Autobiographical memory, Autonoetic Consciousness, and Identity
in Asperger Syndrome
Tilait Tanweer, Clare J. Rathbone, Celine Souchay
Leeds Memory Group, Institute of Psychological Sciences
University of Leeds (UK)
Corresponding author: Clare Rathbone, Leeds Memory Group, Institute of
Psychological Sciences, University of Leeds, LS2 9JT, Leeds, UK, phone: +44 (0)
113 343 5729, email: c.j.rathbone@leeds.ac.uk
Short Title: Autobiographical memory in Asperger Syndrome
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Abstract
Previous results from research on individuals with Asperger syndrome (AS) suggest a
diminished ability for recalling episodic autobiographical memory (AM). The primary
aim of this study was to explore autobiographical memory in individuals with
Asperger syndrome and specifically to investigate whether memories in those with
AS are characterised by fewer episodic ‘remembered’ events (due to a deficit in
autonoetic consciousness). A further aim was to examine whether such changes in
AM might also be related to changes in identity, due to the close relationship between
memory and the self and to the established differences in self-referential processes in
AS. Eleven adults with AS and fifteen matched comparison participants were asked to
recall autobiographical memories from three lifetime periods and for each memory to
give either a Remember response (autonoetic consciousness) or a Know response
(noetic consciousness). The pattern of results shows that AS participants recalled
fewer memories and that these memories were more often rated as Known, compared
to the comparison group. AS participants also showed differences in reported identity,
generating fewer social identity statements and more abstract, trait-linked identities.
The data support the view that differences in both memory and reported personal
identity in AS are characterized by a lack of specificity.
Key words: Autobiographical memory, Asperger syndrome, Autonoetic
Consciousness, Identity
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1. Introduction
Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by repetitive patterns of
behaviour, and impairments in both social reciprocal interaction, and verbal and nonverbal communication, all present from early childhood (American Psychiatric
Association, 1994; World Health Organization, 1993). Autism is also characterized by
atypical functioning within the domain of memory. However, despite its clear
everyday importance for the healthy functioning of individuals (see for example,
Conway, 2005), autobiographical memory in Autism has seldom been formally
investigated. Autobiographical memory allows individuals to define themselves in
relation to others and to their own personal life story. According to the Self-MemorySystem (SMS) framework recently reviewed by Conway (2005), autobiographical
memory is structured in a hierarchical organisation. Lifetime periods (e.g., being a
student at a university) can be used to access more specific autobiographical
knowledge called general events (e.g., writing lab reports). These general events are
then used as a cue to access event-specific knowledge (ESK), defined as sensoryperceptual episodic memories (e.g., arriving at university with your parents and being
nervous).
Studies investigating AM in autism revealed that children and adults with autism
have difficulties in recalling events and facts from their personal life. For example,
Bruck et al. (2007) investigated autobiographical memory in children with Autistic
Spectrum Disorder (ASD) using a questionnaire in which children were asked to
provide life facts (e.g., ‘What is your mother’s name?’) and narratives of life events
(e.g., ‘What happened at your last birthday party?’). Results showed that, overall,
children with ASD recalled fewer autobiographical memories and that these
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memories were characterized by a lack of detail. Moreover, compared to memories
for recent events, memories for early-life events were very poor. Results also showed
that children with ASD had difficulties recalling personal factual knowledge. In a
study involving only adults with Asperger syndrome (AS), Goddard, Howlin,
Dritschel, and Patel (2006) showed a diminished ability for recalling episodic
autobiographical memories in this population. Finally, a recent study by Crane &
Goddard (2008) has highlighted the dissociation between personal factual knowledge
and episodic memories. In their study, personal facts and episodic memories were
assessed in a group of adults with autism and a matched comparison group, using an
autobiographical memory interview (CAMI; Beckerian et al., 2001), an episodic
memory narrative task, and an autobiographical fluency task (Dritschel et al., 1992).
Findings from the fluency and episodic memory narrative tasks showed a personal
episodic memory deficit in the ASD group, while personal semantic memory showed
no overall group differences. These results suggest a dissociation between preserved
personal factual knowledge and diminished episodic memories in ASD.
Recent theoretical developments suggest that autobiographical memories can be
associated with different states of consciousness. In particular, autonoetic
consciousness, defined as the feeling of re-experiencing or reliving the past and
mentally travelling back in subjective time (Tulving, 1985), is crucial in episodic
memories (Conway et al., 1997). Patient studies and studies with older adults also
show that difficulties in recalling episodic AM are associated with diminished
autonoetic consciousness (Piolino et al., 2003). One aim of this study was thus to
assess whether AS individuals’ difficulties in recalling episodic AM were
characterized by a diminished autonoetic consciousness.
