Rates of subjective recollection can change with expectations during a memory task. In the current study, we examined whether young and older adults adjust their subjective vividness criterion according to their expectations in different memorability contexts. Young and older adults performed a memory task in which they memorized pictures varying in their level of memorability (low, medium or high), and each picture was associated with a descriptive label. At retrieval, from the labels, participants were asked to judge the vividness of their memories for the associated pictures. Retrieval blocks always started with labels of pictures of either low or high memorability, followed by labels of pictures of medium memorability. Thus, pictures of medium memorability were recollected in two memorability contexts, presumably associated with different levels of expectations. Results revealed that pictures of medium memorability were judged as more vivid by young adults when they were remembered after pictures of low than high memorability. However, this effect was not observed in older adults. These findings suggest that in young adults, the use of remembered picture details to frame a subjective sense of vividness is regulated by metacognitive mechanisms that take participants’ expectations into account. The results reported in the current study further suggest that older participants did not make use of the memorability heuristic to set the vividness threshold of their subjective experience of remembering and the reasons for why it may be the case are discussed.

This study examined the extent to which individuals can share similar memory representations of a public event and potential age-related differences in memory similarity. Fifty-three young and 59 older Belgian participants completed an online survey, where they recalled the deadly collapse of a bridge in a neighboring country 7 months ago. Results showed no age-related differences in the number of details remembered or the amount of overlap of details within an age group. However, older participants mentioned the consequences of the incident more frequently than younger participants. These findings suggest that individuals who remember the same event can share common memory details and that across-participants memory similarity for a public event remains spared in normal aging.

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In March 2020, the Belgian government ordered a complete lockdown as an attempt to decrease the progression of the COVID‐19. The aim of the present study was to examine lockdown‐related changes in psycho‐affective states as well as their relations with experiential diversity and autobiographical memory. A total of 186 Belgian citizens completed an online survey assessing lockdown‐related changes in various dimensions: work, leisure activities, affective state, sleep quality, fatigue, and autobiographical memory. Results revealed that well‐being during the lockdown was related to changes in experiential diversity and to the richness of participants' memories. Moreover, the content and the phenomenology of memories were more negative when memories pertained to the lockdown situation. These findings provide new evidence that mental well‐being of Belgian citizens during the first lockdown was related to how pandemic‐related sanitary constraints affected the diversity of activities that they could undertake.