Autobiographical Memory
Psychology 3717
Introduction
• Really here we are talking about
autobiographical memory
• So, while there will be some references to
semantic memory, most of the stuff will be, by
definition, episodic
• That said, we cannot ignore the semantic
aspects of autobiographical memory
Problems
• Unlike say lists of words, autobiographical
memory is hard to study
• All self reports
• Hard to check on the reliability of the
responses
• The diary approach and the cue word
approach may be useful, but have their
limitations
Linton (1986)
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Recorded events
Dated them
Recalled a sample
Forgot about 5 percent per year
Wagenaar (1986) used a similar procedure
though recorded only one event per day, who,
what , when, where
Wagenaar
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Power function
Cues
5 per day
Best recall for happy events
Still, using yoursefl as your own subject may
not be the best approach
Cue word method
• Give a list of words
• Have subject associate the words with
autobiographical events
• Then give cues
• Reminiscence bump
Reminiscence Bump
• Why?
• Memories are happier?
• Encoding processes are better?
– Could be due to school and age combining here
• Big events?
• Dunno….
Please just listen
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Pin
Inoculation
Haystack
Sharp
Pointy
Knitting
phonograph
Autobiographical memory as narrative
• Narrative means you know, like a story…
• So when you tell a story, recall some event,
what do you get right?
• Surprisingly little!
• You get the gist
• But specific stuff, not so good
Unleash the controversy!
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Repressed memories
Freudian idea (booooooooooooo)
Of course there is child abuse
Most people remember abuse
Most will not tell because of embarrassment
or threats
• Implanting false memories is VERY easy
Can we tell the difference?
• And there is the problem
• It is very difficult to tell the difference, though
some PET studies are promising
• If you are to convict someone of something,
you need evidence
• Memories are just one form of evidence
• Our memories are at best reconstructive
Raise you hand if you heard this word
earlier
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Pin
Book
Chair
Ceiling
Sharp
Pointy
Haystack
Needle
Flashbulb Memories
• Seem to be hyper
accurate
• Seem to be super
detailed
• Almost always about
shared cultural
experiences
• But they are NOT as
accurate as they seem
9/11
• Do we all remember
where we were?
• Les Cake at SWGC of
MUN decided to test
this
• Had his 2nd year
cognition course fill out
a questionnaire
• 37% recall after 3 years
Conclusions about episodic memory
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Autobiographical memory is usually episodic
Such memories tend to be best guesses
The guesses are USUALLY good guesses
Your memory is reconstructive