Age effects in autobiographical memory depend on the measure

Unexplored avenues: a narrative review of cognition and mood in postmenopausal African women with female genital circumcision/mutilation/cutting

Recent ageing research has projected the lifespan and proportion of postmenopausal women living in low- and middle-income countries to substantially increase over the years, especially on the African continent. An important subgroup within the African postmenopausal population is those with female genital circumcision/mutilation/cutting (FGC). Practised across 31 African nations, FGC holds cultural significance as it is deemed essential to marriage and successful womanhood. Perhaps because of this, most FGC studies have primarily focused on women's reproductive functioning and their mood experiences. These studies also usually exclude postmenopausal women from their cohorts. Consequently, cognition and age-related cognitive decline and preservation remain understudied. Therefore, we investigated what is known about mood and cognition in local and immigrant postmenopausal African women with FGC. To do this, we carried out a narrative review searching PubMed, PsycInfo, and Google Scholar databases. Boolean combinations of keywords related to FGC, cognition, ageing, and mood were used, with a focus on cognition and ageing-related terms. Only studies published in English, those that recruited African women with FGC aged 50 years and older, and those that investigated cognitive and/or mood-related experiences were included. Ten studies were found; these included quantitative, qualitative, and case reports. The age range of cohorts across included studies was 13-90 years; women who were likely postmenopausal formed a minority within the cohorts (4.5%-25%). There were no studies assessing memory or cognition beyond those looking at FGC-related memories, which were vivid, especially if women had type III FGC (Pharaonic) or were older at the time of FGC. Although most of these women reported experiencing negative emotions concerning FGC, quantitative reports showed that only a minority of women experienced post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, or depression. Thus, there remains an urgent need to bring this understudied group into ageing and dementia research. Future research should adopt mixed-methods with culturally sensitive methodologies to investigate the lived experience of ageing as well as cognitive changes. A holistic understanding of ageing women from the Horn of Africa's experiences and needs will support an improvement in the quality of care delivered to this cohort in both local and immigrant contexts.

Shift happens: aging alters the content but not the organization of memory for complex events

While cognitive aging research has compared episodic memory accuracy between younger and older adults, less work has described differences in how memories are encoded and recalled. This is important for memories of real-world experiences, since there is immense variability in which details can be accessed and organized into narratives. We investigated age effects on the organization and content of memory for complex events. In two independent samples (N = 45; 60), young and older adults encoded and recalled the same short-movie. We applied a novel scoring on the recollections to quantify recall accuracy, temporal organization (temporal contiguity, forward asymmetry), and content (perceptual, conceptual). No age-effects on recall accuracy nor on metrics of temporal organization emerged. Older adults provided more conceptual and non-episodic content, whereas younger adults reported a higher proportion of event-specific information. Our results indicate that age-related differences in episodic recall reflect distinctions in what details are assembled from the past.

Lifetime familiarity cue effects for autobiographical memory

Recollecting an autobiographical memory requires a cue to initiate processes related to accessing and then elaborating on a past personal experience. Prior work has shown that the familiarity of a cue can influence the autobiographical memory retrieval process. Extending this work, we tested how familiarity accrued from cumulative lifetime exposures associated with the cue-as well as associated semantic knowledge-can affect how we access and remember autobiographical memories. In Experiment 1, we measured reaction times to access and report memories in response to cue words. In Experiment 2 we examined the details with which participants described memories in response to cue words. For both experiments, participants provided estimates of lifetime exposure and semantic knowledge for each cue. In Experiment 1, we found a cue's lifetime exposure, independent of semantic knowledge, led to quicker memory access. In Experiment 2, we found the lifetime exposure and semantic knowledge of a cue interactively affected the specificity of a described autobiographical memory. These results provide new evidence that the amount of lifetime exposure associated with a cue, both independently and interactively with semantic knowledge, influences how autobiographical memories are accessed and described.Clinical trial This was not a clinical trial.Trial Registration Number (TRN) N/A.

The formation of episodic autobiographical memory is predicted by mental imagery, self-reference, and anticipated details

Introduction

Despite the ecological nature of episodic memory (EM) and the importance of consolidation in its functioning, studies tackling both subjects are still scarce. Therefore, the present study aims at establishing predictions of the future of newly encoded information in EM in an ecological paradigm.

Methods

Participants recorded two personal events per day with a SenseCam portable camera, for 10 days, and characterized the events with different subjective scales (emotional valence and intensity, self-concept and self-relevance, perspective and anticipated details at a month, mental images…). They then performed a surprise free recall at 5 days and 1 month after encoding. Machine learning algorithms were used to predict the future of events (episodic or forgotten) in memory at 1 month.

Results

The best algorithm showed an accuracy of 78%, suggesting that such a prediction is reliably possible. Variables that best differentiated between episodic and forgotten memories at 1 month were mental imagery, self-reference, and prospection (anticipated details) at encoding and the first free recall.

Discussion

These results may establish the basis for the development of episodic autobiographical memory during daily experiences.

Effects of affectively-loaded childhood-related photos from the IAPS on the induction of involuntary autobiographical memories in young and older adults

Objective

Aging produces changes in emotional reactivity and the retrieval of autobiographical memories. The main aim of this study was to assess age-related differences, comparing emotion induction and autobiographical memory recall using photos from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS) that are thematically related to childhood.

Method

A cross-sectional observational study was conducted, with the participation of 327 individuals (168 young adults and 159 older adults) with no cognitive impairment and aged between 18 and 88 years. We showed the participants a set of five pictures from the IAPS, the affective content of which was related to childhood. Two of these were considered to be positive images, two negative and one neutral, according to the valence of these pictures in the literature. The main study variables were the reactions associated with emotional valence or pleasure, arousal and dominance, after viewing the photos, and the autobiographical memories retrieved by the participants.

Results

The younger adults retrieved a larger number of memories than their older counterparts. As regards the responses to the five affective pictures (IAPS) on valence, arousal and dominance (IAPS), statistically significant differences were only found for pictures 2,345 (BlackEye), with a more positive valence in the group of older adults and higher arousal in the young ones, and 2,312 (Mother), with a more positive valence in the group of older persons. A greater number of memories were retrieved for the photos that generated higher levels of pleasure, greater relaxation and greater emotional control.

Conclusion

Of the variables that may be associated with the elicitation of involuntary autobiographical memories, the most significant are age and a positive stimulus.