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We know much about people’s problematic reactions—such as distressing intrusions—to negative, stressful, or traumatic past events. But emerging evidence suggests people react similarly to negative and potentially-traumatic future events. Given similar processes underlie remembering the past and imagining the future more generally, we wondered how similar involuntary memories, or intrusions, are for experienced vs. anticipated events. We focused primarily on intrusions because they are a transdiagnostic reaction to traumatic events. We asked subjects to report either a very stressful event they had experienced in the past 6 months, or one they anticipated they could experience in the next 6 months. We measured the frequency of intrusions about these reported events, and intrusions’ phenomenological characteristics (such as emotional intensity), negative appraisals about their meaning, and reactions to them more generally. Overall, we found intrusions about experienced vs. anticipated autobiographical events were similarly troubling. This pattern supports the idea that anticipating the future can be aversive and elicit post-traumatic-stress-like symptoms, just as remembering the past can. Our findings have implications for theoretical models of traumatic-stress and treatment of traumatic-stress symptoms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The tendency of falsely remembering events that did not happen in the past increases with age. This is particularly evident in cases in which features presented at study are re-presented at test in a recombined constellation (termed rearranged pairs). Interestingly, older adults also express high confidence in such false memories, a tendency that may indicate reduced metacognitive efficiency. Within an existing cohort study, we aimed at investigating age-related differences in memory metacognitive efficiency (as measured by meta d' ratio) in a sample of 1522 older adults and 397 young adults. The analysis showed an age-related deficit in metacognition which was more pronounced for rearranged pairs than for new pairs. We then explored associations between cortical thickness and memory metacognitive efficiency for rearranged pairs in a subsample of 231 older adults. By using partial least square analysis, we found that a multivariate profile composed by ventromedial prefrontal cortex, insula, and parahippocampal cortex was uniquely associated with between-person differences in memory metacognitive efficiency. These results suggest that the impairment in memory metacognitive efficiency for false alarms is a distinct age-related deficit, above and beyond a general age-related decline in memory discrimination, and that it is associated with brain regions involved in metacognitive processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

True and false memories recruit a number of shared brain regions; however, they are not completely overlapping. Extensive sex differences have been identified in the brain during true memories and, recently, we identified sex differences in the brain during false memories. In the current fMRI study, we sought to determine whether sex differences existed in the location and extent of overlap between true and false memories. True and false memories activated a number of shared brain regions. Compared to females, males produced a greater number of overlapping brain regions (8 versus 2 activations for males and females, respectively) including the prefrontal cortex, parietal cortex, and early/late visual processing cortices (including V1) in males and prefrontal and parietal cortices in females. Males had significantly higher similarity between true and false memory activation maps, revealed by our novel multi-voxel pattern correlation analysis. Moreover, higher similarity between true and false memory activation maps was associated with higher false memory rates. The current results suggest that true and false memories are more similar in males than females. The significant brain–behavior relationship also suggests that males may be more susceptible to false memory errors due to their highly similar true memory–false memory cortical representations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

False memories during testimony are an enormous challenge for criminal trials. Exposure to post-event misinformation can lead to inadvertent creation of false memories, known as the misinformation effect. We investigated anodal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) on the left inferior parietal lobe (IPL) during recall testing to enhance accurate recall while addressing the misinformation effect. Participants (N = 60) watched a television series depicting a fictional terrorist attack, then received an audio recording with misinformation, consistent information, and control information. During cued recall testing, participants received anodal or sham tDCS. Results revealed a robust misinformation effect in both groups, with participants falsely recalling on average 26.6% of the misinformed items. Bayesian statistics indicated substantial evidence in favour of the null hypothesis that there was no difference between groups in the misinformation effect. Regarding correct recall however, the anodal group exhibited significantly improved recall for items from the original video. Together, these results demonstrate that anodal tDCS of the left IPL enhances correct recall of the episodes from the original event without affecting false recall of misinformation. The findings support the IPL's role in recollection and source attribution of episodic memories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research has established that the brain uses episodic memories to make continuous predictions about the world and that prediction errors, so the mismatch between generated predictions and reality, can lead to memory updating. However, it remains unclear whether prediction errors can stimulate updating in memories for naturalistic conversations. Participants encoded naturalistic dialogues, which were later presented in a modified form. We found that larger modifications were associated with increased learning of the modified statement. Moreover, memory for the original version of the statement was weakened after medium-strong prediction errors, which resulted from the interplay of modification extent and strength of previous memory. After strong prediction errors, both original and modification were well-remembered. Prediction errors thus play a role in keeping representations of statements and therefore socially relevant knowledge about others up to date. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During ongoing narratives, event boundaries trigger processes relevant for subsequent memory. Previous work has shown that novel, unrelated input presented at an event boundary can retroactively interfere with short-term retention of the preceding event. This interference was attributed to a perturbation of offset-related processes taking place within seconds after encoding and supporting the binding of elements into a coherent event memory. However, the temporal specificity of this memory interference and whether its impact extends to longer retention delays has not been addressed. Here, participants viewed either individual or pairs of short narrative movie clips. Susceptibility to interference at event boundaries was probed by presenting the second clip either immediately after the first, or with a 2s encoding delay. In free and cued recall, after 20 min and 24 h, only memory for movie clips that were immediately followed by a second clip was reduced compared to clips shown in isolation. Intact offset-related processes (as indexed by successful recall of the first movie) did not negatively affect encoding of the subsequent clip. Together, these results indicate that the 2s time-window immediately after an event is relevant for successful consolidation and long-term retention of memory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is now well established that general information processing causes the activation of