The systematic study of source memory provides a useful approach to investigating the features that give memories their episodic character, the associative, organizational, or binding processes that connect features, and the access and evaluation processes involved in attributing current mental experiences to memories of past events. This review illustrates how neuroimaging is contributing to our understanding of the brain mechanisms involved in source memory. Focusing primarily on functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we review evidence regarding the roles of various subregions of the medial temporal lobes, prefrontal cortex, posterior representational areas, and parietal cortex in source memory. We also consider relevant studies assessing the qualitative characteristics of episodic memories, the encoding and remembering of emotional information, and false memories, as well as studies of several populations that show disrupted source memory (older adults, individuals with depression, posttraumatic stress disorder, or schizophrenia). Although there is still substantial work to be done, functional neuroimaging is making good on its promise to advance our understanding of source memory. A continued twoway interaction between cognitive theory, as illustrated by the Source Monitoring Framework (Johnson, Hashtroudi, & Lindsay, 1993), and evidence from systematic cognitive neuroimaging studies should help further clarify our conceptualization of cognitive processes (e.g., feature binding, retrieval, monitoring), prior knowledge (e.g., semantics, schemas), and specific features (e.g., perceptual and emotional information), and of how they combine to create true and false memories.In 1993, Psychological Bulletin published a paper titled Source Monitoring (Johnson, Hashtroudi, & Lindsay, 1993) that outlined a conceptual framework for organizing empirical findings and theorizing about the factors involved in attributing the source of mental experiences (the Source Monitoring Framework [SMF]; see also, Johnson & Raye, 1981). Since then, across many labs, the SMF has provided a useful approach to investigating the features that give memories their episodic character, the associative (organizational, binding) processes that connect features, and the access and evaluation processes involved in taking subjective experiences to be representations of past events. In the 1993 paper, Johnson, Hashtroudi, and Lindsay included a brief discussion of the brain areas likely involved in source monitoring that was based primarily on findings from neuropsychological studies of patient populations and cognitive aging studies, but they also made passing reference to the promise of "new developments in neuroimaging" techniques to advance our Correspondence to: Karen J. Mitchell, Department of Psychology, Yale University, Box 208205, New Haven, CT 06520-8205, karen.mitchell@yale.edu, Phone: 203.432.4654, Fax: 203.436.4617. Publisher's Disclaimer: The following manuscript is the final accepted manuscript. It has not been subje...

No abstract

It was hypothesized that age-related deficits in episodic memory for feature combinations (e.g., B. L. Chalfonte & M. K. Johnson, 1996) signal, in part, decrements in the efficacy of reflective component processes (e.g., M. K. Johnson, 1992) that support the short-term maintenance and manipulation of information during encoding (e.g., F. 1. M. Craik. R. G. Morris. & M. L. Gick, 1990; T. A. Salthouse, 1990). Consistent with this, age-related binding deficits in a working memory task were found in 2 experiments. Evidence for an age-related test load deficit was also found: Older adults had greater difficulty than young adults when tested on 2 features rather than 1, even when binding was not required. Thus, disruption of source memory in older adults may involve deficits in both encoding processes (binding deficits) and monitoring processes (difficulty accessing multiple features, evaluating them, or both).

More than 3,000 individuals from seven US cities reported on their memories of learning of the terrorist attacks of September 11, as well as details about the attack, one week, 11 months, and/or 35 months after the assault. Some studies of flashbulb memories examining long-term retention show slowing in the rate of forgetting after a year, whereas others demonstrate accelerated forgetting. The present paper indicates that (1) the rate of forgetting for flashbulb memories and event memory (memory for details about the event itself) slows after a year, (2) the strong emotional reactions elicited by flashbulb events are remembered poorly, worse than non-emotional features such as where and from whom one learned of the attack, and (3) the content of flashbulb and event memories stabilizes after a year. The results are discussed in terms of community memory practices.Keywords flashbulb memories; long-term retention; memory practices; event memory; emotional memory Brown and Kulik (1977) suggested the term flashbulb memory for the "circumstances in which one first learned of a very surprising and consequential (or emotionally arousing) event," for example, hearing the news that President John Kennedy had been shot. Since Brown and Kulik's description of their findings, the range of topics addressed in studies of flashbulb memories has grown substantially, from initial questions about special mechanisms (McCloskey, Wible, & Cohen, 1988; Neisser & Harsh, 1992) to more recent questions about the impact of aging and dementia (Budson, Simons, Sullivan, Beier, Solomon, Scinto, et al., 2004;Budson, Simons, Waring, Sullivan, Hussoin, & Schacter, 2007; Davidson, Cook, & Glisky, 2005), the history of post-traumatic stress disorder (Qin, Mitchell, Johnson, Krystal, Southwick et all, 2003), as well as the role of social identity [e.g., as seen in the presence or absence, respectively, of flashbulb memories of French citizens and French-speaking Belgians of the death of French President Mitterraand (Curci, Luminet, Finkenauer, & Gisle, 2001; see also Berntsen, 2008;Hirst & Meksin, 2008)]. Researchers have also begun to investigate memories for the flashbulb event itself (Curci & Luminet, 2006; Luminet, Curci, Marsh, Wessel, Constantin, Genocoz, et al., 2004; Pezdak, 2003;Shapiro, 2006; Tekcan, Berium, Gülgöz, & Er, 2003). In this literature, the term flashbulb memory refers to memory for circumstances in which one learned of the event and would include memories of where, when, and from whom one learned of, for instance, the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001. The term event memory refers to memory for facts about the flashbulb event and would include, for instance, that four planes were involved in the 9/11 terrorist attack and that both the Pentagon and the World Trade Center were targets. 1 1 There is much terminological confusion in the literature. First, the term flashbulb memory could be construed as implying an accurate representation of the circumstances in which one learned of the emotionally charged public...

Motivationally significant agendas guide perception, thought and behaviour, helping one to define a 'self' and to regulate interactions with the environment. To investigate neural correlates of thinking about such agendas, we asked participants to think about their hopes and aspirations (promotion focus) or their duties and obligations (prevention focus) during functional magnetic resonance imaging and compared these self-reflection conditions with a distraction condition in which participants thought about non-self-relevant items. Self-reflection resulted in greater activity than distraction in dorsomedial frontal/anterior cingulate cortex and posterior cingulate cortex/precuneus, consistent with previous findings of activity in these areas during self-relevant thought. For additional medial areas, we report new evidence of a double dissociation of function between medial prefrontal/anterior cingulate cortex, which showed relatively greater activity to thinking about hopes and aspirations, and posterior cingulate cortex/precuneus, which showed relatively greater activity to thinking about duties and obligations. One possibility is that activity in medial prefrontal cortex is associated with instrumental or agentic self-reflection, whereas posterior medial cortex is associated with experiential self-reflection. Another, not necessarily mutually exclusive, possibility is that medial prefrontal cortex is associated with a more inward-directed focus, while posterior cingulate is associated with a more outward-directed, social or contextual focus.