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Previous studies have shown that memory functioning in high functioning autistic
(HFA) individuals is characterized by specific impairments in long-term memory. For
example, deficits were found on tasks such as free recall (Bowler, Gardiner, Grice, &
Saavalainen, 2000; Bowler, Matthews, & Gardiner, 1997; Tager-Flusberg, 1991, but
see Lopez & Leekam, 2003), while the memory performance is relatively
undiminished on tasks such as recognition or cued-recall (Bowler et al., 1997;
Minshew, Muenz, Goldstein, & Payton, 1992). Studies suggest that the memory
deficits observed in this population could be supported by a lack of recollective
experience, the subjective state or memory awareness that separates episodic
‘remembering’ from semantic ‘knowing’ (Tulving, 1985). This parallels theories in
the aging literature, which are based on the finding that memory decline in aging
tends to be characterised by a deficit in recollective experience (Bastin and Van der
Linden, 2003; Perfect and Dasgupta, 1997; Perfect, Williams and Anderton-Brown,
1995; Souchay et al., 2007). Recollective experience, or remembering, occurs when a
rememberer has a sense or feeling of the self in the past (according to Tulving’s
(1985) view, ‘autonoetic consciousness’). Support for this hypothesis comes from
studies using the Remember/Know procedure (e.g., Tulving, 1985) where participants
report their subjective experience as either ‘remembering’ or ‘knowing and showing
that individuals with HFA and AS reported fewer ‘Remember’ responses (Bowler,
Gardiner, & Gaigg, 2007; Bowler, Gardiner, & Grice, 2000).Thus, on the basis that
recollection is impaired in HFA, our hypothesis is to suggest that the difficulties
individuals with AS have in recalling episodic autobiographical memories are
characterized by a diminished autonoetic consciousness. Finally, neuropathological
findings in autism also contribute to the idea that difficulties in autobiographical
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memory tasks might be due to a lack of recollection. Indeed, it is now well established
that the frontal lobes and the medial-temporal lobes, brain regions both found to be
underactive in autism (Baron-Cohen, 2008; Howard et al., 2000; Luna et al., 2002),
are critical for recollective experience (see Yonelinas, 2002). Patient studies have
revealed that damage to the hippocampus is linked to a lack of recollection (Bowles,
Crupi et al. 2007), while studies involving frontal lobe patients also revealed that
lesions to the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex lead to reductions in recollection
(Janowsky et al., 1989; Levine et al., 1998; Schacter et al., 1996). Finally, recent
neuroimaging studies on normal populations have confirmed the involvement of the
frontal lobes and the hippocampus in recollection during encoding and retrieval
(Davachi et al., 2003; Henson et al., 1999; see Yonelinas, 2002).
As Conway (2005) stated, the integrity of autobiographical knowledge and the self is
essential for normal functioning, as autobiographical memory is the knowledge base
for the self. Much research supports this idea of an interdependent relationship
between self and autobiographical memory (Addis and Tippett, 2004; Wilson and
Ross, 2003; Craik et al., 1999; Bluck and Levine, 1998). Autobiographical
impairments might have an impact on the nature of identity (e.g., Addis and Tippett,
2004), and potential differences in both recollective experience and perceptions of
one’s self would probably have consequences for the understanding of others (see
Boucher and Lewis, 1989). The SMS (Conway and Pleydell-Pearce, 2000) views the
relationship between self and memory as a reciprocal one. Thus, while one’s current
goals and self-images will directly influence access to autobiographical knowledge,
this autobiographical knowledge also influences what the self can be.
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It is therefore possible that deficits in the ability to remember oneself in the past might
have implications for the way one views oneself in the present, thus potentially
affecting identity. However, recent evidence has also suggested that identity is not
necessarily reliant on episodic memory processes. For example, Klein, Cosmides, and
Costabile (2003) reported a case of Alzheimer’s disease in which the patient was able
to report accurate self-knowledge, in spite of episodic impairments. However, the
sense of self that the participant described was out-dated, in that it reflected
characteristics that only applied in the past. This research contrasts with several case
studies that have suggested a temporally appropriate and accurate sense of self can be
retained in spite of episodic impairments (e.g., Evans et al., 1996; Klein, Loftus, &
Kihlstrom, 1996; Klein, Cosmides, Costabile, & Mei, 2002; Rathbone, Moulin, &
Conway, 2009; Tulving, 1993; Wilson & Wearing, 1995). As the debate on the
relatedness of episodic memory and self-knowledge continues, Klein, Rozendal, and
Cosmides (2002) conclude that there is something ‘special’ about self-knowledge,
citing its dissociation from both episodic retrieval and non-autobiographical semantic
memory. Klein et al., (2008) suggest that episodic and semantic self-knowledge can
be thought of as functionally independent – thus, they are capable of operating
individually though may be most efficient working in conjunction. Indeed, it is likely
that for healthy functioning it is important to maintain a stable, coherent sense of self
that persists through time by whatever means available (e.g., Conway, 2005).