memories in the autobiographical memory system, and these memories on occasion emerge as involuntary autobiographical memories. This priming phenomenon has been dubbed semantic-to-autobiographical memory priming, and our goal in the current study was to examine the effects of cue/prime repetition on the production of involuntary autobiographical memories that were primed with semantic stimuli. In three experiments, participants were primed with words (e.g., cat), and then they were given an involuntary memory task (the vigilance task), which contained cues related to the primed stimuli. In Experiment 1, the cues were phrases containing the primes (e.g., getting a cat), which were presented one or five times. In Experiment 2, the cues were also phrases containing the primes (e.g., getting a cat), but they changed their context (e.g., feeding a cat), every time they repeated in the five-presentation condition. Experiment 3 also presented the cues one or five times, but the cues were replicas of the primes (e.g., cat). Consistent with predictions, greater priming was found in the five-presentation cue conditions in all three experiments, and Experiment 3 failed to find priming in the one-presentation cue condition, also consistent with predictions. We explain the findings in terms of semantic-to-autobiographical memory priming theory, and also argue that the results help explain the production of involuntary memories in everyday life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Memories for life events are thought to be organised based on their relationships with one another, affecting the order in which events are recalled such that similar events tend to be recalled together. However, less is known about how detailed recall for a given event is affected by its associations to other events. Here, we used a cued autobiographical memory recall task where participants verbally recalled events corresponding to personal photographs. Importantly, we characterised the temporal, spatial, and semantic associations between each event to assess how similarity between adjacently cued events affected detailed recall. We found that participants provided more non-episodic details for cued events when the preceding event was both semantically similar and either temporally or spatially dissimilar. However, similarity along time, space, or semantics between adjacent events did not affect the episodic details recalled. We interpret this by considering organisation at the level of a life narrative, rather than individual events. When recalling a stream of personal events, we may feel obligated to justify seeming discrepancies between adjacent events that are semantically similar, yet simultaneously temporally or spatially dissimilar – to do so, we provide additional supplementary detail to help maintain global coherence across the events in our lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic has left an enduring mark on human history. This study investigates the intergenerational transmission of COVID-19 memories through a unique approach involving 49 participants aged 18-30. Specifically, participants were prompted to share a COVID-19 memory they would choose to transmit to their future children. Furthermore, participants provided reasons for selecting that particular memory, utilising a memory functions scale and open-ended responses. Applying Transition Theory, we examined the transitional impact, event importance, previous rehearsal, and valence of reported memories. Results revealed that 88% of memories revolve around distinctive events inducing psychological and material changes. Perceived as significant, negative, and transitional, these memories are predominantly public in nature. Predictors of event importance include previous rehearsal and psychological change. Participants share memories primarily for directive purposes, intending to inform future generations. The results imply that transitions not only organise personal memories but may also direct and shape memories for public events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent theoretical perspectives have advanced that autobiographical memory processes are supported by interoception, the perception of internal bodily sensations. Yet, this relationship remains largely underexplored. The present study addressed this critical gap in the literature by systematically investigating the association between self-reported Interoceptive Sensibility and various individual differences measures of autobiographical memory. In Study 1, using a correlational approach in a large sample of participants (N = 247), we identified significant correlations between standardised measures of interoception and the general experience of autobiographical memory and the frequency of involuntary mental time travel. These associations remained significant even after controlling for potential confounding factors in terms of age, gender, and trait affectivity, underscoring their robustness. Study 2 replicated and extended the associations identified in Study 1 in another large participant sample (N = 257), further validating them by accounting for the potential confounding effect of well-being. Our findings demonstrate that individuals' ability to perceive and understand bodily signals robustly relates to how they experience autobiographical memories. By adopting an exploratory approach based on individual differences, our results provide novel and concrete insights into the association between interoception and autobiographical memory, providing a strong foundation for future investigations into the causal mechanisms connecting these two constructs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A small wearable camera, SenseCam, passively captured pictures from everyday experience that were later used to evaluate the accuracy and completeness of autobiographical memory. Nine undergraduates wore SenseCams that took pictures every 10 s for two days. After one week and one month, participants first recalled their experiences from specific time periods (timeslices), then reviewed the corresponding pictures to make corrections and report information omitted from initial recall. Results demonstrated the utility of wearable cameras as research tools, and illustrated several characteristics of everyday memory. Recall contents reflected the structure of undergraduate lives. Three different types of omissions were reported: neglected, reminded, and forgotten. Pictures stimulated memory, even for non-visual information (e.g., feelings, thoughts), increasing recall by 23%. The mean completeness of initial recall was 79% (upper bound), with at least 21% forgetting. Accuracy was self-scored by participants (M = 89%), and the mean error rate (11%) provided evidence against strong reconstructive and copy theories of memory. The characteristics of errors shed light on the cognitive processes underlying them. Ratings of recall (confidence, reliving, knowledge, and frequency) supported the episodic/semantic distinction, the dual-process theory of repetition, and reconstructive imagery. Metamemory measures showed a positive correlation between confidence and accuracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current study examined the effect of a delay on naturalistic time-based prospective memory (PM) tasks. Two experiments were performed to compare PM performance on a texting task with delays of 1 to 6 days after an initial session. In the first experiment, half of the participants were asked to repeat their response with the same delay to test whether requiring a second response (i.e., a repeated PM task, such as taking medication at the same time each day) would affect time-based PM performance. In the second experiment, participants were given an implicit or an explicit reminder several hours before their time to respond to examine the effect of type of reminder on this PM task. The results of both experiments showed a significant decline in PM performance between the 1-day and multi-day delays. Repeating responses (Experiment 1) had no effect on accuracy of the PM task, but in Experiment 2, explicit experimenter-initiated reminders