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The term Repulsive Body Image (RBI) refers to a schematic construct combining body-directed self-disgust and other negative body image features. As a self-schema, the RBI is assumed to bias information processing, including autobiographical memory retrieval. When specific memories about the own body are retrieved in a direct (automatic) fashion, intense self-disgust may arise. This may trigger attempts to escape from those memories which, in turn, might further strengthen the RBI. We asked 133 women with high (H-RBI; n = 63) and low (L-RBI; n = 70) levels of habitual body-directed self-disgust to recall autobiographical memories in response to 11 concrete body-related cue words in a minimal instructions Autobiographical Memory Test (AMT). Despite an overall low level of memory specificity, we found that RBI levels were associated with stronger disgust reactions and stronger tendencies to escape from body-related memories. In addition, increased disgust reactions to body-related memories accounted for the association between habitual levels of self-disgust and increased tendencies to escape from these memories. Thus, the findings indicated that women with body image concerns showed disgust-based escape from body-related memories. This disgust-based inclination to avert from body-related autobiographical memories might counteract the correction of an RBI, thereby contributing to the persistence of body image concerns and associated psychopathology.

This study examined the influence of trauma exposure and posttraumatic stress (PTS) severity on accuracy of recall of autobiographical memory of traumatic events and pleasant events in very young children. Two hundred sixteen 3-6 year-old children with trauma exposure were interviewed with standardized interviews. Forty-one non-trauma-exposed controls were interviewed about stressful events for comparison. Accuracy of recall for both traumatic and pleasant events was not associated with severity of PTS. Trauma-exposed children showed significantly less accurate recall of trauma events compared to pleasant events. This difference was limited to children who experienced repeated trauma or Hurricane Katrina-related trauma experiences as opposed to single-blow types of trauma experiences. There was no difference in accuracy of recall of trauma events in the trauma-exposed group versus stressful events in the control group. There was also no difference in accuracy of recall of pleasant events between the trauma-exposed and the control groups. These findings do not support traditional theories that autobiographical recall is impaired in those with posttraumatic stress disorder or with trauma exposure. These findings demonstrate that very young children have access to and can verbalize accurate autobiographical recall of trauma events, which is important for clinical assessment and treatment.

Autistic people have difficulties recalling episodic memories, including retrieving fewer or less specific and detailed memories compared to typically developing people. However, the ability to effectively recall episodic memories is crucial in many real-world contexts, such as the criminal justice system, medical consultations, and employment interviews. Autistic people’s episodic memory difficulties are most apparent when open, unsupportive questions are used. The ‘Task Support Hypothesis’ posits that autistic people can recall as much information as typically developing people with more supportive questioning. Alongside problems retrieving episodic memories, autistic people also experience difficulties with executive functioning, theory of mind, and expressive language. The current study aimed to assess the impact of these abilities on recall in two previous studies by the authors that compared autistic and typically developing adults on recall specificity in police, healthcare, and employment interviews, and recall quality in employment interviews under unsupported and supported questioning. Under unsupported questioning only, autistic adults’ episodic autobiographical memory recall specificity was predicted by expressive language, whereas for the typically developing group, only theory of mind was a significant predictor. No other predictors were significant across the study. Implications for the task support hypothesis are discussed. Lay abstract Autistic people have difficulties recalling episodic memories (memories of specific events) compared to typically developing people. However, being able to effectively recall such memories is important in many real-world situations, for example, in police interviews, during medical consultations, and in employment interviews. Autistic people’s episodic memory difficulties are most noticeable when they are responding to open, unsupportive questions. However, the ‘Task Support Hypothesis’ indicates that autistic people are able to recall as much information as typically developing people, as long as they are asked more supportive questions. Autistic people also experience difficulties with executive functioning (cognitive abilities which allow us to plan, hold information in mind, inhibit interruptions, etc.), theory of mind (the ability to understand others’ perspectives and intentions), and spoken language. The current study aimed to investigate the impact of these cognitive abilities on memory recall in two previous studies which compared autistic and typically developing adults on how specific their recall was in police, healthcare, and employment interviews, and the quality of responses during an employment interview when both unsupportive and supportive questioning was used. The results show that while typically developing people may rely on theory of mind abilities, autistic people may rely more on language abilities when performing in interviews, potentially to compensate for their episodic memory difficulties, and that this effect is most apparent during more unsupportive recall (e.g. when a brief, open question is asked) compared to when open questions are followed by prompts (e.g. ‘tell me about who as there’, ‘what happened?’, etc.).

Successful recall of brand names often determines consumer decisions. Yet, unaided recall fails increasingly as adult consumers get older, which is a threat to brand awareness in aging societies. Still, consumer research has not explored if personally relevant episodic memories consumers associate with a brand can support brand-name memory when consumers age. This study, therefore, explores how cognitive aging affects the links between the recall of brand names from semantic memory and the subjective quality of brand-related autobiographical memories (AMs). Experimental data from 20- to 33-year-old and 60- to 90-year-old participants suggest that consumers associate successfully recalled brand names with more significant, phenomenologically richer AMs, and that this connection between semantic and episodic memory is stronger in older adults. We discuss how research and brand communication could utilize AMs to further understand and reduce negative impacts of aging on brand awareness.

Episodic memory enables us to form a bank of autobiographical memories across our lifespan. The relationship between autobiographical memory and laboratory-measures of episodic memory is complicated and these processes might be differentially affected by ageing (e.g. Diamond et al., [2020]. Different patterns of recollection for matched real-world and laboratory-based episodes in younger and older adults. Cognition, 202, 104309.). Here, we examine whether the ability to recall one’s own visual perspective relates to richness of autobiographical recall, and how this relationship is affected by age. Memory of perspective at encoding, was assessed in younger (18–35 years) and older adults (65–85 years). Participants, wearing head cameras, viewed arrays of objects. Later they were asked which images represented earlier scenes, and if the image was taken from their perspective (i.e. from their camera). Performance was compared with autobiographical memory. Accuracy in identifying their own perspective correlated with autobiographical scores. Age-group was a moderating factor in this relationship. Subsequently, new participants encoded photographs of objects and were later asked whether they recognised the images. Visual perspective was manipulated in these photographs. In this task there was no relationship between performance and autobiographical memory. In younger adults only 3-D encoding of scenes relates directly to autobiographical memory but ability to complete these two tasks appears to operate independently in the older group.