Some of the key findings concerning autobiographical retrieval in ASD are described
above, but previous research has also suggested that aspects of self-knowledge, and
processes involving the self, may be different in those with autism. Klein et al.
(2004) reported the case of RJ, a high functioning autistic individual, in an
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examination of knowledge of self and others’ personality traits. RJ’s semantic
knowledge of others’ personalities was less specific and failed to differentiate
between individuals, while his knowledge of his own traits was more accurate and
clearly differentiated himself from others. These findings emphasise the social
difficulties for those with autism, but also highlight the dissociation between learning
knowledge about the self and learning knowledge about others. In an earlier study on
autobiographical memory and autism, Klein, Chan, & Loftus (1999) reported that RJ
possessed accurate personal factual knowledge despite having difficulties in recalling
personal experiences. The question of whether autistic individuals define their sense
of self in a qualitatively different way to non-autistic individuals has been addressed
by Lee and Hobson (1998) using the self-understanding interview (Damon and Hart,
1988). Results indicated that autistic participants had difficulties viewing themselves
as part of a wider social group. Finally, several studies found that ASD individuals
show a reduced self-reference effect (SRE) (Hare et al., 2007; Lombardo et al., 2007;
Millward et al., 2000). The SRE refers to the robust finding that most people are
better at retrieving information from memory that was encoded with reference to the
self (Rogers, Kuiper, and Kirker, 1977). However, ASD individuals do not benefit
from this effect.
To summarise, it is thus apparent that autism can be characterised not only by
differences in remembering, but also through variations in processes involving the
self. Powell and Jordan (1993) proposed that episodic memory impairments in autism
may be attributed to the lack of an ‘experiencing self’, a necessary framework through
which episodic memories can be interpreted and encoded. They suggest that autistic
individuals experience events at an objective and perceptual level, but not in a
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subjective manner. This idea is borne out by the prevalence of semantic ‘known’
events rather than episodic ‘remembered’ events in studies on memory in autism (e.g.,
Crane & Godard, 2008; Goddard et al., 2007; Klein et al., 1999). As ‘remembered’
and ‘known’ events can be conceptualised as reflecting autonoetic and noetic
consciousness (Tulving, 1985), respectively, one can frame the autobiographical
deficits in ASD as being characterised by a diminished autonoetic consciousness. The
primary aim of this study was to investigate whether memories in those with AS are
characterised by fewer episodic ‘remembered’ events (linked with a deficit in
autonoetic consciousness). Past research suggests a close relationship between AM
and the self (e.g., Conway, 2005) and there are established differences in selfreferential processes in ASD (e.g., Hare et al., 2007; Lombardo et al., 2007; Millward
et al., 2000; Lee and Hobson, 1998). Thus, a further aim was to examine whether
constructs of personal identity differed between AS and comparison groups.
2. Method
2.1 Participants
Eleven individuals with AS (9 male and 2 female; mean age = 34.1, SD = 11.1; range
= 20 - 55) and fifteen comparison participants (4 male and 11 female; mean age =
32.7, SD = 9.5, range = 20-55) took part in this experiment (the groups did not differ
significantly in terms of age, (t (24) = .34, p = .74). The adults with AS were recruited
via local organisations and support groups for individuals with Autistic Spectrum
Disorders within the Yorkshire region (UK). The inclusion criteria were an age of 1865 years and a formal diagnosis of AS based on the DSM-IV (American Psychiatric
Association, 2000) criteria from a psychiatrist or clinical psychologist who was an
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expert in this area. As autobiographical memory is closely linked to language
development (Nelson and Fivush, 2004), language impairments could potentially lead
to autobiographical memory difficulties. For this reason, we only included individuals
with AS, who typically do not show any language delay (Baron-Cohen, 2008).
Prior to taking part in the study, all participants were screened for any neurological
conditions and psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia, obsessive-compulsive
disorders, or severe depression. All AS participants (with the exception of one due to
medical circumstances) completed the Autism Spectrum Quotient questionnaire
(Baron-Cohen et al., 2001). This measure has been demonstrated to be predictive of
diagnosis in clinical settings when a threshold score of 26 is applied (WoodburySmith et al., 2005). All AS participants fell into the clinical range on the AQ
[range=26-44].
The comparison participants were recruited via Further Education Institutes and were
matched with the AS group on age and IQ (WASI; Wechsler, 1999): Verbal IQ (AS
= 109.55, SD = 11.26, comparison group = 108.47, SD = 10.99; t(24) =.25, p = .81);
Performance IQ (AS = 113.18, SD = 10.40, comparison group = 109.33, SD = 10.06;
t(24) =.95, p = .35); and Full scale IQ (AS = 112.64, SD = 8.76, comparison group =
110.68, SD = 8.94; t(24) =.56, p = .58). Ethical approval was gained from the Leeds
University Institute of Psychological Sciences Ethics Committee. All participants
gave their informed consent prior to the experimental procedure according to the
declaration of Helsinki.