significantly increased time-based PM performance compared with implicit reminders. These results are discussed in the context of previous studies that have tested delay effects on time-based PM and current theoretical descriptions of time-based PM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The self-reference effect (SRE) is a memory advantage produced by encoding information in a self-relevant manner. The "evaluative" SRE arises when people engage in explicit self-evaluation/reflection to process to-be-remembered items, while the "incidental" SRE occurs when self-referential information (e.g., one's own name) is co-presented with to-be-remembered items but is irrelevant to a given task. Using a divided-attention paradigm, the present study examined potential differences in the attentional requirements of the evaluative and incidental SREs. During encoding, personality-trait words were presented simultaneously with the participant's own or a celebrity's name. The participants' task was either to evaluate whether each word described themselves/the celebrity (evaluative encoding) or to indicate the location of each word (incidental encoding), in the presence or absence of a secondary task. A subsequent recognition test with a remember/know procedure showed better overall recognition and enhanced episodic recollection for words presented with one's own name vs. another name, with this SRE being larger in the evaluative than incidental encoding condition. Critically, divided attention at encoding attenuated the magnitudes of both evaluative and incidental SREs to a comparable degree in overall recognition and episodic recollection. These findings suggest that both the evaluative and incidental SREs are resource-demanding, effortful mnemonic benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intentional forgetting of unwanted information is a crucial cognitive function that is often studied with directed forgetting (DF) procedure, whereby cuing some study materials with Forget (F) instruction impairs their memory compared to cuing with Remember (R) instruction. This study investigates how the nature of information (verbal or pictorial), its semantic significance (meaningful or meaningless), and the degree of prior episodic familiarity influence DF. Before the DF phase, stimuli were familiarised by pre-exposing them 0, 2, or 6 times in a prior preview phase. Finally, memory for all items was assessed with old/new recognition test. Experiment 1 employed words, Experiment 2 utilised fractal images, Experiment 3 featured both meaningful and meaningless object images, and Experiment 4 used words and nonwords. Our results indicate that materials that produced better memory performance are not always harder to intentionally forget. Previewed items showed reduced DF compared to non-previewed items regardless of the nature of information, and meaningless stimuli are challenging to intentionally forget regardless of their degrees of familiarisation unless they are meaningless verbal materials. Collectively, the results highlight the importance of joint consideration of the stimulus format, its meaningfulness, and its episodic familiarity in understanding conditions that interact with intentional forgetting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deficits in episodic memory have been reported in various psychiatric conditions, including Major Depressive Disorder (MDD). Many widely used episodic memory tests do not have the ability to distinguish between impaired memory of separate components of a real-life event (e.g., what happened, where it happened and when), and impaired binding of such real-life features. To address this issue, a naturalistic, real-world What-Where-When memory task was employed to assess the nature of episodic memory impairments in MDD. A validation study established that the task is sensitive to age-related episodic memory changes, and that intentional encoding does not invalidate the task. The main study then compared the performance of patients with depression and control participants on the intentionally encoded WWW task. Patients with MDD presented an overall episodic memory impairment arising from deficits in object memory and the ability to bind objects to temporal context. Taken together, our study confirms the episodic memory impairment in MDD, by providing evidence of deficient object memory and reduced ability to bind temporal context to objects in patients. Our naturalistic WWW task presents a promising approach for thorough identification of the nature of episodic memory impairments, under a real-world environment, in various conditions, including MDD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is well documented that older adults, compared to younger adults, produce fewer episodic details and more semantic details when recalling autobiographical memories. However, group comparisons have provided limited insight into the trajectories of detail generation across the lifespan. Utilising an open source dataset [Clark, I. A., & Maguire, E. A. (2023). Release of cognitive and multimodal MRI data including real-world tasks and hippocampal subfield segmentations. Scientific Data, 10(1), 1–29. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-022-01899-x], we examined how episodic and semantic detail generation varied with age among 194 younger adults, ages 20-41. We tested whether age differences were mediated by hippocampal subfield volumes and MTL resting-state functional connectivity. Results indicated that semantic details increased with age, while episodic details remained stable. We observed age differences in hippocampal subfield volumes and MTL connectivity, but these measures did not mediate age effects on semantic detail. Based on these and prior findings [Matijevic, S., Andrews-Hanna, J. R., Wank, A. A., Ryan, L., & Grilli, M. D. (2022). Individual differences in the relationship between episodic detail generation and resting state functional connectivity vary with age. Neuropsychologia, 166, 108138. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2021.108138], we suggest a model of diverging episodic and semantic detail generation trajectories across the adult lifespan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Narrative identity – how individuals narrate their lived and remembered past – is usually assessed via independent rater coding, but new methods relying on self-report have been introduced. To test the assumption that different methods assess aspects of the same underlying construct, studies measuring similar components of narrative identity with different methods are needed. However, such studies are surprisingly rare. To begin to fill this gap, the present study compared the narrative variables, temporal coherence, causal coherence, and thematic coherence, measured via rater coding of participants' self-generated narratives of the remembered past and via subscales of the self-report measure Awareness of Narrative Identity Questionnaire (ANIQ). The results showed that the ANIQ subscales did not correlate significantly with their corresponding rater-coded dimension, and that the ANIQ subscales were generally unrelated to the other rater-coded dimensions. Furthermore, an exploratory factor analysis demonstrated that the ANIQ subscales loaded together on a factor that did not include any rater-coded variables. The findings suggest that the narrative variables share little empirical overlap when assessed via the ANIQ and rater coding of self-generated narratives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to Conway's view, Autobiographical memory (AM) construction is accompanied by control processes. These processes range from filtering out relevant memories according to the current context, to generating or elaborating appropriate retrieval cues. These processes can be conceptualised as metacognition, the ability to control and monitor cognitive processes. Experimentally, little has been carried out to support the idea that metacognition is involved in AM. To assess this, we designed a task, the Feeling of Retrieval. Participants had to predict whether cue words would facilitate AM access (i.e., fluent access cues) or not (i.e., limited access cues) in a limited time (either 1 (Exp. 2) or 2 (Exp. 1) s). Later, they retrieved memories in response to both types of cues. Results show that cues judged as fluent access led to better AM generation, as illustrated by AM retrieval latency and a subjective measure of the ease with which the AMs were retrieved. These rapid predictions may rely on epistemic feelings and / or other mnemonic cues such as a partial retrieval of information. This metacognitive access to the earliest stages of AM retrieval illustrates the ability to monitor AM processes as proposed by Conway (2005). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Involuntary autobiographical memories (IAMs) have been typically studied with paper diaries, kept for a week or longer. However, such studies are unable to capture the true frequency of IAMs, nor the level of detail that would give new insights into the mechanisms of IAMs. To address this gap, a new audio-recording method was developed and tested on the first author who recorded 674 IAMs while driving a car on a 30–40-minute-long habitual route on 20 occasions. Results revealed very high frequency of IAMs (almost 34 per journey) that were reported more often in response to dynamic (one-off) than static cues. Moreover, a substantial number of memory chains and long-term priming of IAMs by previously encountered incidental stimuli were also recorded. Based on these results, a new theoretical model is proposed in which the occurrence of IAMs is determined by an interplay of factors at the time of the IAM, such as the type of ongoing activity and internal or external triggers, as well as different types of long-term priming. The results also have practical implications for studying mind-wandering and safety issues in driving and aircraft-flying, where periods of concentration are followed by monotony and less demanding tasks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the role of autobiographical memory in self-representation is well established, the identity function of future thinking has received much less attention. Yet, most people commonly imagine future events that convey meaningful information about the person they wish or expect to become. In three experiments, we assessed the extent to which thinking about such self-defining future events influences the current content of self-representation (i.e., the working self-concept). Participants were asked to think about either a past or future self-defining event, or a control topic, before describing aspects of their identity in the form of "I am" statements (Experiments 1 and 3) or completing scales assessing self-related dimensions (Experiments 2 and 3). We found that thinking about a future self-defining event led participants to conceptualise themselves more in terms of their psychological traits, as did thinking about a past self-defining event. Furthermore, thinking about a future self-defining event increased the sense of present-future self-continuity, whereas thinking about a past self-defining event increased the sense of past-present self-continuity. These results suggest that self-representations are fuelled not only by autobiographical memories, but also by projections into the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The cultural life scripts are shared semantic knowledge of the expected life course in a given culture characterised by a bump for positive events in the second and third life decades, but none for negative events [Berntsen, D., & Rubin, D. C. (2004). Cultural life scripts structure recall from autobiographical memory. Memory & Cognition, 32, 427-442. https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03195836]. We investigated the stability of Nigerian young adults' life scripts and life stories across religion and gender. One-hundred-and-seventy-four participants completed the life script and life story tasks, and the revised religious orientation scale. We found that the life scripts and life stories consisted of mainly positive events with a reminiscence bump located in the 10s and 20s; however, we also found a small bump for negative events. There was a high mention rate of religion-specific events in both the life scripts and life stories of participants across religion and gender. The level of religiosity had effects on the importance ratings of the life scripts and life stories. In sum, despite minor variations, the life scripts and life stories were consistent across religion and gender. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recognition of associative memory can be significantly influenced by the use of an encoding strategy known as unitisation, which has been implemented through various manipulations. However, [Shao, H., Opitz, B., Yang, J., & Weng, X. (2016). Recollection reduces unitised familiarity effect. Memory (Hove, England), 24(4), 535–547. https://doi.org/10.1080/09658211.2015.1021258] found intriguing distinctions between two common manipulations, the compound task and the imagery task, leading to a dispute. We propose that differences in levels of processing in the imagery task may account for these discrepancies. This study tested our hypothesis using two approaches. The first two experiments utilised the R/K paradigm to investigate the effects of these methods on familiarity-based and recollection-based recognition. The results demonstrated that familiarity was increased in the compound task, while recollection was increased in the imagery task. In the subsequent two experiments, an interference paradigm was employed to examine differences in semantic processing within the two tasks. The results showed that the compound task did not impact participants' inclination towards lures, while the imagery task led to a bias towards semantic lures over episodic lures, suggesting that the two encodings in the imagery task involve different levels of semantic processing. These results support our hypothesis and underscore the importance of carefully choosing comparisons that account for other variables in the study of unitisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Flashbulb memories (FBMs) refer to vivid and long-lasting autobiographical memories for the circumstances in which people learned of a shocking and consequential public event. A cross-national study across eleven countries aimed to investigate FBM formation following the first COVID-19 case news in each country and test the effect of pandemic-related variables on FBM. Participants had detailed memories of the date and others present when they heard the news, and had partially detailed memories of the place, activity, and news source. China had the highest FBM specificity. All countries considered the COVID-19 emergency as highly significant at both the individual and global level. The Classification and Regression Tree Analysis revealed that FBM specificity might be influenced by participants' age, subjective severity (assessment of COVID-19 impact in each country and relative to others), residing in an area with stringent COVID-19 protection measures, and expecting the pandemic effects. Hierarchical regression models demonstrated that age and subjective severity negatively predicted FBM specificity, whereas sex, pandemic impact expectedness, and rehearsal showed positive associations in the total sample. Subjective severity negatively affected FBM specificity in Turkey, whereas pandemic impact expectedness positively influenced FBM specificity in China and negatively in Denmark. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When faced with a difficult problem, people often rely on past experiences. While remembering clearly helps us reach solutions, can retrieval also lead to misperceptions of our abilities? In three experiments, participants encountered "worst case scenarios" they likely had never experienced and that would be difficult to navigate without extensive training (e.g., bitten by snake). Learning brief tips improved problem-solving performance later, but retrieval increased feelings of preparation by an even larger margin. This gap occurred regardless of whether people thought that tips came from an expert or another participant in the study, and it did not reflect mere familiarity with the problems themselves. Instead, our results suggest that the ease experienced while remembering, or retrieval fluency, inflated feelings of preparation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Earliest memories were examined with respect to recollection type (i.e., remember-know), retrieval type (i.e., direct-generative), retrieval speed, and memory fluency (i.e., phonemic, semantic, and autobiographical). A total of 137 young adults (94 females; Mage = 20.47, SDage = 1.57) reported their earliest memories and specified their recollection and retrieval types for reported memories. They further dated their recollections by reporting the age at event, rated event characteristics and completed the phonemic, semantic, and autobiographical memory fluency tasks. Remembered and known earliest memories were similar in retrieval speed, but remembered memories were more prevalent. For retrieval type, direct and generative retrieval were similar in prevalence, but direct retrieval was faster in recalling the earliest memories. Directly retrieved memories were dated earlier than generated ones, but no such pattern in dating was observed for remember-know distinction. In terms of memory fluency, none of the three fluency tasks predicted the retrieval speed, recollection and retrieval type. For event characteristics, significant differences were observed only for vividness and rehearsal for both retrieval and recollection type. The present study is the first to explore recollection and retrieval type, retrieval speed, memory fluency together with dating and event characteristics in the context of earliest memories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is overwhelming evidence in the literature that retrieval practice of studied material can lead to better final recall than restudy of the same material. Far less clear is whether this recall benefit is accompanied by reduced subsequent forgetting over time. This study revisited the issue in two experiments by comparing the effects of retrieval practice – with and without feedback –, restudy, and a no-practice condition on recall across different delay intervals ranging between three minutes and several days. We fitted power functions of time to the recall rates of each practice condition and compared relative forgetting rates between conditions. The comparisons showed that relative forgetting was reduced after retrieval practice relative to restudy, the relative forgetting rate after retrieval practice was unaffected by the presence of feedback, and forgetting after restudy did not differ from the no-practice condition. Together with other findings in the literature, the results provide evidence that retrieval practice reduces relative forgetting over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies have found that music evokes more vivid and emotional memories of autobiographical events than various other retrieval cues. However, it is possible such findings can be explained by pre-existing differences between disparate events that are retrieved in response to each cue type. To test whether music exhibits differential effects to other cues even when memory encoding is controlled, we compared music and environmental sounds as cues for memories of the same set of dynamic visual scenes. Following incidental encoding of 14 scenes (7 with music, 7 with sounds), the music and sounds were presented to participants (N = 56), who were asked to describe the scenes associated with these cues, and rate various memory properties. Music elicited fewer correct memories and more effortful retrieval than sound cues, and no difference was found in memory detail/vividness between cue types. However, music-evoked memories were rated as more positive and less arousing. These findings provide important critical insights that only partially support the common notion that music differs from other cue types in its effects on episodic memory retrieval. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since immersive virtual reality (IVR) emerged as a research method in the 1980s, the focus has been on the similarities between IVR and actual reality. In this vein, it has been suggested that IVR methodology might fill the gap between laboratory studies and real life. IVR allows for high internal validity (i.e., a high degree of experimental control and experimental replicability), as well as high external validity by letting participants engage with the environment in an almost natural manner. Despite internal validity being crucial to experimental designs, external validity also matters in terms of the generalizability of results. In this paper, we first highlight and summarise the similarities and differences between IVR, desktop situations (both non-immersive VR and computer experiments), and reality. In the second step, we propose that IVR is a promising tool for visual memory research in terms of investigating the representation of visual information embedded in natural behaviour. We encourage researchers to carry out experiments on both two-dimensional computer screens and in immersive virtual environments to investigate visual memory and validate and replicate the findings. IVR is valuable because of its potential to improve theoretical understanding and increase the psychological relevance of the findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fast mapping (FM) is a hypothetical, incidental learning process that allows rapid acquisition of new words. Using an implicit reaction time measure in a FM paradigm, Coutanche and Thompson-Schill (Coutanche, M. N., & Thompson-Schill, S. L. (2014). Fast mapping rapidly integrates information into existing memory networks. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 143(6), 2296–2303. ) showed evidence of lexical competition within 10 min of non-words being learned as names of unknown items, consistent with same-day lexicalisation. Here, Experiment 1 was a methodological replication (N = 28/group) that found no evidence of this RT competition effect. Instead, a post-hoc analysis suggested evidence of semantic priming. Experiment 2 (N = 60/group, online study, pre-registered on OSF) tested whether semantic priming remained when making the stimulus set fully counterbalanced. No evidence for either lexical competition nor semantic priming was detected. Experiment 3 (n = 64, online study, pre-registered on OSF) tested whether referent (a)typicality boosted lexical competition (Coutanche, M. N., & Koch, G. E. (2017). Variation across individuals and items determine learning outcomes from fast mapping. Neuropsychologia, 106, 187–193. ), but again no evidence of lexical competition was observed, and Bayes Factors for the data combined across all three experiments supported the hypothesis that there is no effect of lexical competition under FM conditions. These results, together with our previous work, question whether fast mapping exists in healthy adults, at least using this specific FM paradigm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mnemonic representations of complex events are multidimensional, incorporating information about objects and characters, their interactions and their spatial–temporal context. The present study investigated the degree to which detailed verbal information (i.e., dialogues), as well as semantic and spatiotemporal (i.e., "what", "where", and "when") elements of episodic memories for movies, are forgotten over the course of a week. Moreover, we tested whether the amount of dimension-specific forgetting differed as a function of the participant's age. In a mixed design, younger and middle-aged participants were asked to watch a ∼90 min movie and provide yes/no answers to detailed questions about different dimensions of the presented material after 1, 3 days, and 1 week. The results indicate that memory decay mainly affects the verbal dimension, both in terms of response accuracy and confidence. Instead, detailed information about objects/characters' features and spatiotemporal context seems