Most studies exploring how remote memory is represented in the brain are based on strong episodic self-related components. Because of methodological reasons, much less is known about how the information concerning the semantic part of autobiographical memory is retrieved, and whether the brain correlates differ according to the autobiographical moment of the memory formation. In the present study, we explored the neural concomitants of the retrieval of texts learnt at different periods of life, in a comedian with exceptional verbal memory skills. This 49-year-old comedian was instructed to recite aloud a total of 30 texts he learnt during three different epochs: before the age of 15 years (E1), between the age of 15 and 25 years (E2), and after the age of 25 years (E3). The most salient activation was observed for memory from the farthest period, with a preponderance of the medial rostral prefrontal cortex (PFC) and of the precuneus. There was no hippocampal activation during text retrieval by comparison to a control condition, whatever the learning period. This study supports the assumption that the recall of remote semantic memories can occur without hippocampal activation. We discussed the activation of the rostral PFC during retrieval of the oldest (and best consolidated) memories as the possible involvement of control meta-memory processes rather than memory processes per se.

Recent evidence suggests that some simulations of future events are encoded in memory and later recalled as "memories of the future," but the factors that determine the memorability of future simulations remain poorly understood. The current research aimed to test the hypothesis that imagined future events are better memorized when they are integrated in autobiographical knowledge structures. Across two experiments, we found that future events that involved the self were better recalled than future events that involved an acquaintance (Experiment 1), and that future events that were related to personal goals were better recalled than future events that were unrelated to goals (Experiment 2). Although self-reference and personal goals influenced the phenomenological characteristics of future simulations (e.g., their vividness and the clarity of event components), the enhanced recall of self-relevant and goal-relevant simulations was not simply due to these differences in the characteristics of simulations. Taken together, these findings suggest that the integration of simulated events with preexisting autobiographical knowledge is an important determinant of memories of the future.

Time is usually conceived of in terms of space: many natural languages refer to time according to a back-to-front axis. Indeed, whereas the past is usually conceived to be “behind us”, the future is considered to be “in front of us.” Despite temporal coding is pivotal for the development of autonoetic consciousness, little is known about the organization of autobiographical memories along this axis. Here we developed a spatial compatibility task (SCT) to test the organization of autobiographical memories along the sagittal plane, using spatiotemporal interference. Twenty-one participants were asked to recall both episodic and semantic autobiographical memories (EAM and SAM, respectively) to be used in the SCT. Then, during the SCT, they were asked to decide whether each event occurred before or after the event presented right before, using a response code that could be compatible with the back-to-front axis (future in front) or not (future at back). We found that performance was significantly worse during the non-compatible condition, especially for EAM. The results are discussed in light of the evidence for spatiotemporal encoding of episodic autobiographical memories, taking into account possible mechanisms explaining compatibility effects. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.3758/s13423-021-01906-z.

In this study, we tested elements of the multi-process retrieval account of autobiographical memory, retrieval multiplicity, and retrieval selectivity. The retrieval multiplicity states that multiple different retrieval strategies are used to recall autobiographical memories, while the retrieval selectivity states that such retrieval strategies will vary in accord with the cuing environment. We tested these hypotheses across two experiments with the retrieve-aloud procedure. In the retrieve-aloud procedure, participants were required to verbalize their thoughts while attempting to retrieve personal memories in response to phrase cues (e.g., listening to music). Experiments 1 and 2 found support for the retrieval multiplicity by showing that participants used a variety of different retrieval processes (eight different processes in total), while Experiment 1 found support for the retrieval selectivity by showing that retrieval strategies varied across different cue types. The implications of the findings are discussed with respect to autobiographical memory, as well as semantic memory.

ObjectivesChildhood maltreatment is associated with altered neural reactivity during autobiographical memory (ABM) recall and a pattern of overgeneral memory (OGM). Altered ABM and OGM have been linked with psychopathology and poorer social functioning. The present study investigated the association between altered ABM and subsequent socio-emotional functioning (measured two years later) in a sample of adolescents with (N = 20; maltreatment group, MT) and without (N = 17; non-MT group) documented childhood maltreatment histories.MethodAt baseline, adolescents (aged 12.6 ± 1.45 years) were administered the Autobiographical Memory Test to measure OGM. Participants also recalled specific ABMs in response to emotionally valenced cue words during functional MRI. Adolescents in both groups underwent assessments measuring depressive symptoms and prosocial behavior at both timepoints. Regression analyses were carried out to predict outcome measures at follow-up controlling for baseline levels.ResultsIn the MT group, greater OGM at baseline significantly predicted reduced prosocial behavior at follow-up and showed a trend level association with elevated depressive symptoms. Patterns of altered ABM-related brain activity did not significantly predict future psycho-social functioning.ConclusionsThe current findings highlight the potential value of OGM as a cognitive mechanism that could be targeted to reduce risk of depression in adolescents with prior histories of maltreatment.

Since Brown and Kulik's (1977. Flashbulb memories. Cognition, 5, 73-99. http://doi.org/10.1016/0010-0277(77)90018-X) seminal work, a central issue in memory literature is whether flashbulb memories (FBMs) hold a special status within autobiographical recalls. To address this issue, we refer back to Brown and Kulik's definition of FBM as a snapshot of the reception context of an important public news and propose a method to identify the contents of this snapshot. Although Brown and Kulik found that the majority of FBM's contents could be classified within six canonical categories (CCs), here we claim that assessing the presence of FBMs through guided CCs' questions - as done by most researchers in this field - can be misleading. We suggest, instead, to use free recall reports to identify the consistent perceptual elements of the snapshot. Across two test-retest studies, we show that the contents of FBMs assessed by free reports and the contents of CCs assessed by guided questions, do not exactly coincide. Moreover, a structural equation model supports results of previous research about the determinants of FBM and reveals that FBM facilitates the recall of more consistent explicitly requested CCs' contents. Theoretical implications concerning the qualitative contents of FBMs and the debate about their consistency are discussed.

The memories we form are composed of information that we extract from multifaceted episodes. Static stimuli and paired associations have proven invaluable stimuli for understanding memory, but real-life events feature spatial and temporal dimensions that help form new retrieval paths. We ask how the ability to recall semantic, temporal, and spatial aspects (the “what, when, and where”) of naturalistic episodes is affected by three influences—prior familiarity, postencoding sleep, and individual differences—by testing their influence on three forms of recall: cued recall, free recall, and the extent that recalled details are recombined for a novel prompt. Naturalistic videos of events with rare animals were presented to 115 participants, randomly assigned to receive a 12- or 24-h delay with sleep and/or wakefulness. Participants’ immediate and delayed recall was tested and coded by its spatial, temporal, and semantic content. We find that prior familiarity with items featured in events improved cued recall, but not free recall, particularly for temporal and spatial details. In contrast, postencoding sleep, relative to wakefulness, improved free recall, but not cued recall, of all forms of content. Finally, individuals with higher trait scores in the Survey of Autobiographical Memory spontaneously incorporated more spatial details during free recall, and more event details (at a trend level) in a novel recombination recall task. These findings show that prior familiarity, postencoding sleep, and memory traits can each enhance a different form of recall. More broadly, this work highlights that recall is heterogeneous in response to different influences on memory.