2.2 Design and Procedure
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Autobiographical memory task
The task used was similar to a test developed to investigate autobiographical memory
and autonoetic consciousness in aging (Piolino et al., 2003). The participants were
asked to provide autobiographical memories from three lifetime periods: 0-17 years of
age (period A), the last 5 years excluding the last 12 months (period B), and recent
life, which comprised the last 12 months of one’s life (period C). Periods A and B
were assessed using four themes: an event or meeting linked with a person, an event
linked to education or working life, a journey, and a family event. For period C, the
participants were provided with five themes: an event that occurred last summer, an
event from last Christmas or New Year’s Day, an event from last weekend, an event
from two days ago, and finally an event from yesterday or today. The participants
were given precise instructions to recall a ‘personal event, which occurred only once,
at a particular place and date, and lasted several minutes or hours but lasted less than a
day’ (Piolino et al., 2000, 2002). The participants were also instructed that, for each
cue provided, they would have a total of two minutes to provide as many details of the
event as they could recall.
Each AM event was scored using a four-point episodic scale (see Piolino et al., 2003;
Baddeley and Wilson, 1986). A specific event that was situated in time and space,
accompanied by sensory details, was given the score of four. An event that was
specific, situated in time and space, but lacked sensory perceptual details was given
three. Any events that were repeated or extended, but were accompanied with details
situating it in time and space, were given a score of two. An event was given a score
of one if it was a generic memory: repeated or extended and lacking details situating
the event in time and space. If the participants failed to recall any event or simply
generated general information about the theme, a score of zero was given. Two
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different scores were allocated to each time period (Piolino et al., 2003). The first was
an overall total score, which included both specific and generic information. For time
periods A and B, the maximum total score was 16 (as there were four themes, each
potentially scoring four points for episodic detail); for period C the maximum was 20
(as five themes were assessed). Secondly, a strictly episodic score was calculated,
which included only memories that scored the maximum of four points (periods A
and B) or 5 points (period C) for episodic detail.
The Remember/Know Paradigm
Following participants’ recall of each individual memory generated on the
Autobiographical memory task, participants were asked to give a Remember/ Know
judgment (R/K paradigm; Tulving, 1985; Gardiner, 1988). Thus, if a participant felt
that a memory was accompanied by conscious recollection, they would provide a
remember response, but if they believed that the memory was recalled in the absence
of such conscious recollection, a ‘know’ response was provided. Participants were
also given the option to report a ‘guess’ (G) response if they felt uncertain about the
status of conscious recollection (this inclusion was intended to maintain the accuracy
of ‘know’ responses, based on the work of Mäntylä, 1993). The participants were
provided with standardised Remember/Know/Guess instructions (Gardiner, 1988).
For Remember (R) judgments, the participants were also asked to provide
justification by stating details about the event, if these details were not already
provided in the description of the memory in the autobiographical memory task
(Piolino et al. 2003). Details used to ‘justify’ an R response (coded as ‘Justified
12
Remember: JR) included any thoughts, feelings, or contextual details (location or time
of day) related to the event. An independent rater also assessed the JR responses.
The Twenty Statements Task
The Twenty Statements Task (TST; Kuhn & McPartland 1954) was administered to
provide a measure of identity. This task benefits from being open-ended, allowing
participants to define their sense of self using their own words, and is based on the
idea that every person has numerous selves – and that these ‘self-images’ (Rathbone,
Moulin, and Conway, 2008) can be collected through self report (e.g., Madson &
Trafimow, 2001). The task simply requires participants to respond to the question
‘Who am I?’ by writing down 20 self concepts that begin ‘I am…’ in a way that best
defines their long-term identity (e.g., I am a mother; I am an extrovert; I am a thrillseeker).
Each identity statement was scored using the modified coding scale proposed by Rhee
et al. (1995). The statements were coded into eight distinct categories of identity:
traits, social identities, specific attributes, evaluative descriptions, physical
descriptions, emotional states, peripheral information, and global descriptions. Each
category was further divided into separate subcategories (e.g., social identities could
refer to gender, family information, occupation, ethnicity, or religion; see Rhee et al.,
1995 for a more detailed account of the classes of subcategories), and finally each
statement was labeled as either abstract (lacking specific details generally denoted by
references to traits or emotional state, e.g., ‘I am kind’) or specific (reflecting the
majority of subcategories, qualified by specific details, e.g., ‘I am someone who likes
oysters’; ‘I am a student’). Following criteria outlined by Rhee et al., nonsense
13
responses and repeated responses were not coded, and in cases where more than one
meaning was provided, only the initial meaning was coded.
