) outcomes. The ways in which the details of our memories align with narrative themes (i.e., agency, communion, identity) and the coherence with which these details are presented, are also emerging as important factors associated with psychopathology. The temporal specificity of autobiographical memories may be important, but other memory constructs warrant further attention in research and theory, especially given the associations, and dependencies, between each of these constructs. Researchers in this area must consider carefully whether their research questions necessitate a focus on autobiographical memory specificity or whether a more inclusive analysis of other autobiographical memory features is necessary and more fruitful. This article is categorized under: Psychology > Memory.

Longitudinal Associations between Personal Growth and Cognitive Functioning in Adulthood

OBJECTIVES

While personal growth has been found to be associated with multiple aspects of health in adulthood, its associations with cognitive functioning have not been fully understood. The present study aimed to assess both directions of such longitudinal associations.

METHOD

Using data from the second wave (T1) and third wave (T2) of the Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) study (N = 4,206; mean age = 56.0 [SD = 12.3]), a longitudinal measurement model containing latent variables of episodic memory and executive function was first constructed. Built on the measurement model, a cross-lagged panel model was analyzed to assess relationships between personal growth and the two areas of cognitive functioning, in which T1 personal growth predicted residualized changes in episodic memory and executive function, and T1 episodic memory and executive function predicted change in personal growth, controlling for covariates.

RESULTS

T1 personal growth significantly predicted smaller decreases in episodic memory, whereas it did not predict change in executive function. T1 episodic memory, but not T1 executive function, significantly predicted smaller decreases in personal growth.

DISCUSSION

The present findings were unique, particularly implying potential longitudinal reciprocity between personal growth and episodic memory. These findings and implications can inform future research aimed at exploring approaches to promoting personal growth and cognitive functioning among aging adults.

The stability of visual perspective and vividness during mental time travel

When remembering or imagining, people can experience an event from their own eyes, or as an outside observer, with differing levels of vividness. The perspective from, and vividness with, which a person remembers or imagines has been related to numerous individual difference characteristics. These findings require that phenomenology during mental time travel be trait-like-that people consistently experience similar perspectives and levels of vividness. This assumption remains untested. Across two studies (combined N = 295), we examined the stability of visual perspective and vividness across multiple trials and timepoints. Perspective and vividness showed weak within-session stability when reported across just a few trials but showed strong within-session stability when sufficient trials were collected. Importantly, both visual perspective and vividness demonstrated good-to-excellent across-session stability across different delay intervals (two days to six weeks). Overall, our results suggest that people dependably experience similar visual phenomenology across occurrences of mental time travel.

Specificity and detail in autobiographical memory retrieval: a multi-site (re)investigation

This investigation examined conflicting suggestions regarding the association between problems retrieving specific autobiographical memories and the tendency to retrieve the details of these memories. We also examined whether these tendencies are differentially related to depression symptoms. U.S., Belgian, Hong Kong and Japanese participants retrieved memories related to cue words. Responses were coded for if they referred to a specific event (i.e., an event lasting less than 24 h) and their details (What? Where? Who?). Across sites, and in meta-analyses, the retrieval of more specific memories was associated with retrieval of more details. Memories that were specific included more detail than non-specific memories. Across sites, retrieval of more specific memories and more detail was associated with less severe depression symptoms. Episodic specificity and detailedness are related but separable constructs. Future investigations of autobiographical memory specificity, and methods for alleviating problematic specificity, should consider measures of episodic detailedness.

Episodic memory contributions to autobiographical memory and open-ended problem-solving specificity in younger and older adults

Research indicates that episodic memory processes are required to access specific autobiographical events and the details encompassed by a single event for several functions, including remembering and personal problem solving. Since healthy cognitive aging is associated with episodic memory decline, we hypothesized that older adults would be impaired at producing specific autobiographical events and details in service of these two functions. To test this hypothesis, younger and older adults completed two tasks (generation and elaboration) across two experiments (autobiographical memory and problem solving). The generation task required participants to produce multiple specific event memories or solutions to cues within a 90-s time period. The elaboration task required participants to select a single memory or solution to describe in detail. We quantified the number of specific and non-specific responses provided during the generation task and scored the descriptions from the elaboration task for the number of episodic (internal) and non-episodic (external) details. Across experiment, older adults produced fewer specific responses (generation task) and fewer internal details (elaboration task) than younger adults. In addition, older adults generated more non-specific responses and external details than younger adults for the memory but not the problem-solving experiment. A correlational analysis showed that the number of specific responses (generation) and internal details (elaboration) correlated for the memory but not for the problem-solving experiment. These results show that age-related episodic memory decline impairs access to specific autobiographical events and detail information when remembering and problem solving, but that additional cognitive factors impact how these age declines present when solving problems.

Interindividual Differences in Cognitive Functioning Are Associated with Autobiographical Memory Retrieval Specificity in Older Adults

Abstract. We examined whether interindividual differences in cognitive functioning among older adults are related to episodic memory engagement during autobiographical memory retrieval. Older adults ( n = 49, 24 males; mean age = 69.93; mean education = 15.45) with different levels of cognitive functioning, estimated using the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), retrieved multiple memories (generation task) and the details of a single memory (elaboration task) to cues representing thematic or event-specific autobiographical knowledge. We found that the MoCA score positively predicted the proportion of specific memories for generation and episodic details for elaboration, but only to cues that represented event-specific information. The results demonstrate that individuals with healthy, but not unhealthy, cognitive status can leverage contextual support from retrieval cues to improve autobiographical specificity.