People who ruminate about negative personal experiences seem to be engaged in practicing retrieval, with the expected consequences of perpetuating those very memories (see Roediger and Butler in Trends Cogn Sci 15:20–27, 2011). To provide an experimental model of the effect of retrieval practice on subsequent recall of autobiographical memories, we recruited students with low and high scores on the Ruminative Response Scale (Treynor et al. in Cogn Ther Res 27:247–259, 2003), gave them positive and ruminative cues to generate memories, and cued three rounds of practice of half of the memories from each valence. A week later, final cued recall for all memories showed strong practice effects, with the exception that ruminators benefited very little from the request to practice positive memories. Recalling personal memories benefits from prior practice in bringing them to mind. However, these results provide insufficient evidence to recommend training recall of positive autobiographical memories to counteract rumination.

Positive memory retrieval generates pleasant feelings that can counteract negative affective states and improve mood. However, not all positive memories are created equal. Our most treasured memories are likely experiences we shared with other people (e.g., birthday party) rather than something we did alone (e.g., receiving good grades). Here, we explored whether the social context within a positive memory enhanced its subjective value and contributed to an individual's well-being. In Study 1, participants were asked how much they would be willing to pay to reexperience positive memories that occurred with socially close others (high-social), with acquaintances (low-social) or alone (nonsocial). When controlling for the memory's positivity, participants were still willing to pay 1.5 times as much for high-social than for low-social or nonsocial memories. Likewise, participants chose to reminisce about high-social memories more frequently than less social ones of equal positive feeling. In Study 2, recalling memories rich in social context recruited regions previously implicated in mentalizing and reward (e.g., caudate), which further correlated with greater ability to savor positive emotions in daily life. Finally, we examined the benefit of social context by asking participants to recall positive memories that varied in social context after acute stress exposure. In Study 3, recalling memories that included higher social context led to a greater dampening of the physiological stress response (i.e., cortisol). Taken together, these findings suggest that social context inherent in a positive memory enhances its value, providing a possible mechanism by which positive reminiscence aids stress coping and enhances well-being. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

In mentally healthy individuals, autobiographical memory is typically biased toward positive events, which may help to maintain psychological well-being. Our aim was to assess a range of important positive memory biases in the mentally healthy and explore the possibility that these biases are mitigated in those with mental health problems. We administered a novel recall paradigm that required recollection of multiple good and bad past events (the Good Day–Bad Day task) to healthy and depressed individuals. This allowed us to explore differences in memory category fluency (i.e., the ability to generate integrated sets of associated events) for positive and negative memories, along with memory specificity, and fading affect bias—a greater reduction in the intensity of memory-related affect over time for negative versus positive events. We found that healthy participants demonstrated superior category fluency for positive relative to negative events but that this effect was absent in depressed participants. Healthy participants exhibited a strong fading affect bias that was significantly mitigated, although still present, in depression. Finally, memory specificity was reduced in depression for both positive and negative memories. Findings demonstrate that the positive bias associated with mental health is maintained by multiple autobiographical memory processes and that depression is as much a function of the absence of these positive biases as it is the presence of negative biases. Results provide important guidance for developing new treatments for improving mental health. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved)

Contains fulltext : 219674.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access) Lifelog photo review is considered to enhance the recall of personal events. While a sizable body of research has explored the neural basis of autobiographical memory (AM), there is limited neural evidence on the retrieval-based enhancement effect on event memory among older adults in the real-world environment. This study examined the neural processes of AM as was modulated by retrieval practice through lifelog photo review in older adults. In the experiment, blood-oxygen-level dependent response during subjects' recall of recent events was recorded, where events were cued by photos that may or may not have been exposed to a priori retrieval practice (training). Subjects remembered more episodic details under the trained relative to non-trained condition. Importantly, the neural correlates of AM was exhibited by (1) dissociable cortical areas related to recollection and familiarity, and (2) a positive correlation between the amount of recollected episodic details and cortical activation within several lateral temporal and parietal regions. Further analysis of the brain activation pattern at a few regions of interest within the core remember network showed a training_condition x event_detail interaction effect, suggesting that the boosting effect of retrieval practice depended on the level of recollected event details.

Contains fulltext : 216652.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access) Memory bias modification (MBM) is a relatively new approach at targeting biased processing - a central cognitive factor causing and maintaining depression. In this pilot study we aimed to develop a smartphone-based autobiographical memory training, a novel form of MBM. A total of 153 unselected participants were randomly allocated to one of three experimental training conditions (positive, negative or sham memory training) conducted over a period of three days. Autobiographical memory bias and depressive scores were assessed pre- and post-training, whilst recent event recall and explicit self-referent memory bias were assessed post-training. Positive memory bias significantly increased in the positive training condition, however memory bias did not significantly differ post-training between the three conditions. Participants who received positive training recalled a positive autobiographical event more frequently compared to the other conditions. No significant difference between conditions was found in the other outcomes, including symptoms. The novel smartphone-based MBM intervention seems apt to affect autobiographical memory of emotional material. Future research should explore its possible (therapeutic) application. 12 p.

In this text, the Author carries out theoretical discussion and presents the outcomes of her studies of the shaping process of women's identity in the context of a human (auto)biography, referring to the category of identity, putting particular stress to the educational biography, called a special type of a thematic biography (important for the category of identity), and a category of narration, of key importance for comprehending the phenomenon of auto(biography). A human biography is an invaluable source of information on their life and the person her/himself. Getting acquainted with the biography, looking for information about a given person, learning her/his story from her/himself (biography passed through an autobiographical account) or from the biographical materials, e.g. diaries, letters, memoirs and recollection of others. The Author says that one of the identity criteria is the sense of one's own continuity in time. This criterion can be fulfilled thanks to the autobiographical memory, or a memory of personal episodes and autobiographical facts. The problems of biography are closely connected with the autobiographical memory. In the text the Author presents three intertwined categories: identity, autobiographical memory and biography.

Memories can have consequences on people’s eating behavior. In the current experiment, we examined the effect of belief versus recollection on food preferences and then investigated whether explicit belief (i.e., self- reported) or implicit belief (i.e., measured by an autobiographical implicit association test; aIAT) had a similar effect on food preferences. Participants (N = 163) were falsely told that they got sick after eating egg salad in their childhood and then received guided imagery to induce false beliefs/recollections concerning the food-aversive event. Half of the participants with false memories were debriefed and told that the event was false to reduce their belief in the event. Belief, not recollection regarding the food-aversive event, impacted participants’ food preferences. Furthermore, we found that explicit, but not implicit, belief predicted participants’ food preferences. The current results suggest that explicit judgments of belief in a memory may explain the consequences resulting from memories.

