What is autobiographical memory?

Brewer, William F.

doi:10.1017/cbo9780511558313.006

Cited by 499 publications

(353 citation statements)

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“…Early work examined memory through the lifespan, to determine which periods of our lives gave rise to the strongest memories, finding that early adulthood gives rise to the richest recollection of events (Conway, 1990). Images also seem to be central to autobiographical memory (Brewer, 1986(Brewer, , 1992. Furthermore, the nature of these images changes with the age of the memory; older events tend to be viewed from an observer rather than a participant perspective (Brewer, 1986(Brewer, , 1992.…”

Section: Autobiographical Memorymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Family memories in the home: contrasting physical and digital mementos

Petrelli

Whittaker

2010

Pers Ubiquit Comput

162

140

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We carried out fieldwork to characterise and compare physical and digital mementos in the home. Physical mementos are highly valued, heterogeneous and support different types of recollection. Contrary to expectations, we found physical mementos are not purely representational, and can involve appropriating common objects and more idiosyncratic forms. In contrast, digital mementos were initially perceived as less valuable, although participants later reconsidered this. Digital mementos were somewhat limited in function and expression -largely involving representational photos and videos, and infrequently accessed. We explain these digital limitations and conclude with design guidelines for digital mementos, including better techniques for accessing and integrating these into everyday life -allowing them to acquire the symbolic associations and lasting value that characterise their physical counterparts.

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Section: Autobiographical Memorymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Images also seem to be central to autobiographical memory (Brewer, 1986(Brewer, , 1992. Furthermore, the nature of these images changes with the age of the memory; older events tend to be viewed from an observer rather than a participant perspective (Brewer, 1986(Brewer, , 1992.…”

Section: Autobiographical Memorymentioning

confidence: 99%

Family memories in the home: contrasting physical and digital mementos

Petrelli

Whittaker

2010

Pers Ubiquit Comput

162

140

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“…Moreover, L.K. had no personal or self involvement in these memories which is a typical feature of involuntary (and voluntary) autobiographical memories (Roberts et al, 1994; see also Brewer, 1986;Nigro, & Neisser, 1983). It was therefore reasonable to assume that these memories represented involuntary semantic memories.…”

Section: Appendix 1)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Out of one’s mind: A study of involuntary semantic memories

Kvavilashvili

Mandler

2004

Cognitive Psychology

198

209

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The study of memories that pop into one's mind without any conscious attempt to retrieve them began only recently. While there are some studies on involuntary autobiographical memories (e.g., Berntsen, 1996; research on involuntary semantic memories or mind-popping is virtually non existent. The latter is defined as an involuntary conscious occurrence of brief items of one's network of semantic knowledge. The recall of these items (e.g., a word, a name, a tune) is not accompanied by additional contextual information and/or involvement of self -a standard feature of involuntary autobiographical memories. The paper reports several diary and questionnaire studies which looked into the nature and frequency of occurrence of these memories. The data show that people do experience involuntary semantic memories which tend to occur without any apparent cues while being engaged in relatively automatic activities. Possible mechanisms of involuntary semantic memories are discussed (e.g., very long-term priming), and the results of the study provide information on the possible duration of the priming effects in everyday life.Related theoretical and methodological issues and future avenues of research in this neglected area are outlined.KEY WORDS: Involuntary memories, mind-popping, autobiographical memory, semantic memory, very long-term priming, implicit memory. 3Out of one's mind: A study of involuntary semantic memories Most laboratory studies of memory investigate processes which deliberately retrieve or identify information acquired in the past. However, much of our everyday remembering consists of information coming to mind involuntarily, i.e., without any conscious attempts to retrieve anything (Mandler, 1986; Winograd, 1993). This type of retrieval has been noted as far back as by Ebbinghaus (1885Ebbinghaus ( /1964 who, among other forms of memory, delineated memories which occur "with apparent spontaneity and without any act of will", and are "brought about through the instrumentality of other, immediately present mental images" (p. 2). Mandler (1989) claimed that "deliberate retrieval of information seems to be the exception rather than the rule" (p. 103). Thus, "we interrupt our stream of thought with ideas that suddenly 'come to mind', we are frequently 'reminded' of one or another occurrence in the past, and often we are aware of memories whose apparent irrelevance to the requirements of the moment surprises us" (p. 291, Mandler, 1986; our italics).Involuntary memories vary greatly in their character and conditions under which they occur (see Mandler, 1994). For example, the phenomenon of incubation, or a sudden recovery from the tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) state, or the realization that one had intended to do something at this particular moment (i.e., prospective remembering) -all refer to involuntary retrieval of certain memories and contents.Although the act of retrieval per se is non deliberate and usually sudden, in all those cases it is preceded by repeated attempts to solve a problem (incubation), by a memory...

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“…AM encompasses the processes that are involved in the conscious recollection of the personal past (Baddeley, 1992;Brewer, 1986;Svoboda & Levine, 2003) and involves the interaction of multiple separate systems (Rubin, 2005(Rubin, , 2007b. One useful way to understand AM is to compare it to what we know about laboratory memory (LM), or memory for stimuli encoded in the controlled environment of the laboratory.…”

Section: What Is Autobiographical Memory?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Functional neuroimaging of autobiographical memory

Jacques¹

2012

Understanding Autobiographical Memory

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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. Selfv projection of one's own past self recruited greater ventral medial PFC (mPFC), and selfprojection 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.vi

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What is autobiographical memory?

Cited by 499 publications

References 0 publications

Family memories in the home: contrasting physical and digital mementos

Family memories in the home: contrasting physical and digital mementos

Out of one’s mind: A study of involuntary semantic memories

Functional neuroimaging of autobiographical memory

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