Browsing by Subject "Autobiography as Topic"

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    Belief and recollection of autobiographical memories.
    (Mem Cognit, 2003-09) Rubin, David C; Schrauf, Robert W; Greenberg, Daniel L
    In three experiments, undergraduates rated autobiographical memories on scales derived from existing theories of memory. In multiple regression analyses, ratings of the degree to which subjects recollected (i.e., relived) their memories were predicted by visual imagery, auditory imagery, and emotions, whereas ratings of belief in the accuracy of their memories were predicted by knowledge of the setting. Recollection was predicted equally well in between- and within-subjects analyses, but belief consistently had smaller correlations and multiple regression predictions between subjects; individual differences in the cognitive scales that we measured could not account well for individual differences in belief. In contrast, measures of mood (Beck Depression Index) and dissociation (Dissociative Experience Scale) added predictive value for belief, but not for recollection. We also found that highly relived memories almost always had strong visual images and that remember/know judgments made on autobiographical memories were more closely related to belief than to recollection.
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    Cross-cultural variability of component processes in autobiographical remembering: Japan, Turkey, and the USA.
    (Memory, 2007-07) Rubin, David C; Schrauf, Robert W; Gulgoz, Sami; Naka, Makiko
    Although the underlying mechanics of autobiographical memory may be identical across cultures, the processing of information differs. Undergraduates from Japan, Turkey, and the USA rated 30 autobiographical memories on 15 phenomenological and cognitive properties. Mean values were similar across cultures, with means from the Japanese sample being lower on most measures but higher on belief in the accuracy of their memories. Correlations within individuals were also similar across cultures, with correlations from the Turkish sample being higher between measures of language and measures of recollection and belief. For all three cultures, in multiple regression analyses, measures of recollection were predicted by visual imagery, auditory imagery, and emotions, whereas measures of belief were predicted by knowledge of the setting. These results show subtle cultural differences in the experience of remembering.
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    Cultural life scripts structure recall from autobiographical memory.
    (Mem Cognit, 2004-04) Berntsen, Dorthe; Rubin, David C
    Three classes of evidence demonstrate the existence of life scripts, or culturally shared representations of the timing of major transitional life events. First, a reanalysis of earlier studies on age norms shows an increase in the number of transitional events between the ages of 15 and 30 years, and these events are associated with narrower age ranges and more positive emotion than events outside this period. Second, 1,485 Danes estimated how old hypothetical centenarians were when they had been happiest, saddest, most afraid, most in love, and had their most important and most traumatic experiences. Only the number of positive events showed an increase between the ages of 15 and 30 years. Third, undergraduates generated seven important events that were likely to occur in the life of a newborn. Pleasantness and whether events were expected to occur between the ages of 15 and 30 years predicted how frequently events were recorded. Life scripts provide an alternative explanation of the reminiscence bump. Emphasis is on culture, not individuals.
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    Functional neuroimaging of autobiographical memory.
    (2010) St. Jacques, Peggy L.
    Autobiographical memory (AM) refers to memory for events from our own personal past. Functional neuroimaging studies of AM are important because they can investigate the neural correlates of processes that are difficult to study using laboratory stimuli, including: complex constructive processes, subjective qualities of memory retrieval, and remote memory. Three functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies are presented to examine these important contributions of AM. The first study investigates the neural correlates of temporal-order memory for autobiographical events using a novel photo paradigm. Participants took photographs at many campus locations over a period of several hours, and the following day they were scanned while making temporal-order judgments to pairs of photographs from different locations. It was found that temporal-order decisions associated with recollection recruited left prefrontal (PFC) and left posterior parahippocampal cortex, whereas temporal-order decisions relying on familiarity recruited greater activity in the right PFC. The second study examines self-projection, the capacity to re-experience the personal past and to mentally infer another person’s perspective. A novel camera technology was used to examine self-projection by prospectively generating dynamic visuospatial images taken from a first-person perspective. Participants were literally asked to self-project into the personal past or into the life of another person. Self-projection of one’s own past self recruited greater ventral medial PFC (mPFC), and self-projection of another individual recruited dorsal mPFC. Activity in ventral vs. dorsal mPFC was also sensitive to the ability to relive or understand the perspective taken on each trial. Further, task-related functional connectivity analysis revealed that ventral mPFC contributed to the medial temporal lobe network linked to memory processes, whereas dorsal mPFC contributed to the frontoparietal network linked to controlled processes. The third study focuses on the neural correlates underlying age-related differences in the recall of episodically rich AMs. Age-related attenuation in the episodic richness of AM was linked to reductions in activity elicited during elaboration. Age effects on AM were more pronounced during elaboration than search, with older adults showing less sustained recruitment of the hippocampus and ventrolateral PFC for less episodically rich AMs. Further, there was an age-related reduction in the top-down modulation of the PFC on the hippocampus by episodic richness, possibly reflecting fewer controlled processes operating on the recovery of information in the hippocampus. Ultimately, the goal of all memory research is to understand how memory operates in the real-world; the present research highlights the important contribution of functional neuroimaging studies of AM in attaining this goal.
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    Life scripts help to maintain autobiographical memories of highly positive, but not highly negative, events.