Methods to reduce intrusive memories (e.g., of traumatic events) should ideally spare voluntary memory for the same event (e.g., to report on the event in court). Single-trace memory accounts assume that interfering with a trace should impact both its involuntary and voluntary expressions, whereas separate-trace accounts assume these two can dissociate, allowing for selective interference. This possibility was investigated in 3 experiments. Nonclinical participants viewed a trauma film followed by an interference task (Tetris game-play after reminder cues). Next, memory for the film was assessed with various measures. The interference task reduced the number of intrusive memories (diary-based, Experiments 1 and 2), but spared performance on well-matched measures of voluntary retrieval-free recall (Experiment 1) and recognition (Experiments 1 and 2)-challenging single-trace accounts. The interference task did not affect other measures of involuntary retrieval-perceptual priming (Experiment 1) or attentional bias (Experiment 2). However, the interference task did reduce the number of intrusive memories in a laboratory-based vigilance-intrusion task (Experiments 2 and 3), irrespective of concurrent working memory load during intrusion retrieval (Experiment 3). Collectively, results reveal a robust dissociation between intrusive and voluntary memories, having ruled out key methodological differences between how these two memory expressions are assessed, namely cue overlap (Experiment 1), attentional capture (Experiment 2), and retrieval load (Experiment 3). We argue that the inability of these retrieval factors to explain the selective interference is more compatible with separate-trace than single-trace accounts. Further theoretical developments are needed to account for this clinically important distinction between intrusive memories and their voluntary counterpart. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

BackgroundThe brain functional correlates of autobiographical recall are well established, but have been little studied in schizophrenia. Additionally, autobiographical memory is one of a small number of cognitive tasks that activates rather than de-activates the default mode network, which has been found to be dysfunctional in this disorder.MethodsTwenty-seven schizophrenic patients and 30 healthy controls underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging while viewing cue words that evoked autobiographical memories. Control conditions included both non-memory-evoking cues and a low level baseline (cross fixation).ResultsCompared to both non-memory evoking cues and low level baseline, autobiographical recall was associated with activation in default mode network regions in the controls including the medial frontal cortex, the posterior cingulate cortex and the hippocampus, as well as other areas. Clusters of de-activation were seen outside the default mode network. There were no activation differences between the schizophrenic patients and the controls, but the patients showed clusters of failure of de-activation in non-default mode network regions.ConclusionsAccording to this study, patients with schizophrenia show intact activation of the default mode network and other regions associated with recall of autobiographical memories. The finding of failure of de-activation outside the network suggests that schizophrenia may be associated with a general difficulty in de-activation rather than dysfunction of the default mode network per se.

Background Patients suffering from schizophrenia spectrum disorders demonstrate various cognitive deficiencies, the most pertinent one being impairment in autobiographical memory. This paper reviews quantitative research investigating deficits in the content, and characteristics, of autobiographical memories in individuals with schizophrenia. It also examines if the method used to activate autobiographical memories influenced the results and which theoretical accounts were proposed to explain the defective recall of autobiographical memories in patients with schizophrenia. Methods PsycINFO, Web of Science, and PubMed databases were searched for articles published between January 1998 and December 2018. Fifty-seven studies met the inclusion criteria. All studies implemented the generative retrieval strategy by inducing memories through cue words or pictures, the life-stage method, or open-ended retrieval method. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) Statement guidelines were followed for this review. Results Most studies reported that patients with schizophrenia retrieve less specific autobiographical memories when compared to a healthy control group, while only three studies indicated that both groups performed similarly on memory specificity. Patients with schizophrenia also exhibited earlier reminiscence bumps than those for healthy controls. The relationship between comorbid depression and autobiographical memory specificity appeared to be independent because patients’ memory specificity improved through intervention, but their level of depression remained unchanged. The U-shaped retrieval pattern for memory specificity was not consistent. Both the connection between the history of attempted suicide and autobiographical memory specificity, and the relationship between psychotic symptoms and autobiographical memory specificity, remain inconclusive. Patients’ memory specificity and coherence improved through cognitive training. Conclusions The overgeneral recall of autobiographical memory by patients with schizophrenia could be attributed to working memory, the disturbing concept of self, and the cuing method implemented. The earlier reminiscence bump for patients with schizophrenia may be explained by the premature closure of the identity formation process due to the emergence of psychotic symptoms during early adulthood. Protocol developed for this review was registered in PROSPERO (registration no: CRD42017062643).

Recent years have seen an increase in the use of multi-echo fMRI designs by cognitive neuroscientists. Acquiring multiple echoes allows one to reduce thermal noise and identify nuisance signal components in BOLD data (Kundu et al., 2012). At the same time, multi-echo acquisitions increase data processing complexity and may incur a cost to the temporal and spatial resolution of the acquired data. Here, we re-examine a multi-echo dataset (Gilmore et al., 2021a) analyzed using multi-echo ICA (ME-ICA) and focused on hippocampal activity during the overly spoken recall of recent and remote autobiographical memories. The goal of the present series of analyses was to determine if ME-ICA’s theoretical denoising benefits might lead to a practical difference in the overall conclusions reached. Compared to single echo data, ME-ICA led to qualitatively different conclusions regarding hippocampal contributions to autobiographical recall: whereas the single echo analysis largely failed to reveal hippocampal activity relative to an active baseline, ME-ICA results supported predictions of the Standard Model of Consolidation and a time limited hippocampal involvement (Alvarez and Squire, 1994). These data provide a practical example of the benefits multi-echo denoising in a naturalistic memory paradigm and demonstrate how they can be used to address long-standing theoretical questions.

Training of autobiographical memory has been proposed as an intervention to improve cognitive function. The neural substrates for such improvements are poorly understood. Several brain areas have been previously linked to autobiographical recollection, including structures in the default mode network (DMN) and the sensorimotor network. Here, we tested the hypothesis that changes in connectivity within different neural networks support distinct aspects of memory improvement in response to training on a group of 59 human subjects. We found that memory training using olfactory cues increases resting-state intranetwork DMN connectivity, and this associates with improved recollection of cue-specific memories. On the contrary, training decreased resting-state connectivity within the sensorimotor network, a decrease that correlated with improved ability for voluntary recall. Moreover, preliminary data indicate that only the decrease in sensorimotor connectivity associated with the training-induced decrease in the tumor necrosis factor α (TNFα) factor, an immune modulation previously linked to improved cognitive performance. We identified functional and biochemical factors that associate with distinct memory processes improved by autobiographical training. Pathways which connect autobiographical memory with both high-level cognition and somatic physiology are discussed.