The scoring of the TST allowed for a total of three scores to be calculated (e.g., Addis
and Tippett, 2004). These scores were the identity strength (calculated by the total
number of ‘I am’ statements that were generated), the identity complexity (assessed
by the number of categories and sub-categories sampled in participant responses e.g.,
social identities [religion, gender] physical descriptions [age, weight]), and finally the
identity quality (obtained by recording the total number of abstract statements
generated and calculating this as a proportion of the total number of statements given,
e.g., a participant who gave 18 statements of which 9 were abstract would have a
quality rating of 0.5). Finally, the TST was also coded to reflect the proportion of
autonomous statements given by each participant. In keeping with previous studies
(Rhee et al., 1995; Markus and Kitayama, 1991), all statements were coded as either
autonomous or social. Autonomous identities are characterised as being stable over
time and context, representing internalised feelings, beliefs, or abilities (e.g., ‘I am
kind’). Conversely, social identities include reference to others, specific locations, or
social context (e.g., I am from Farnham). As with identity quality, each participant
was thus given a ‘proportion autonomous’ score of between 0 and 1.
3. Results
As the AS and comparison groups were not equally matched for gender, we
controlled for gender as a covariate in all ANCOVAs reported. Controlling for gender
did not affect any group differences, and gender itself was not a significant factor.
The autobiographical memory test epochs are designed for those aged 23 and above.
14
As two participants in the present study were aged 20, additional analysis was carried
out excluding their data. The pattern of results when excluding these participants was
identical to when they were included, thus the results presented are based on data
from all 26 participants.
Total Autobiographical Retrieval
In general, AS participants produced fewer memories overall (AS M = 35.27, SD =
6.25; comparison participants M = 46.2, SD = 3.09) and fewer strictly episodic
memories overall (AS M = 4, SD = 2.10; comparison participants M = 8.27, SD =
1.58), collapsed across all lifetime periods. Independent samples t tests revealed
differences in both measures to be highly significant (total memories generated: t (24)
= -5.89, p = .0001; totally strictly episodic: t (24) = -5.93, p = .0001). In particular, the
AS group had a mean total of strictly episodic memories that was less than half that of
the comparison group, creating a highly significant group difference. Thus, it seems
apparent that, in addition to an overall deficit in autobiographical retrieval relative to
comparison participants, the AS group had a tendency to produce fewer strictly
episodic memories, characterised by being situated in time and space and
accompanied by sensory details.
Retrieval over lifetime periods
The pattern of autobiographical retrieval in AS participants compared to comparison
participants is shown in Figure 1, demonstrating the mean proportion of total
memories generated in each lifetime period (e.g., the number of memories generated
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as a proportion of the total possible for each lifetime period) and the mean proportion
of strictly episodic memories generated, across the three lifetime periods.
[Insert Figure 1 about here]
In order to examine the differences in total memories generated between groups over
lifetime periods, a 2 (group) x 3 (lifetime period) repeated measures ANCOVA was
carried out, with the group as a between subjects factor. Recall that for the purposes
of analysis, period 0-17 was termed period A, the last 5 years was period B, and the
last 12 months period C. The results only revealed a main effect of group (F [1,23] =
20.75, p = .0001). As indicated by Figure 1, the AS group gave fewer memories than
the comparison participants. Similarly, in order to investigate the breakdown of
differences in strictly episodic scores, an identical 2 (group) x3 (lifetime period)
ANCOVA was carried out on the proportional distribution of strictly episodic scores
over lifetime periods. The results revealed only a main effect of group (F [1,23] =
17.97, p = .0001), as again the AS participants produced fewer strictly episodic
memories over all lifetime periods. Details of episodic richness are typical of
autonoetic remembering (R), as opposed to noetic known events (K). Thus, further
analysis was carried out on the participants’ recollective experiences accompanying
each of their memories.
Autobiographical memory and Recollective Experience
16
Following convention (e.g., Piolino et al., 2002), the distribution of remembered (R),
known (K), and justified remembered (JR) memories across time periods in each
group was analysed as proportions, thus for each time period, R = the proportion of
Rs out of the total number of the participant’s memories, K = the proportion of Ks out
of the total number of the participant’s memories, and JR = the proportion of JRs out
of the total number of the participant’s R memories. The guess responses were not
included in the analysis as too few were generated. The proportional results across all
lifetime periods for the two groups are shown in Figure 2.
[Insert Figure 2 about here]
The proportional results suggest that the AS group tended to give fewer R responses
and more K responses than the comparison participants across all lifetime periods,
particularly in period A: 0 to 17 years. In this early lifetime period, more than half of
all AS participants’ memories were coded as K. The general picture that emerges
shows a broad deficit in episodic remembering, particularly in the early memories, in
those with AS.