    (Mem Cognit, 2003-01) Rubin, David C; Berntsen, Dorthe
    A representative sample of 1,307 respondents between the ages of 20 and 94 was asked how old they were when they felt most afraid, most proud, most jealous, most in love, and most angry. They were also asked when they had experienced their most important event and whether this event was positive or negative. In general, there was a reminiscence "bump" for positive but not negative events. To provide data on life scripts, 87 psychology students answered the same questions for a hypothetical 70-year-old. The undergraduates were more confident in dating positive than in dating negative events, and when they were confident, the distribution of responses predicted the survey data. The results support the idea of culturally shared life scripts for positive but not negative events, which structure retrieval processes and spaced practice.
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    Life-narrative and word-cued autobiographical memories in centenarians: comparisons with 80-year-old control, depressed, and dementia groups.
    (Memory, 2003-01) Fromholt, Pia; Mortensen, Dorthe B; Torpdahl, Per; Bender, Lise; Larsen, Per; Rubin, David C
    Centenarians provided autobiographical memories to either a request for a life narrative or a request to produce autobiographical memories to cue words. Both methods produced distributions with childhood-amnesia, reminiscence-bump, and recency components. The life-narrative method produced relatively more bump memories at the expense of recent memories. The life-narrative distributions were similar to those obtained from 80-year-old adults without clinical symptoms and from 80-year-old Alzheimer's dementia and depression patients, except that the centenarians had an additional 20-year period of relatively low recall between the bump and recency components. The centenarians produced more emotionally neutral memories than the other three groups and produced fewer and less detailed memories than the non-clinical 80-year-old sample.
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    The distribution of autobiographical memories across the lifespan.
    (Mem Cognit, 1997-11) Rubin, DC; Schulkind, MD
    Words were used to cue autobiographical memories from 20- and 70-year-old subjects. Both groups showed a decrease in memories from the childhood years and a power-function retention function for their most recent 10 years. Older subjects also had an increase in the number of memories from the ages 10 to 30. These results held for individual subjects as well as grouped data and held when either 124 or 921 memories were cued. Reaction times to produce memories were constant across decades except for childhood where they were longer.
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    The short and long of it: neural correlates of temporal-order memory for autobiographical events.
    (J Cogn Neurosci, 2008-07) St Jacques, Peggy; Rubin, David C; LaBar, Kevin S; Cabeza, Roberto
    Previous functional neuroimaging studies of temporal-order memory have investigated memory for laboratory stimuli that are causally unrelated and poor in sensory detail. In contrast, the present functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study investigated temporal-order memory for autobiographical events that were causally interconnected and rich in sensory detail. Participants took photographs at many campus locations over a period of several hours, and the following day they were scanned while making temporal-order judgments to pairs of photographs from different locations. By manipulating the temporal lag between the two locations in each trial, we compared the neural correlates associated with reconstruction processes, which we hypothesized depended on recollection and contribute mainly to short lags, and distance processes, which we hypothesized to depend on familiarity and contribute mainly to longer lags. Consistent with our hypotheses, parametric fMRI analyses linked shorter lags to activations in regions previously associated with recollection (left prefrontal, parahippocampal, precuneus, and visual cortices), and longer lags with regions previously associated with familiarity (right prefrontal cortex). The hemispheric asymmetry in prefrontal cortex activity fits very well with evidence and theories regarding the contributions of the left versus right prefrontal cortex to memory (recollection vs. familiarity processes) and cognition (systematic vs. heuristic processes). In sum, using a novel photo-paradigm, this study provided the first evidence regarding the neural correlates of temporal-order for autobiographical events.
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    The spatiotemporal dynamics of autobiographical memory: neural correlates of recall, emotional intensity, and reliving.
    (Cereb Cortex, 2008-01) Daselaar, Sander M; Rice, Heather J; Greenberg, Daniel L; Cabeza, Roberto; LaBar, Kevin S; Rubin, David C
    We sought to map the time course of autobiographical memory retrieval, including brain regions that mediate phenomenological experiences of reliving and emotional intensity. Participants recalled personal memories to auditory word cues during event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Participants pressed a button when a memory was accessed, maintained and elaborated the memory, and then gave subjective ratings of emotion and reliving. A novel fMRI approach based on timing differences capitalized on the protracted reconstructive process of autobiographical memory to segregate brain areas contributing to initial access and later elaboration and maintenance of episodic memories. The initial period engaged hippocampal, retrosplenial, and medial and right prefrontal activity, whereas the later period recruited visual, precuneus, and left prefrontal activity. Emotional intensity ratings were correlated with activity in several regions, including the amygdala and the hippocampus during the initial period. Reliving ratings were correlated with activity in visual cortex and ventromedial and inferior prefrontal regions during the later period. Frontopolar cortex was the only brain region sensitive to emotional intensity across both periods. Results were confirmed by time-locked averages of the fMRI signal. The findings indicate dynamic recruitment of emotion-, memory-, and sensory-related brain regions during remembering and their dissociable contributions to phenomenological features of the memories.
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    Twins dispute memory ownership: a new false memory phenomenon.
    (Mem Cognit, 2001-09) Sheen, M; Kemp, S; Rubin, DC
    In three experiments, we examined a new memory phenomenon: disputed memories, in which people dispute ownership of a memory. For example, in one disputed memory each of two twins recollected being sent home from school for wearing too short a skirt, although only one of them was actually sent home. In Experiment 1, 20 sets of same-sex adult twins were asked to produce a memory for each of 45 words, and most twins spontaneously produced at least one disputed memory. In Experiment 2,20 different sets of same-sex adult twins rated disputed memories as higher in recollective experience, imagery, and emotional reliving than nondisputed memories. In Experiment 3, siblings who were close in age as well as same-sex friends were also found to have disputed memories, but less often than twins.