Serial position effects are often observed within the free recall of unassociated words but also when recalling items from a semantic category like U.S. presidents. We investigated the dynamics of recall for U.S. presidents in younger and older adults to examine potential age-related differences in the organisation of retrieval from semantic long-term memory. Older adults recalled more presidents than younger adults and also demonstrated dual serial position effects such that, in addition to overall serial position effects, primacy (e.g., Eisenhower) and recency presidents (e.g., Obama) within older adults' lifetime were better recalled than presidents from the middle of their lives (e.g., Ford). Additionally, participants initiated recall with the most distinct presidents (highly familiar or memorable presidents like Washington, Obama, Trump), and conditional-response probabilities revealed that presidents from similar eras were recalled in close proximity, indicating that the retrieval of distinct presidents can facilitate memory for presidents from a similar era. Collectively, we demonstrate the potential interplay of the mechanisms that influence the organisation of retrieval such that distinctiveness and temporal contiguity effects may simultaneously impact recall. Specifically, semantic and temporal-contextual associations can drive semantic autobiographical memory and people likely organise retrieval from long-term memory according to familiarity and distinctiveness.

The story of who we are is central to our sense of authenticity and this story is constructed from our autobiographical memories. Yet we know surprisingly little about the functions that autobiographical memories of being authentic serve. This study provides a preliminary examination of the self, social and directive functions used in autobiographical memories of being authentic and inauthentic. Participants recalled times they felt they had been authentic or inauthentic at work. Analyses revealed that the self and directive functions were significantly more prevalent than the social function. In addition, authentic memories were most strongly associated with the self function while inauthentic memories were more likely to be used for the directive function. This may indicate that recall of an authentic experience serves to support one’s current self-identity, while recall of an inauthentic experience provides an opportunity to direct future behaviour towards a more authentic response. This study provides some of the first evidence for how autobiographical memories of being authentic or inauthentic may function in developing a coherent story of self that is needed for a sense of authenticity.

International audience; The reduced specificity of positive and negative autobiographical memories observed in anorexic (AN) patients may reflect a global disturbance in their emotional information processing. However, their emotional difficulties may differ according to the subtype of AN, implying possible differences in the manifestation of autobiographical memory impairments. The aims of the study were (1) to confirm the autobiographical memory deficits in AN patients in terms of specificity and wealth of memories, and (2) to compare autobiographical deficits according to the AN subtype: restrictive type (AR) or binge/purging type (AB). Ninety-five non-clinical (NC) individuals and 95 AN patients including 69 AR and 22 AB patients were administered the Williams’ and Scott’s Autobiographical Memory Test. The results confirmed a lack of specificity regardless of emotional valence in the overall AN patient group without any distinction of subtype, which was linked to the number of hospitalizations. When the AN subtype was considered, AR patients demonstrated reduced specificity for negative memories only, suggesting differences in emotional functioning or in the mechanisms underlying reduced specificity between AR and AB patients. Furthermore, the overall AN group demonstrated lower variability and complexity in their memory content than the NC group. However, this difference in the complexity of recalled memories was only found in response to negative cues. When AN subtypes were considered, AR patients showed fewer complex memories than NC individuals. Beyond a reduced specificity, AN patients also depict a poverty in the range of event recall and a difficulty in developing narrative content. The clinical implications of such autobiographical memory deficits need to be further investigated.

Episodic autobiographical memory (EAM) is a complex cognitive function that emerges from the coordination of specific and distant brain regions. Specific brain rhythms, namely theta and gamma oscillations and their synchronization, are thought of as putative mechanisms enabling EAM. Yet, the mechanisms of inter-regional interaction in the EAM network remain unclear in humans at the whole brain level. To investigate this, we analyzed EEG recordings of participants instructed to retrieve autobiographical episodes. EEG recordings were projected in the source space, and time-courses of atlas-based brain regions-of-interest (ROIs) were derived. Directed phase synchrony in high theta (7–10 Hz) and gamma (30–80 Hz) bands and high theta-gamma phase-amplitude coupling were computed between each pair of ROIs. Using network-based statistics, a graph-theory method, we found statistically significant networks for each investigated mechanism. In the gamma band, two sub-networks were found, one between the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) and the medial temporal lobe (MTL) and another within the medial frontal areas. In the high theta band, we found a PCC to ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) network. In phase-amplitude coupling, we found the high theta phase of the left MTL biasing the gamma amplitude of posterior regions and the vmPFC. Other regions of the temporal lobe and the insula were also phase biasing the vmPFC. These findings suggest that EAM, rather than emerging from a single mechanism at a single frequency, involves precise spatio-temporal signatures mapping on distinct memory processes. We propose that the MTL orchestrates activity in vmPFC and PCC via precise phase-amplitude coupling, with vmPFC and PCC interaction via high theta phase synchrony and gamma synchronization contributing to bind information within the PCC-MTL sub-network or valuate the candidate memory within the medial frontal sub-network.

Hippocampal ripples are prominent synchronization events generated by hippocampal neuronal assemblies. To date, ripples have been primarily associated with navigational memory in rodents and shortterm episodic recollections in humans. Here, we uncover different profiles of ripple activity in the human hippocampus during the retrieval of recent and remote autobiographical events and semantic facts. We found that the ripple rate increased significantly before reported recall compared to control conditions. Patterns of ripple activity across multiple hippocampal sites demonstrated remarkable specificity for memory type. Intriguingly, these ripple patterns revealed a semantization dimension, in which patterns associated with autobiographical contents become similar to those of semantic memory as a function of memory age. Finally, widely distributed sites across the neocortex exhibited ripple-coupled activations during recollection, with the strongest activation found within the default mode network. Our results thus reveal a key role for hippocampal ripples in orchestrating hippocampal-cortical communication across large-scale networks involved in conscious recollection.

The Autobiographical Recollection Test (ART; Berntsen et al., 2019) measures individual differences in autobiographical memory. We here examined whether the ART correlates with characteristics of people’s specific autobiographical memories. Participants (Ns ≥ 475) completed the ART and rated recollective qualities of autobiographical memories cued by words (Study 1), by positive and negative emotional valence (Study 2), and by future and past temporal direction (Study 3). Scores on the ART consistently correlated with recollective qualities of specific memories and future thoughts, both immediately and after a 1-week delay. The magnitude of these correlations was at the same level as the correlations between individual memory items, underscoring the ability of the ART, as a trait measure to predict ratings of individual memories. The findings support the construct validity of the ART and demonstrate that people’s evaluation of their autobiographical memory, in general, is reliably related to how they remember specific events.

