When your face describes your memories: facial expressions during retrieval of autobiographical memories

Abstract

Thanks to the current advances in the software analysis of facial expressions, there is a burgeoning interest in understanding emotional facial expressions observed during the retrieval of autobiographical memories. This review describes the research on facial expressions during autobiographical retrieval showing distinct emotional facial expressions according to the characteristics of retrieved memoires. More specifically, this research demonstrates that the retrieval of emotional memories can trigger corresponding emotional facial expressions (e.g. positive memories may trigger positive facial expressions). Also, this study demonstrates the variations of facial expressions according to specificity, self-relevance, or past versus future direction of memory construction. Besides linking research on facial expressions during autobiographical retrieval to cognitive and affective characteristics of autobiographical memory in general, this review positions this research within the broader context research on the physiologic characteristics of autobiographical retrieval. We also provide several perspectives for clinical studies to investigate facial expressions in populations with deficits in autobiographical memory (e.g. whether autobiographical overgenerality in neurologic and psychiatric populations may trigger few emotional facial expressions). In sum, this review paper demonstrates how the evaluation of facial expressions during autobiographical retrieval may help understand the functioning and dysfunctioning of autobiographical memory.

“What Did I Tell This Sad Person?”: Memory for Emotional Destinations in Korsakoff’s Syndrome

“…These difficulties were also observed for autobiographical memory, that is, memory for personal information [58,59]. Patients with KS tend to demonstrate difficulties retrieving autobiographical memories situated in a specific spatiotemporal context [22,[60][61][62][63]. These studies in the literature, and our findings, mirror the contextual account according to which the episodic memory decline in KS is caused by an inability to encode, store, or retrieve contextual information [1].…”

Future-Oriented Repetitive Thought: Pessimistic View of Future in Patients With Alzheimer Disease

“…4,5 In addition, future thinking is intimately linked with emotion regulation, as projecting ourselves into the future involves construction of positive situations that we strive to achieve or negative situations that we would rather avoid. 6 -8 Future thinking typically declines in Alzheimer disease (AD), leading to a diminished sense of the self and diminished emotional regulation 9 -13 (see, however, 14 for an alternative view on emotional regulation in AD). Although the consequences of future thinking decline in AD have been well studied, little is known about future-oriented repetitive thought in AD, that is, how patients with AD may predict future events (eg, whether they may be pessimistic regarding these events) or worry about future events (eg, whether they repetitively think about these events).…”

“Look at Me” – Eye Movements During Autobiographical Retrieval in Face-to-Face Interactions

“…Autobiographical memory refers to the recollection of past personal experiences (Conway, 2005; Rubin, 2005). At the physiological and behavioral level, autobiographical memory has been associated with particular neural substrates (Bauer et al, 2017; St Jacques et al, 2017; Svoboda et al, 2006), particularly cardiovascular and electrodermal activities (Labouvie-Vief et al, 2003; Robertson et al, 2015; Schaefer & Philippot, 2005), and particular activities in facial expressions (El Haj et al, 2016, 2018; El Haj, Antoine, et al, 2017; Gandolphe et al, 2018). Autobiographical memory has also been studied with respect to eye movements.…”