To analyse the group differences in recollective experience in more detail, a set of
three 2 (group) x 3 (lifetime period) repeated measures ANCOVAs were carried out
to assess the R, K, and JR responses, respectively. The analysis of the R responses
revealed a significant effect of lifetime period (F[2,46] = 7.56, p = .001), a significant
group x lifetime period interaction (F[2,46] = 5.74, p = .006), and a significant effect
of group (F[1,23] = 13.14, p = .001). These findings indicate a clear recency effect for
both groups, as well as an overall reduction in the proportion of R responses in the
earliest lifetime periods in the AS group. The pair-wise comparisons revealed that
there was a significant difference between all lifetime period pairs (p < .05,
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Bonferroni corrected). To analyse the interaction of the group x lifetime period, t-tests
revealed that the AS participants produced a significantly lower proportion of R
memories in lifetime periods A (t = -5.24, df = 24, p = .0001) and B (t = -3.17, df =
24, p = .004) compared to the comparison group whose R memories were more
evenly distributed across the lifetime periods. As K and R are measured as two
proportions that always add up to one, the same statistical results apply to the K
responses. Thus, rephrased, these results indicate that the group difference reflects the
tendency for AS participants to produce a significantly higher proportion of K
memories for lifetime periods A and B. Finally, a 2 (group) x 3 (lifetime period)
ANCOVA on proportional JR responses showed a significant effect of the lifetime
period (F[2,46] = 8.72, p = .001) and a significant group x lifetime period interaction
(F[2,46] = 10.78, p = .0001). Again, as with the R responses, the AS participants
produced a significantly lower proportion of JR memories in the earliest lifetime
period. The pair-wise comparisons again show differences between all levels of
lifetime period (p < .0001, Bonferroni corrected). When these results are broken down
statistically by group, the t-tests reveal that AS participants produced a significantly
lower proportion of JR memories in the earliest lifetime period compared to the
comparison participants (t = -4.98, df = 24, p = .0001), but a significantly higher
proportion of JR memories in lifetime period C (t = 4.45, df = 24, p = .0001). These
findings indicate a clear recency effect for both groups, as well as an overall reduction
in the proportion of R and JR responses in the earliest lifetime period in the AS group
compared to the comparison participants.
Autobiographical memory and Identity
18
Following these striking differences in both autobiographical retrieval and types of
recollective experience, we were motivated to investigate whether there would also be
group differences in measures of identity assessed using the TST. The mean scores
across the three measures of identity (strength, quality, and complexity) show that
while the mean identity strength and complexity were lower in the AS group (Identity
strength AS = 17.09 [SD = 2.94], comparison participants = 19 [SD = 2.39]; Identity
complexity AS = 6.45 [SD = 1.57]; comparison participants = 8.27 [SD = 1.58]), the
AS group had a higher mean quality of identity, measured by the number of abstract
statements given as a proportion of the total number of statements given (Identity
quality AS = 0.42 [SD = 0.15], comparison participants = 0.18 [SD = 0.13]). As with
the memory measures, to control for gender, a series of repeated measures
ANCOVAs were carried out to investigate potential group differences in the identity
measures. Gender was not a significant group factor for any of the identity measures
(in all cases F < 1). The ANCOVAs showed the differences between the groups’
identity quality (F(1,23) = 16.69, p = .0001) and complexity (F(1,23) = 7.21, p =
.013) to be significantly different, and there was a trend for identity strength (p = .06).
As a higher proportion of trait-linked, abstract statements appeared to be central to the
identity profiles of the AS group, we were motivated to further investigate how the
identity statements might differ between groups. Rhee et al. (1995) used an additional
coding measure of autonomous versus social, providing the possibility of analysing
the mean proportion of autonomous identity statements given by each group. The
results showed that the AS group had a significantly higher mean proportion of
autonomous statements (M = 0.73, SD = 0.13) compared to the comparison group (M
= 0.45, SD = 0.19), (F(1,23) = 13.55, p = .001).
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4. Discussion
The primary purpose of this investigation was to determine whether the episodic
memory deficiency in AS individuals was associated with diminished autonoetic
consciousness. Our results confirmed previous findings showing that adults with AS
recall fewer memories but also fewer strictly episodic memories, showing that the
memories recalled lacked specific details (e.g., Crane and Goddard, 2008). These
results suggest that autobiographical memory in AS might be characterized by
overgenerality. Overgenerality of AM (Williams and Broadbent, 1986) is defined as
the tendency to recall repeated events (occurring more than one time) or extended
events (lasting more than one day) rather than specific events (Williams et al., 1996).
Autobiographical memory is thought to characterise recollective experience when it is
rich in episodic details and embodies the ‘mental time travel’ of autonoetic
consciousness (Tulving 1985). Our results revealed that AS participants tented to rate
their memories as known rather than remembered. Our findings thus corroborate
previous research showing that ASD is characterised by a lack of recollective
experience and extend the findings to AM (e.g., Bowler, Gardiner, & Gaigg, 2007;
Bowler, Gardiner, & Grice, 2000; Crane & Godard, 2008; Goddard et al., 2007; Klein
et al., 1999).