Overgeneral autobiographical memory (OGM) refers to the tendency toward increased general memory and reduced specific memory recall, observed in various psychiatric disorders. Previous studies have suggested that inhibitory processes involved in resolving competition between competing memories may reduce memory specificity via retrieval-induced forgetting (RIF). However, it remains unclear whether the repeated retrieval of general memories can induce forgetting of specific memories. We adapted the RIF paradigm to address this question across three experiments. Participants first generated specific memories in response to positively and negatively valenced cue words. They then generated and repeatedly retrieved general memories for half of the cue words. Recall for all of the original specific memories was later tested. Experiment 1 showed that the retrieval practice of general memories reduced the recall of associated specific memories, regardless of cue valence. Experiment 2 demonstrated that this forgetting effect was cue independent, occurring even when novel retrieval cues were used on the final test. Experiment 3 suggested that this effect was competition dependent, finding a greater RIF effect following practice of general memories (high competition) than following a cue-color association task (low competition). These results suggest that repeated retrieval of general memories suppressed specific memory representations through RIF. These findings are discussed in relation to hierarchical models of autobiographical memory, mechanisms that maintain overgeneral memory tendencies, and the role of retrieval in shaping autobiographical memory. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

The insula is involved in a wide variety of functions, including social and emotional processing. Despite the numerous connections it shares with brain structures known to play a role in autobiographical memory (AM), little is known on the contribution of the insula to AM processing. The aim of the study was to examine emotional AM retrieval in patients with insular resection for drug-resistant epilepsy. Ten patients who underwent partial or complete insular resection (IR) were matched on age, sex, and education, to fifteen patients who underwent temporal lobectomy (TL), and to fifteen healthy controls. Participants were asked to recall four positive, four negative, and four neutral memories from their past using the autobiographical interview procedure. The results suggest that AM for emotional and neutral events after IR was comparable to that of healthy controls, whereas deficits were observed after TL. However, an independent examiner judged IR patients’ memories as poorer than those of healthy controls on the episodic richness scale, suggesting a lack of some aspects of rich and vivid remembering. Furthermore, analysis on subjective self-rated scales revealed that, contrary to healthy controls, patients with IR judged their neutral memories as more emotional. This study suggests that AM is generally preserved after IR. However, given the small sample size and varied lesion location, one cannot totally exclude a potential role of specific insular sub-regions on some aspects of autobiographical memory. In addition, IR patients showed poor emotional judgment for neutral memories, which is congruent with previous findings of altered emotional processing in this population.

Background Autobiographical memory is an important component of declarative memory, which refers to the ability to recall personal events that happened in the past. This requires that the person senses or experiences himself/herself in the past (i.e., conscious recollection). For people with schizophrenia, conscious recollection can be particularly difficult, resulting in difficulty accessing detailed, specific autobiographical information. Our hypothesis is that the ability to monitor and think about one's cognitive processes (metacognition) is a requisite for conscious recollection, and that it mediates the association between having schizophrenia and recalling fewer specific, personal memories. Methods Participants were 30 adults with schizophrenia and 30 matched healthy controls. The main assessment instruments were the Metacognition Assessment Scale-Abbreviated (MAS-A) and the Autobiographical Memory Test (AMT). Severity of symptoms was assessed using the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) for schizophrenia. Cognitive performance was measured with the Screen for Cognitive Impairment in Psychiatry (SCIP). Mediation analysis was conducted following Baron and Kenny's procedure. Results People with schizophrenia had more semantic associations and fewer specific memories than controls in the AMT. Metacognition (MAS-A total score) partially mediated the association between having schizophrenia and recalling fewer specific past events, even after controlling for cognitive impairment as a potential confounding source. Conclusions Metacognitive ability, which can be improved with available programs, intervenes in the process of accessing autobiographical memories in people with schizophrenia. Practical implications of this finding are discussed.

When facing a negative event, people implement different strategies to regulate ongoing emotions. Although the previous literature has suggested that the emotional intensity of a negative episode is associated with the characteristics of the subsequent autobiographical memory, it is still unknown whether emotion regulation (ER) moderates this relationship. In the present study, we provided undergraduate students with a smartphone-based diary to report a negative episode immediately after its occurrence and rate the momentary use of two ER strategies: cognitive reappraisal and rumination. To explore autobiographical memory, two “surprise” recall tasks were performed one week and one month after the event. According to the results, cognitive reappraisal was linked with better memory performances, and a tendency to retrospectively underestimate the negativity of highly intense events was observed only in participants adopting high rates of this strategy. Conversely, intense rumination was found to be associated with less detailed memories of emotionally intense events, as well as with higher emotional involvement with negative episodes over time, regardless of their intensity. Together, our results support the maladaptive role of rumination and the adaptive influence of cognitive reappraisal on autobiographical memory.

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is characterised by alterations in autobiographical memory for traumatic and non-traumatic events. Studies that focus on event construction – the ability to search for and identify a specific event – have documented overgeneral memory in PTSD. However, the quality of autobiographical memory also depends on the ability to elaborate on an event once constructed by providing additional details. In a prior study, individuals with PTSD generated as many episodic (event-specific) details as trauma-exposed functions controls when demands on event construction were minimized, albeit the PTSD group generated more non-episodic details. The current study sought to further characterize PTSD-related alterations in event elaboration by asking participants to describe a stressful negative event specified by the experimenter, thus minimizing event construction demands. Narratives were scored for episodic and non-episodic details and relations with measures of executive function and self-reported avoidance were examined. Compared to controls, the PTSD group generated narratives with equivalent episodic detail but greater non-episodic detail, including semantic information and repeated or extended events. Non-episodic detail generation was associated with greater avoidance but not executive functions. Elaborated non-trauma memories may be perceived as overgeneral in PTSD due to greater generation of non-episodic details, rather than diminished episodic detail.

Whilst countless studies have shown that aging is associated with cognitive decline in the general population, near to nothing is known about this association in elderly individuals naturally exhibiting enhanced memory capabilities. The identification of a 75 years old individual (GC) with highly superiorautobiographical memory(HSAM), and his willingness to volunteer to our study over a period of five years, allowed us to investigate this issue in a single case study. At the age of 75 years, GC was screened for HSAM with the Public Events Quiz and the Random Dates Quiz, with a positive outcome. GC's memory performance was extraordinarily higher than normal-memory control subjects (>3 standard deviations), and comparable to a group of younger HSAM individuals (mean age of 32.5 years; Santangelo etal., 2018). GC underwent general neuropsychological (Mini-Mental State Examination), personality (Personality Assessment Inventory), and brain morphological (brain volumes and lesions) assessments, showing no deviation from normal ranges. To gain insight into the brain mechanisms underlying his memory performance, GC underwent functionalbrain imagingduring the retrieval of memories associated with random dates. The latter were also rated in terms of reliving quality and emotional valence. Similar to younger HSAM individuals, GC's access to past memories recruited a wide network of prefrontal and temporo-parietal regions, especially during the recollection of memories associated with a lower reliving rating, suggesting a compensatory mechanism in HSAM. Increased activity in theinsulawas instead associated with emotionally-positive memories. Five years later, GC was tested again for HSAM and showed no sign of memory decline, whereby his memory performance was indistinguishable from the tests he performed five years earlier. GC's case suggests that highly superior memory performance can manifest without apparent decline in physiological aging. Implications of the current findings for the extant models of autobiographical memory are discussed.