to be relatively preserved, despite a general decrease in response confidence. Furthermore, younger adults were in general more accurate and confident than middle-aged participants, although, again, the verbal dimension exhibited a significant age-related difference. We propose that this selective forgetting depends on the progressive advantage of visual compared to auditory/verbal information in memory for complex events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most everyday experiences are multisensory, and all senses can trigger the conscious re-experience of unique personal events embedded in their specific spatio-temporal context. Yet, little is known about how a cue's sensory modality influences episodic memory, and which step of this process is impacted. This study investigated recognition and episodic memory across olfactory, auditory and visual sensory modalities in a laboratory-ecological task using a non-immersive virtual reality device. At encoding, participants freely and actively explored unique and rich episodes in a three-room house where boxes delivered odours, musical pieces and pictures of face. At retrieval, participants were presented with modality-specific memory cues and were told to 1) recognise encoded cues among distractors and, 2) go to the room and select the box in which they encountered them at encoding. Memory performance and response times revealed that music and faces outperformed odours in recognition memory, but that odours and faces outperformed music in evoking encoding context. Interestingly, correct recognition of music and faces was accompanied by more profound inspirations than correct rejection. By directly comparing memory performance across sensory modalities, our study demonstrated that despite limited recognition, odours are powerful cues to evoke specific episodic memory retrieval. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recalling personal past events and imagining personal future events are closely linked, yet also show differences. It has been claimed that episodic future thinking produces stronger intensity of in-the-moment affect than does recalling episodic memories [Schubert, T., Eloo, R., Scharfen, J., & Morina, N. (2020). How imagining personal future scenarios influences affect: Systematic review and meta-analysis. Clinical Psychology Review, 75, 101811. ]. In contrast, the literature indicates that memories are experienced more vividly than are episodic future thoughts, a quality that would be expected to produce a stronger rather than a weaker affective response. In this systematic review and meta-analysis, we examined (a) the intensity of affect, (b) the vividness and (c) the valence of emotion experienced in response to remembering personal past events compared to imagining personal future events. Sixteen studies with a combined sample of 1735 met criteria for inclusion. Remembered past events were experienced more vividly than imagined future events but there was no difference between the two types of representations on emotional intensity. Imagined future events were associated with more positive emotion than memories. Future research could examine factors responsible for the equivalent strength of emotional response in memories and future-thinking despite their differences in vividness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The mechanisms underlying a tendency among individuals with depression to report personal episodic memories with low specificity remain to be understood. We assessed a sample of undergraduate students with dysphoria to determine whether depression relates to a broader dysregulation of balancing accuracy and informativeness during memory reports. Specifically, we investigated metamnemonic processes using a quantity-accuracy profile approach. Recall involved three phases with increasing allowance for more general, or coarse-grained, responses: (a) forced-precise responding, requiring high precision; (b) free-choice report with high and low penalty incentives on accuracy; (c) a lexical description phase. Individuals with and without dysphoria were largely indistinguishable across indices of retrieval, monitoring, and control aspects of metamemory. The results indicate intact metacognitive processing in young individuals with dysphoria and provide no support for the view that impaired metacognitive control underlies either memory deficits or bias in memory reports that accompany dysphoria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recalling autobiographical memories (AMs) is closely tied to emotional experience. However, the emotionality associated with an event can change from occurrence to recall. Autobiographical memories show fixed affect (i.e., no change in emotionality), fading affect (i.e., decrease in emotional intensity), flourishing affect (i.e., increase in emotional intensity), and flexible affect (i.e., change of valence). The present study used mixed-effects multinomial models to predict perceived changes in positive and negative valence as well as intensity. Initial intensity, vividness, and social rehearsal were entered into the models as event level predictor variables, whereas rumination and reflection were entered into the models as participant level predictor variables. Analyses were based on 3950 AMs reported by 352 participants (18–92 years old) in response to 12 emotional cue-words. Participants rated the emotionality of each memory from the perspective of event occurrence and event recall. Only the predictors on the event level meaningfully distinguished between memories that stayed fixed in affect and memories that showed fading, flourishing, or flexible affect (R² values ranging from.24 to.65). The present results highlight the importance of considering different aspects of AMs and the ways they change emotionally to fully understand emotional experiencing in autobiographical memory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nostalgia, an autobiographically relevant positive emotion, is a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past. Autobiographical memory, which is one of the cognitive bases of nostalgia, includes both abstract semantic and detailed episodic memories. Recent studies have defined and classified memories that are located between semantic and episodic memory as personal semantics. Although autobiographical memory and personal semantics range over a continuum, past nostalgia research has not focused on or controlled them. In two experiments, undergraduate students retrieved episodic memory and personal semantics and rated cognitive and affective items. The intensity of nostalgia differed according to the types of memory content and temporal distance of the memory from the present. These results revealed that not only unique events but also repeated events and autobiographical facts induced nostalgia; furthermore, repeated events from both the distant and recent past (primary and high school, respectively) consistently induced relatively greater nostalgia, but in some cases, they were not significantly different from other types of memory (i.e., unique events and autobiographical facts). These findings suggest that both episodic memory and personal semantics are involved in the occurrence of nostalgia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In older adults' everyday life, time-based prospective memory (TBPM) is relevant as health-related intentions are often part of daily activities. Nonetheless, it is still unclear which task-related factors can potentially moderate the magnitude of age-related differences, such as duration of the PM target time (the time-window within which an individual must complete a given TBPM task), the frequency of the TBPM tasks, and the criterion chosen to compute PM accuracy. The present meta-analysis aimed to quantify age-related differences in laboratory TBPM tasks, and to investigate how specific task-related factors potentially moderate the magnitude of age effects. The results showed that age effects consistently emerged among the studies, with older adults showing lower TBPM performance and checking the clock less often than younger