Besides the fact that the present study showed that AS individuals recall fewer
specific autobiographical memories, this study also revealed that AS participants
expressed their identities in a more abstract manner. The results showed that the
aspects of identity that were most different between AS and the comparison
participants were the abstract/specific and autonomous/social natures of the identities
20
generated. Specifically, AS participants generated more abstract (e.g., I am
thoughtful), and fewer specific, and more autonomous, and fewer social, identities
than the comparison participants. The coding system used to measure this index of
identity is based on previous research (Rhee et al. 1995; Addis and Tippett, 2004) and
denotes that the higher the proportion of abstract, mostly trait linked identities (e.g., I
am hopeless), the higher the quality of the identity score. The present data suggests
that AS participants express their identities using significantly more abstract traitlinked statements. However, another way of viewing these data is through the lens of
social versus autonomous states. The AS group provided many more statements about
themselves as isolated individuals (e.g., I am hard-working, I am hopeless), whereas
in the comparison group, there were fewer of these statements and more associated
with social categories (e.g., I am a husband, I am a student rep). This prevalence of
more inward looking, self-focused statements is unsurprising, given that AS is
characterised in part by a deficiency in social interaction (e.g., Lee & Hobson, 1998).
Identity complexity and quality refer, respectively, to more specific details concerning
the number of different categories and subcategories sampled and the specificity of
the statements generated. In this respect, the differences in the styles of identity
construction in AS (compared to the comparison group) appear to correspond with
deficits in recollective experience. Recollective experience is characterised by a
richness of specific details, thus the dearth of episodic memories and the generation of
less specific and less complex identities might reflect a more general underlying
process. We suggest that the differences in both memory and identity are perhaps best
characterised by a broad lack of specificity. AS participants produced fewer specific
episodic memories and also generated more abstract (thus, by definition, fewer
21
specific) identity statements than the comparison participants. It is clear that the
autonomous coded selves are also less specific in nature than ‘social’ coded selves;
indeed, the criteria for social coding involves reference to specific locations and times
or social context (Rhee et al., 1995). The specificity of autobiographical memories in
emotional disorder was discussed in a recent review by Williams et al. (2007). The
authors cite many studies linking depression with over-general memory (e.g., Kuyken
& Dalgleish, 1995; Barnhofer et al. 2002; Park et al., 2002) and relate this idea back
to Conway and Pleydell-Pearce’s (2000) Self-Memory System (SMS) framework. In
retrieval tasks, depressed individuals are unable to reach the level of event-specific
knowledge, and their search is truncated (dysfacilitation; Conway and PleydellPearce; 2000) at the general event level. Possibly, this inability to reach the level of
event-specific knowledge in memory processes impacts on the level of specificity
reached in the knowledge search required to generate identity statements in the TST.
Thus, a lack of specificity in AS might account for the differences in both identity
construction and autonoetic consciousness. Correlational analyses to examine the
associations between memory and identity measures in AS in the present study were
considered, however the small sample size limits appropriate interpretation of their
results. The correlations conducted did not indicate that the AS participants with
lowest memory specificity also generated the least specific memories, and thus our
data focused on between-group differences. However, the ANCOVAs reported show
that the AS group is characterized by low memory specificity and low self specificity,
compared to controls who generally gave more specific memories and more specific
identity statements. It is suggested that future studies with larger groups would benefit
from a correlational approach, enabling further investigation of the relationship
between recollective experience and perceptions of identity in AS.
22
Previous research has suggested that problems with recollection might be key to
differences in the memories of those with AS (Bowler, Gardiner, & Gaigg, 2007;
Bowler, Gardiner, & Grice, 2000), while the present study suggests that a broader
lack of specificity might be responsible. It is important to emphasise that changes in
memory in AS are associated with differences in how the self is perceived, but not a
reduction in the actual quality of identity as defined by Addis and Tippett (2004) and
Rhee et al. (1995). However, it is inaccurate to suggest that different ways of
describing one’s sense of self can be better or worse (as implied by ‘quality’). This
feeling is echoed by Baron-Cohen (2000) who suggests that HFA and AS individuals
should not be viewed as disabled, and that using the term ‘different’ instead provides
a fairer and more value-free description.
Several brain regions have been implicated in autobiographical remembering (see
Buckner, Andrews-Hanna, & Schacter, 2008). For example, the prefrontal cortex
(PFC) ventrolateral regions are involved in the retrieval of AM information (for
review see Cabeza & St Jacques, 2007). Recollection of autobiographical memories
also involves the mediotemporal lobes (MTL) and in particular the hippocampus,
especially for emotional AM (Addis et al., 2004; 2007) or memories associated with
visuospatial imagery (Cabeza et al., 2004).