Research examining trauma, memory, and mental health among refugee and asylum-seeking people has increased in recent years. We systematically reviewed empirical work focusing on the link between autobiographical memory and mental health among these populations. The review protocol was registered with PROSPERO (CRD42018095888). Six major databases were searched in August-2020 with no time limit for publication. Following PRISMA Statement guidelines, 22 articles reporting ten quantitative, nine qualitative, and three mixed-method studies were selected from 254 articles identified in the initial search. A basic convergent and qualitative meta-integration technique was employed for data extraction. Four recurrent themes were extracted: (1) memory activation method, (2) memory features, (3) memory content, and (4) refugee mental health. Theme 1 illustrates that narrative interviews, important event recall, and cue word methods were used in most studies. Theme 2 highlights that memories of refugee people were often less specific, inconsistent, and negative-focused. Retrieval failure was also common among these people. Theme 3 reveals that refugee and asylum-seeking people frequently discussed their abandoned identities, lost resources, injustices, ongoing sufferings, and pointless futures. Finally, theme 4 identifies the prevalence of various mental health conditions like Post-traumatic Stress Disorder, depression, helplessness, and anger among these people. The results are discussed in the context of the current autobiographical memory and mental health theories, considering refugee-specific experiences in the asylum process and refugee status.

Autobiographical memories play important roles in the development of the self and identity by grounding the self in rich, meaningful experiences. In the present study, we explored whether there is a specific type of autobiographical memories tied to religious belief; namely, belief-related memories. We compared belief-related memories with important and word-cued memories across five religions. We found belief-related memories were characterised as important, positive, intense, vivid, and frequently retrieved. The characteristics of belief-related memories were markedly different from word-cued memories, and they also differed from important memories on several variables. Compared with important memories, belief-related memories were rated as less prevalent, less important, less scripted, and showed a different distribution across the life span. The temporal distributions of belief-related memories varied across religions and showed no reminiscence bump as opposed to important memories and word-cued memories. Our findings suggest belief-related memories form a distinct category of autobiographical memories, consistent with the self being multidimensional and with different types of memories supporting distinct aspects of the self.

Autobiographical memories (ABMs) produce rich phenomenological experiences. Although few standardized and comprehensive measures of the phenomenology of ABMs have been developed, a web-based assessment of the full range of phenomenological properties is still missing. In the present study, we aimed to fill this gap and tested the psychometric properties of a web-based version of the Assessment of the Phenomenology of Autobiographical Memory (APAM) in a group of young and older adults. Specifically, taking advantage of the flexibility of web-based assessment methodology, we tested the rating consistency of APAM items, asking participants to rate the phenomenology of their ABMs with respect to seven cues, administered in one per day in seven different days. In each session, we also collected ratings of mood and arousal. Using linear mixed modeling (LMM), we could examine whether the phenomenology ratings differed with respect to age group while controlling for sex, age of the memory, arousal, mood, and specificity of the memory. Results revealed an adequate level of consistency of ratings in both young and older adults. Moreover, LMMs revealed a more intense experience of recollection and reliving (i.e., sensory and emotional) and a higher confidence in memory accuracy in older compared to younger adults. The theoretical and practical usefulness of a web-based assessment of the phenomenology of ABMs are discussed.

Autobiographical memory is essential to ground a sense of self-identity, contributing to social functioning and the development of future plans, and being an essential source for the psychiatric interview. Previous studies have suggested loss of autobiographical episodic specificity in unipolar depression, but relatively fewer investigations have been conducted in bipolar disorder (BD) patients, particularly across different mood states. Similarly, there is a scarcity of systematic investigations about mood-congruent and mood-dependent memory in relation to autobiographical memory in BD. Considering this, a total of 74 patients with BD (24 in euthymia, 26 in mania, and 24 in depression) responded with autobiographical memories to cue words belonging to four categories: mania, depression, BD, and neutral. Episodic specificity was scored according to the Autobiographical Interview, with high intra- and inter-rater reliability. Results indicated that patients in mania generally re-experience more episodic details than those in depression. Depressed bipolar patients reported fewer details of perception and less time integration of memories than those in euthymia or mania. Words linked to depression and BD induced greater episodic re-experiencing than neutral words, just as words about BD provided greater episodic re-experiencing and more details of emotion/thoughts than words about mania. Words linked to depression provoked more time details about the recalled episodes than words on BD or neutral themes. No mood-congruent or mood-dependent effects were observed. Current findings may improve the ability of clinicians to conduct psychiatric interviews and the diagnosis of BD, with special attention to how memory details are generated across different mood states of the condition. Additionally, interventions to foster autobiographical recollection in BD may be developed, similar to what has already been done in the context of schizophrenia.

We introduce the Autobiographical Recollection Test (ART) to examine individual differences in how well people think they remember personal events. The ART comprises seven theoretically motivated, empirically supported, interrelated aspects of recollecting autobiographical memories: reliving, vividness, visual imagery, scene, narrative coherence, life-story relevance, and rehearsal. Desirable psychometric properties of the ART are established by confirmatory factor analyses demonstrating that items probing each of the seven components form well-defined, yet highly correlated, factors that are indicators of a single underlying second-order factor. The ART shows high test-retest reliability over delays averaging three weeks and correlates meaningfully with a test of different categories of memory. Overall, the findings document that autobiographical recollection is a dimension that varies among individuals. The ART forms a reliable and easily administered autobiographical memory test that will help to integrate autobiographical memory research with fields generally concerned with individual differences, such as health and personality psychology.

Numerous studies indicate that an episodic specificity induction (ESI)-brief training in recollecting the details of a past experience-enhances performance on subsequent tasks that rely on episodic retrieval, including autobiographical memory, imagination, problem solving, and creative thinking. In 5 experiments, we examined whether these benefits of the ESI extend to reducing susceptibility to false memory, or whether they are accompanied by a cost in the form of increased susceptibility to false memory. To assess how ESI impacts false memory generation, we used the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm, a reliable procedure for generating false memories. When an ESI was administered after DRM list presentation and just before a free recall test, rates of false recall for critical lures were significantly enhanced relative to a control induction. These findings support the hypothesis that ESI operates to boost recollection of illusory episodic details associated with critical lures in the DRM, and suggest that constructive rather than reproductive episodic retrieval processes support the wide-ranging effects of ESI on a range of cognitive tasks. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Schizophrenia is characterised by difficulty understanding the thoughts and intentions of other people. Misunderstandings could lead people to attribute hostility to others’ actions. Theories suggest that we use our autobiographical memories to inform our understanding of other people but no study has examined the relation between memory and hostile attributions in schizophrenia. People with (n = 42) and without (n = 34) schizophrenia diagnoses completed The Ambiguous Intentions and Hostility Questionnaire (AIHQ) to assess their tendency to attribute hostility to other people’s actions and the Autobiographical Memory Test (AMT) to assess their ability to recall specific positive and negative autobiographical memories. In linear regressions the interaction between diagnostic group and the proportion of specific negative memories participants retrieved explained significant variance in each AIHQ index. Follow-up correlation analyses showed that participants with schizophrenia who retrieved more negative memories also attributed greater hostility to other people’s actions (r = 0.47) and reported that they would respond with greater aggression (r = 0.59). These correlations were in the opposite direction for controls. People with schizophrenia may use their memories for negative past events to understand the actions and intentions of other people, leading to attributions of hostility for otherwise benign actions.

