The phenomenology and temporal distributions of autobiographical memories elicited with emotional and neutral cue words

Abstract

In this study we examined whether the temporal distribution of autobiographical memory changes when different types of cue words are used to elicit the memories, and how the type of cue word affects the phenomenal characteristics of the memories. A total of 76 participants, ranging in age from 21 to 69 years, were presented with 22 cue words (emotional, emotion-provoking, and neutral). They were asked to recall a personal event and to complete the Autobiographical Memory Questionnaire (Rubin, Schrauf, & Greenberg, 2003, 2004) for each cue word. Results showed that the phenomenological properties of autobiographical memories which were cued with emotional and emotion-provoking words were rated higher than those of memories which were cued with neutral words, and that the peak in the temporal distributions of the autobiographical memories that were cued with emotional or emotion-provoking words were located later than the peak of the distribution of the memories that were cued with neutral words.

Disruptive Individual Experiences Create Lifetime Periods: a Study of Autobiographical Memory in Persons with Spinal Cord Injury

“…Consistent with prior cue-word studies (Janssen, Rubin, & Jacques, 2011;Maki, et al, 2013;Rubin & Schulkind, 1997), we found a reminiscence bump corresponding to the second decade of life (10-20). Transition theory also predicted a bump in the number of events recalled for the period surrounding any spinal cord injury.…”

The reminiscence bump in autobiographical memory and for public events: A comparison across different cueing methods

“…The most common technique used to cue memories, in studies exploring the temporal distribution of autobiographical memories, has been the cue word method, in which participants report autobiographical memories in association to cue words (e.g., Conway & Haque, 1999;Jansari & Parkin, 1996;Janssen, Rubin, & St. Jacques, 2011;Kawasaki, Janssen, & Inoue, 2011;Maki, Janssen, Uemiya, & Naka, 2013;Rubin et al, 1986;Rubin & Schulkind, 1997;Rybash & Monaghan, 1999;Schuman & Corning, 2014).…”

Is the Road Still Bumpy Without the Most Frequent Life Events?

“…Following the consistency in the pattern of results observed in the study by Ece and Gulgoz () and Study 1, we further investigated whether this pattern would be maintained for the reminiscence bumps produced by the different methods most commonly used in reminiscence bump research, the cue word and important memories techniques. These two methods differ in the retrieval strategies they activate, paving the way for variation in the temporal locations of the reminiscence bump (Koppel & Berntsen, ; Maki et al, ). More specifically, the cue word method primarily relies on direct retrieval and associated with earlier peaks of the reminiscence bump (Janssen & Murre, ; Janssen, et al, ; Kawasaki et al, ; Rubin & Schulkind, ) compared with important memories method, which basically relies on generative retrieval requiring effortful and deliberate search for particular memories (Crovitz & Schiffman, ).…”

“…The primary goal of the second study is to explore whether the effects of removal observed in Study 1 will be generalized to autobiographical memories collected by different methods, that is, important memories and cue word methods, which rely on different retrieval strategies (Maki et al, ). Koppel and Berntsen () compared studies that employed the cue word and important memories methods and emphasized the differences in the temporal location of the bumps produced by these two techniques.…”

“…In general, autobiographical memories reported in response to cue words tend to have earlier bumps than the ones produced by the important memories method (Janssen, Gralak, & Murre, ; Janssen & Murre, ; Rubin & Schulkind, ). This difference in the temporal locations of the bumps observed in the distributions of autobiographical memories elicited by cue word versus important memories methods has been attributed to the different retrieval strategies activated by these two methods (Maki, Janssen, Uemiya, & Naka, ). In their review, Koppel and Berntsen () also emphasized that these differences in the temporal locations of the bumps are results of different retrieval strategies activated as a result of the demands of the tasks.…”