ASD is associated with morphological differences in brain structures and in brain
function. For example, a common finding is that the amygdala and the hippocampus
are of abnormal size in autism (e.g., Baron-Cohen, 2008; Brambilla et al., 2003).
23
Moreover, when engaged in theory of mind tasks, several studies showed that a
network of brain regions was consistently underactive in individuals with ASD. This
network, called the social brain, involves brain regions very similar to the ones
involved in AM tasks (see Baron-Cohen, 2008; Buckner et al., 2008). Our study
shows that AM episodic recall is associated with a lack of recollection (i.e., fewer
Remember responses). Several fMRI studies suggest that the recollective qualities of
AMs are associated with increased hippocampal activation (Addis et al., 2004; Piefke
et al., 2003). Thus, AS participants’ difficulties in retrieving specific episodic
memories could be related to a lack of activation in the hippocampus. It is suggested
that future research examine the mechanisms that might underlie the lack of
specificity in episodic retrieval of individuals with AS. For example, there might be
an encoding deficit, resulting from decreased activation in the hippocampus and
amygdala (e.g. Howard et al., 2000; Luna et al., 2002). Results could also be
accounted for by a retrieval deficit, whereby the memories are successfully encoded
but are inaccessible. It is arguable that AS participants tend towards gist-based
retrieval, and future work could examine whether experimental manipulation of
retrieval orientation (e.g. gist-based or detail-based) affects the level of episodic
information in the autobiographical memories of individuals with AS, as has been
demonstrated in a normal population (see Rudoy, Weintraub & Paller, 2009).
The review of literature suggests that AS individuals have an impairment of episodic
but not semantic AM. This is consistent with the results observed in other clinical
populations such as temporal lobe epilepsy (Barr et al., 1990; Viskontas et al., 2000)
or patients with temporal lobe damage (Gilboa et al., 2005). These results support a
particularly prominent current account of autobiographical memory, Multiple Trace
Theory (MTT; Nadel & Moscovitch, 1997), which proposes that semantic and
24
episodic retrieval are dependent upon different brain structures. The theory states that
episodic retrieval necessarily relies on activation within the MTL, whereas semantic
memory develops independent of these brain regions. Steinvorth, Levine, and Corkin
(2005) reported a study on retrograde amnesics with medial temporal lobe lesions,
which supported the assumptions of the MTT. Their patients, HM and WR, had
functioning semantic memory, but experienced severe impairments in episodic
autobiographical retrieval. It was suggested that the preservation of semantic ability
might reflect the independence of this function from the damaged MTL regions, in
contrast to episodic function. Further, authors suggested that the semantic memories
retained by the amnesic patients mapped onto Conway’s (2005) model of levels of
autobiographical knowledge, with the semantic level of lifetime periods and general
events preserved, whereas episodic recollection of specific events was impaired
(Steinvorth et al., 2005).
In conclusion, this paper presents a novel paradigm for the investigation of
autobiographical memory processes and identity in AS. It is apparent that there are
quite marked differences in retrieval and perceptions of self for those with AS, shown
by deficits in recollective experience and reduced specificity in descriptions of the
self. It is suggested that further research should address the role that a generalised lack
of specificity might play in these processes in AS.
25
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Acknowledgements
This article is based on data collected by Tilait Tanweer during her MSc at the
University of Leeds, and was drafted by Clare Rathbone and Celine Souchay. We
would like to thank the three anonymous reviewers for their advice during the review
process, and extend special thanks to all of the participants who took part, without
whom this research could not have taken place.
37
Figures
Figure 1 Mean proportion of total memories (upper panel) and strictly episodic
memories (lower panel) generated across lifetime periods for Asperger and
comparison groups (error bars show standard deviation)
Proportion of memories generated out of the total
possible for each lifetime period
1.0
0.9
0.8
0.7
0.6
Asperger
0.5
Comparison Group
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0.0
Age 0-17
Last 5 years
Time period
Last 12 months
Propprtion of strictly episodic memories generated
out of the total possible for each lifetime period
1.0
0.9
0.8
0.7
0.6
Asperger
0.5
Comparison Group
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0.0
Age 0-17
Last 5 years
Last 12 months
Time period
38
Figure 2: Distribution of the proportion of R (upper panel), K (middle panel), and JR
(lower panel) memories across lifetime period by group (error bars show standard
deviation)
1
0.9
Proportion of R memories
0.8
0.7
0.6
Asperger
0.5
Comparison Group
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
Age 0 to 17
Last 5 years
Last 12 months
Time period
1
Proportion of K memories
0.9
0.8
0.7
0.6
0.5
Asperger
0.4
Comparison Group
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
Age 0 to 17
Last 5 years
Last 12 months
Time period
1
Proportion of JR memories
0.9
0.8
0.7
0.6
Asperger
0.5
Comparison Group
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
Age 0 to 17
Last 5 years
Last 12 months
Time period
39