We examined recall of events by children 4 to 11 years to inform patterns of retention of autobiographical memories as well as factors that predict their survival. 101 children participated in a 4-year prospective study. At study inception, children were 4, 6, and 8 years. They were tested annually for three more years for a total of four waves of data collection. At each wave, we obtained narrative reports of recent (all waves) and distant (Waves 2–4) events, resulting in virtually continuous sampling of memories formed by 4- to 11-year-olds and recalled after 1–3-year delays. We also measured children’s language, and domain-general and memory-specific cognitive skills. Multi-level modeling revealed age-related increases in the likelihood of survival of memories over the delays. Critically, the rate of increase in retention of individual memories was the same across the cohorts. In addition to age, thematic coherence of original memory reports predicted memory survivability. Other factors were not predictive. The dense sampling and prospective tracking of memories across the 4–11-year age period permitted an especially strong test for continuity versus discontinuity in autobiographical memory across the second half of the first decade of life. The data are strongly indicative of continuity and gradual change.

Human life unfolds not only in time and space, but also in the recollection and interweaving of memories. Therefore, individual human identity depends fully on a proper access to the autobiographical memory. Such access is hindered under pathological conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease, which affects millions of people worldwide. Unfortunately, no effective cure exists to prevent this disorder, the impact of which will rise alarmingly within the next decades. While Alzheimer’s disease is largely considered to be the outcome of amyloid-β (Aβ) peptide accumulation in the brain, conceiving this complex disorder strictly as the result of Aβ-neurotoxicity is perhaps a too straight-line simplification. Instead, complementary to this view, the tableau of molecular disarrangements in the Alzheimer’s disease brain may be reflecting, at least in part, a loss of function phenotype in memory processing. Here we take BACE1 translation and degradation as a gateway to study molecular mechanisms putatively involved in the transition between memory and neurodegeneration. BACE1 participates in the excision of Aβ-peptide from its precursor holoprotein, but plays a role in synaptic plasticity too. Its translation is governed by eIF2α phosphorylation: a hub integrating cellular responses to stress, but also a critical switch in memory consolidation. Paralleling these dualities, the eIF2α-kinase HRI has been shown to be a nitric oxide-dependent physiological activator of hippocampal BACE1 translation. Finally, beholding BACE1 as a representative protease active in the CNS, we venture a new perspective on the cellular basis of memory, which may incorporate neurodegeneration in itself as a drift in memory consolidating systems.

We studied the narrative recollections of memory-impaired patients with medial temporal lobe (MTL) damage who took a 25-min guided walk during which 11 planned events occurred. The recollections of the patients, recorded directly after the walk, were compared with the recollections of controls tested directly after the walk (C1), after one month (C2), or after 2.6 years (C3). With respect to memory for the walk, the narrative recollections of the patients were impoverished compared with C1 but resembled the recollections of volunteers tested after long delays (C2 and C3). In addition, how language was used by the patients in their recollections resembled how language was used by groups C2 and C3 (higher-frequency words, less concrete words, fewer nouns, more adverbs, more pronouns, and more indefinite articles). These findings appear to reflect how individuals, either memory-impaired patients or controls, typically speak about the past when memory is weak and lacks detail and need not have special implications about language use and MTL function beyond the domain of memory. A notable exception to the similarity between patient narratives and the narratives of C2 and C3 was that the control groups reported the events of the walk in correct chronological order, whereas the order in which patients reported events bore no relationship to the order in which events occurred. We suggest that the MTL is especially important for accessing global information about events and the relationships among their elements.

The present study explored the role of task difficulty in judgments about the past and the future. Participants recalled events from childhood and imagined future events. The difficulty of the task was manipulated by asking participants to generate either four or twelve events. Participants then rated how well they could generally remember events from their childhood or how well planned their futures were. Consistent with past research (e.g., Winkielman, Schwarz, & Belli, 1998), participants in the difficult recall group rated their childhood memories as less complete than participants in the easy recall group. A parallel effect was found in participants' judgments of their futures. Participants who were asked to imagine twelve future events rated their future plans as less complete than those who imagined four events. Moreover, there was a negative correlation between the rated difficulty of the task and the degree to which participants found their memories and plans to be complete. We also examined the valence of the generated events. These results showed a strong positivity bias for both types of judgments, and the bias was particularly strong when thinking of future events. The results suggest that similar attributional processes mediate beliefs about the past and the future.

Memory-based approaches suggest that retrospective judgments concerning the passage of lifetime are based on available meaningful experiences. However, an open question is whether passage of time judgments reflect the objective amount of important experiences or rather the amount of memories that are currently activated in the moment of judging. To examine this issue, we asked 473 participants to judge the passage of the last five years either before or after recalling as many important autobiographical events as possible from the last five years. Activating memories before the judgment slowed the experienced passage of time, but only if participants recalled at least four memories. For participants recalling less than four memories, the opposite effect was found: few activated memories had even an accelerating effect. Interestingly, the experienced speed of time did not continuously decrease with a rising number of memories activated: Below and above the threshold of four memories, passage of time judgments were unrelated to the number of activated memories. These results indicate that passage of time judgments are based on currently activated memories, suggesting that the common phenomenon of time flying reflects the effect of a reminiscence heuristic.

Listening to music, or part of it, may stir the memory of a past moment, along with its associated emotions, such occurrences are known as autobiographical memories. Electroencephalographic (EEG) studies have shown alterations in memory recall and musical processing. However, no research was found showing a relation among music, autobiographical memories and associated emotions. The purpose of this study was to identify cortical areas involved in the evocation of autobiographical memory (associated with positive and negative events) mediated by musical stimuli. For that, gamma rhythm was analyzed through EEG recordings performed by 45 male volunteers while they were submitted to two stimuli: 1) the music capable of recalling memories associated to a positive event; 2) the music capable of evoking memories associated to a negative event. Gamma band analysis was used in search of greater brain electrical activity. As results, researchers observed increased activity in right brain hemisphere during the musical processing, besides its hypoactivation when volunteers were submitted to musical stimuli related to memories of negative events.