adults, especially for shorter intervals (e.g., ≤ 4 min). Furthermore, the results indicated that the duration of the PM target time interacted with the frequency of the PM task, suggesting that learning effects may attenuate the magnitude of age differences in TBPM performance. The results are discussed in terms of potential implications about the possible cognitive processes involved in TBPM and aging, as well as in terms of robustness of the TBPM laboratory paradigm in aging research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is thought that the presence of music influences episodic memory encoding. However, no studies have isolated the influence of music liking – the hedonic value listeners attribute to a musical stimulus – from that of the core affect induced by the presence of that music. In an online survey, participants rated musical excerpts in terms of how much they liked them, as well as in terms of felt valence, felt arousal and familiarity. These ratings were then used to inform the stimuli presented in an online episodic memory task which, across different scenarios, involved dragging cued objects to cued locations and then recalling details of what was moved, where they were moved to and the order of movements made. Our results showed an influence of liking and music-reward sensitivity on memory for what was moved, as well as a detrimental effect of arousing musical stimuli on memory for un-cued scenario details. Taken together, our study showcases the importance of episodic memory paradigms that involve rich spatiotemporal contexts and provides insights into how different aspects of episodic memory may be influenced by the presence of music. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The attentional boost effect (ABE) is an improvement of memory under divided attention conditions in which stimulus encoding is enhanced when a target is detected in a simultaneous target-monitoring distracting task. Here we asked whether memory is similarly improved when the target-monitoring task occurs at the time of retrieval. In four experiments, participants encoded words under full attention then completed a recognition test under either divided attention, during which participants made recognition judgments while performing the target-monitoring task, or full attention, in which the target-monitoring task was not performed. Relative to distractor rejection, target detection increased hits and false alarms under divided attention with no net effect on discrimination. Targets and distractors had no effect on recognition under full attention. The target-related increase in hits and false alarms occurred regardless of whether the target-monitoring material matched or mismatched the test material and regardless of the target-to-distractor ratio and the target response. A change in bias accounts for the phenomenon, in which participants adopt a more lenient criterion for target-paired words than for distractor-paired words. The same divided attention manipulation that enhances memory at encoding does not similarly enhance memory at retrieval. Theoretical explanations are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The influence of parental reminiscing style (the way parents discuss past events with their children) on the development of children's autobiographical memory has been well documented. The specific mechanisms involved in this effect, however, remain unknown. We explored the association between specific components of parental reminiscing and preschoolers' episodic memory. Fifty-three parent–child dyads (MChild Age = 53.13 months, 29 females) from Belgium were tested twice within a delay of about nine months. At the first time point, parental reminiscing style was assessed via a parent–child discussion of a prior standardised event (a museum visit) focusing on both the structure of parental interactions and the addressed content. At each time point, children were administered with story–recall tasks in the form of true–false recognition about previously heard stories. Generalised linear mixed-effect models were conducted on an item-by-item basis. Results indicated that parental reminiscing is associated with preschoolers' recognition memory performance at both time points, but not all reminiscing components equally influence children's performance. Specifically, parents' concretisations and metamemory talk were found to impact children's memory. The identification of these components provided insights for exploring the processes underlying the reminiscing–memory influence (in-depth encoding of information, binding processes, and metacognition). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Autobiographical memory impairments are prominent in Alzheimer's disease (AD). Yet, life narratives of AD patients are scarcely examined. Here, twenty-one older adults diagnosed with probably AD and 22 age-matched healthy controls told their life story, and dated the events mentioned in these narratives. AD patients provided significantly fewer life story memories overall, but the proportion of memories with reference to specific events did not differ between groups. Patients included fewer negative events in their life story, while the emotional tone of narratives was similar across groups. Impairments were found on most structural aspects, with patients' narratives being less coherent and ending somewhere in the past, while no differences were seen for life story beginnings. Both groups showed a peak in remembered events dated to young adulthood, consistent with a reminiscence bump. However, in contrast to controls, patients displayed a steep drop in life story memories after the age of 30. For both groups, a high proportion of memories within the bump period were of life script events, consistent with the idea that the life script helps to structure the recall of personal life story memories, thus suggesting that AD patients still benefit from the retrieval support of this semantic structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Autobiographical memories frequently occur during everyday life. One of the most common approaches to measuring memories in everyday life is a diary method: Participants record memories as they occur by writing down these memories in a paper diary or typing them on a smartphone. Conversely, many laboratory-based studies of autobiographical memory require participants to describe their memories out loud in a spoken manner. Here, we sought to directly compare memories recorded via typing to those spoken out loud in a smartphone diary study. Participants reported or, autobiographical memories that occurred over a period of four days either by typing (n = 43) or recording themselves orally describing memories (n = 39) using a smartphone app. Results indicated that the audio recording group reported memories more frequently and these memories contained a greater number of words, while the text group reported memories more promptly after they occurred. Additionally, the typing group reported memories that were episodically richer and contained a greater proportion of perceptual details. This work has important implications for future autobiographical memory studies in the lab, online, and using diary methods, and suggests that certain reporting modalities may be advantageous depending on the specific research focus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on stress-related disorders and brain imaging suggests that (acute) stress might impact the capacity to mentally simulate specific episodic future events (EFT) through the effects of cortisol on brain regions supporting this cognitive function, such as the prefrontal cortices. This study aims to examine the mechanisms underlying this link, using transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) over the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. 