We Remember, We Forget: Collaborative Remembering in Older Couples

Harris, Celia B.; Keil, Paul G.; Sutton, John; Barnier, Amanda J.; McIlwain, Doris

doi:10.1080/0163853x.2010.541854

Cited by 184 publications

(266 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…We expected that groups of friends would be immune from collaborative inhibition even when encoding was unshared, because friends might have more similar preexisting cognitive structures for group-relevant information (Rajaram & Pereira-Pasarin, 2010) or be able to generate effective cues for each other based on their prior history (Andersson & Rönnberg, 1997). We also expected that groups of friends would particularly benefit from shared encoding, so that they might even show collaborative facilitation (see Harris et al, 2011;Meade et al, 2009). Friends did in general experience benefits from this group-relevant task.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, Meudell et al (1995) found that participants did not cross-cue each other in these circumstances. In the current research, we developed an encoding task where participants generated shared cues that were unique and idiosyncratic for each to-be-remembered item, which provides a closer model of the rich, interpersonal cuing we observed when older couples reminisce about shared autobiographical events (Harris et al, 2011). The current research suggests that when group members share encoding, such that they develop shared, idiosyncratic, distinctive cues rather than general, relational cues (Hunt & Smith, 1996), then their attempts to cue each other during collaboration are successful.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We hypothesized that shared encoding would further enhance collaborative recall, such that collaborative groups of friends would recall more than nominal groups and demonstrate collaborative facilitation (cf. Harris et al, 2011;Meade et al, 2009;Wegner, 1987). We hypothesized that friends would gain more new items during collaboration and lose fewer items during collaboration, particularly following shared encoding.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Thus it seems reasonable to predict that groups of friends may generate more overlapping, effective cues for each other, even when they generate and encode them individually. In our previous research on collaborative recall in older, long-married couples, we found that, for some couples, collaboration facilitated (rather than inhibited) recall, and couples' use of cuing and communication strategies accounted for 84% of the variance in their collaborative performance (Harris et al, 2011). In the current studies, we measured self-cuing and cross-cuing by asking participants to report their recall strategies.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For this reason, our social contexts may be an important component of what and how we remember (Barnier, Sutton, Harris, & Wilson, 2008;Boyer & Wertsch, 2009;Tollefsen, 2006). Cognitive theories such as Wegner's (1987) transactive memory, and research in other disciplines such as sociology and philosophy, describe how remembering is shared in groups and predict clear benefits of remembering with others (see Barnier et al, 2008;Harris, Keil, Sutton, Barnier, & McIlwain, 2011;Harris, Paterson, & Kemp, 2008;Tollefsen, 2006). More recently, cognitive psychology has contributed to the concerted interdisciplinary push to understand how individual memory fits within a broader picture of social and collective memory (Boyer & Wertsch, 2009;Hirst & Echterhoff, 2008Hirst & Manier, 2008;Rajaram & Pereira-Pasarin, 2010;Wertsch & Roediger, 2008).…”

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confidence: 99%

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Shared encoding and the costs and benefits of collaborative recall.

Harris

Barnier

Sutton

2013

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cogni

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We often remember in the company of others. In particular, we routinely collaborate with friends, family, or colleagues to remember shared experiences. But surprisingly, in the experimental collaborative recall paradigm, collaborative groups remember less than their potential, an effect termed collaborative inhibition. Rajaram and Pereira-Pasarin (2010) argued that the effects of collaboration on recall are determined by "pre-collaborative" factors. We studied the role of 2 pre-collaborative factors-shared encoding and group relationship-in determining the costs and benefits of collaborative recall. In Experiment 1, we compared groups of strangers who encoded alone versus together, before collaborating to recall. In Experiment 2, we compared groups of friends who encoded alone versus together, before collaborating to recall. We found that shared encoding abolished collaborative inhibition in both Experiments 1 and 2. But prior relationship did not influence collaborative inhibition over and above the effects of shared encoding. Regardless of encoding condition, collaborative group recall contained fewer intrusions than nominal group recall, and these benefits continued in subsequent individual recall. Our findings demonstrate that pre-collaborative factors-specifically shared encoding-have flow-on benefits for group and individual recall amount, but not recall accuracy. We discuss these findings in terms of self-and cross-cuing in collaborative recall.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

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Shared encoding and the costs and benefits of collaborative recall.

Harris

Barnier

Sutton

2013

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cogni

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Telling and Remembering: Complexities in Long‐term Effects of Listeners on Autobiographical Memory

Pasupathi

Oldroyd

2015

Applied Cognitive Psychology

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The fact that people talk about most of their emotional experiences with others is well established, as are the influences of listeners on the nature of such talk. Established effects of variability in that talk-such as those due to the listener's attentiveness-could also influence later memory, but the evidence directly testing such influences is relatively sparse. We report the results of a study in which participants (n = 64, 30 men) initially narrated a positive or negative experience to a same-sex friend. The friend was randomly assigned to be either a responsive or a distracted listener, which resulted in changes to the conversational narration that are reported elsewhere. In a second session, approximately 1 month later, participants were asked to recall the same experience. In this study, we examined whether event valence and listener condition influenced the retention of information from the session 1 narrative at the follow-up session, as well as the consistency of the session 2 narratives with the session 1 narrative. Prior findings linking more attentive listening to higher retention and consistency were partially replicated in the present study but were moderated by gender (retention) and event valence (consistency). Broader implications of these findings are discussed.

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