60 healthy participants were subjected to the Montreal Imaging Stress Task (MIST), followed by either active or sham tDCS. After stimulation, the EFT task was administered. Salivary cortisol was measured throughout the protocol. Higher cortisol AUCi values were linked to less specific episodic future thoughts. Moreover, active tDCS enhanced EFT specificity irrespective of cortisol, especially in high trait ruminators. We did not observe an effect from active tDCS on cortisol AUCi, and equally there was no interaction effect between cortisol AUCi and stimulation condition predictive for EFT specificity. Although we did not find evidence for the effects of tDCS on the HPA-system, our data reveal a crucial link between two critical predictors of mental health for the first time, and provide a solution to help rehabilitate EFT deficits. Trial registration: Netherlands National Trial Register identifier: ntr004.. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People from the same country often hold shared, culturally-shaped memories about important events from that country's history, known as collective memories. Although empirical research has started to shed light on the properties of these memories, none has systematically examined the functions these memories. To what extent do collective memories serve functions? We hypothesised that collective memories serve functions for a collective similar to those that autobiographical memories serve for individuals—directive, identity, and social functions. We conducted two experiments using adapted versions of the Thinking About Life Experiences questionnaire (TALE) in which we asked people to rate the functions of their collective memories. Across both experiments, we found evidence that collective memories serve directive, identity, and social functions for the collective. These results suggest collective memories perform important roles in their collectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Guessing an answer to an unfamiliar question prior to seeing the answer leads to better memory than studying alone (the pre-testing effect), which some theories attribute to increased curiosity. A similar effect occurs in general knowledge learning: people are more likely to recall information that they were initially curious to learn. Gruber and Ranganath [(2019). How curiosity enhances hippocampus-dependent memory: The prediction, appraisal, curiosity, and exploration (PACE) framework. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 23(12), 1014–1025] argued that unanswered questions can cause a state of curiosity during which encoding is enhanced for the missing answer, but also for incidental information presented at the time. If pre-testing similarly induces curiosity, then it too should produce better memory for incidental information. We tested this idea in three experiments that varied the order, nature and timing of the incidental material presented within a pre-testing context. All three experiments demonstrated a reliable pre-testing effect for the targets, but no benefit for the incidental material presented before the target. This pattern suggests that the pre-testing effect is highly specific and is not consistent with a generalised state of curiosity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Age-related episodic memory deficits imply that older and younger adults differentially retrieve and monitor contextual features that indicate the source of studied information. Such differences have been shown in subjective reports during recognition and cued recall as well as process estimates derived from computational models of free recall organisation. The present study extends the subject report method to free recall to characterise age differences in context retrieval and monitoring, and to test assumptions from a context-based computational model. Older and younger adults studied two lists of semantically related words and then recalled from only the first or second list. After each recall, participants indicated their subjective context retrieval using remember/know judgments. Compared to younger adults, older adults showed lower recall accuracy and subjective reports of context retrieval (i.e., remember judgments) that were less specific to correct recalls. These differences appeared after first-recall attempts. Recall functions conditioned on serial positions were more continual across correct recalls from target lists and intrusions from non-target lists for older than younger adults. Together with other analyses of context retrieval and monitoring reported here, these findings suggest that older adults retrieved context less distinctively across the recall period, leading to greater perceived similarity for temporally contiguous lists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Humans have access to both internal memory (information stored in the brain) and external memory (information stored in the environment). To what extent do we use each in everyday life? In two experiments, participants rated both internal and external memory for frequency of use, dependability, ease of use (Experiment 1), and likelihood of use (Experiment 2) across four purposes: episodic, semantic, procedural, and prospective. Experiment 1 showed that internal memory was favoured for episodic and procedural purposes, while external memory was favoured for semantic purposes. Experiment 2 further clarified that internal memory was favoured for episodic and common procedural purposes, while external memory was favoured for uncommon semantic, uncommon procedural, and far-term prospective purposes. This strategic division of labour plays to the strengths of both forms of memory. Participants also generally rated external memory as more dependable and easier to use. Results support the memory symbiosis framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research has demonstrated that performing a sequence of saccadic horizontal eye movements prior to retrieval facilitates performance on tests of episodic memory. This has been observed in both laboratory tasks of retention and autobiographical memory. To date, the work has centred on performance in younger individuals. This paper extends previous investigations by examining the effects of saccadic eye movements in older persons. Autobiographical episodic and semantic memory fluency was assessed in younger (age range 18–35, mean = 22.50), and older (age range 55–87, mean = 70.35) participants following saccadic (vs. fixation control) manipulations. The main effects of eye movements and age were found for episodic autobiographical memory (greater fluency after eye movements and in younger participants). Semantic autobiographical memory showed a main effect of age (greater fluency in younger participants), whereas general semantic memory showed no effect of age or eye movement. These findings indicate that saccadic horizontal eye movements can enhance episodic personal memory in older individuals. This has implications as a technique to improve autobiographical recollection in the elderly and as an adjunct in reminiscence therapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Event boundaries impose structure on how events are stored in long-term memory. Research with young adults has shown that associations within events are stronger than those that cross event boundaries. Recently, this effect was observed in both young and old adults using movie stimuli (Davis, Chemnitz, et al., 2021). Here, we test whether this effect extends to written narratives. Young and old participants read a series of narratives that were interspersed with temporal shifts in the storyline meant to elicit the perception of an event boundary. Later, participants were cued with sentences and were asked to recall the sentence that immediately followed. We expected participants would have worse memory when a cue and correct answer flanked a boundary than when it did not. In Experiment 1, we found that despite older adults' lower performance overall, both age groups had lower accuracy for cues that flanked a boundary, compared to cues that elicited a response from within the same event. Experiment 2 replicated the results from Experiment 1. Our results support past work that did not find age differences in event perception and demonstrate that older and younger adults may store events similarly in long-term memory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]