Remembering the past and imagining the future: attachment effects on production of episodic details in close relationships

[Old age and attachment theory, a systematic review of attachment typology, continuity, prevalence and association with psychological and health variables in older adults]

The aim of this paper is to review the research on attachment theory during old age in the last 10 years, in order to obtain: a) the prevalence of different types of attachment, b) the assessment of attachment methods, c) the relationship established between attachment and other psychosocial and health variables in the aging process. A systematic search of PsycINFO, PsycArticles, WOS, and Scopus identified 17 studies, in which attachment had been assessed in a population of 7118 older adults. The results of this research present a clear evolution and some differences, with respect to the previous systematic 2010 review. Regarding the prevalence of the different types of attachment, it is confirmed that secure attachment and avoidant attachment are more abundant in old age than in adulthood or youth people. There is no consensus on the instruments used for the evaluation, and results are presented that associate insecure attachment with depression, life satisfaction, physical illness and loneliness. The attachment construct appears as an explanatory and mediating variable, directly involved in the psychology and psychopathology of old age.

Attachment Security and Cortical Activity Measured by Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy During a Working Memory Task in Healthy Young Adults

Introduction

Attachment style has been associated with socio-emotional outcomes, however little evidence suggests a possible association with executive functioning. Few studies have demonstrated that attachment style mediates working memory and learning relationships. We hypothesized that attachment style affects performance and cortical activity patterns of working memory.

Methods

We compared working memory performance and cortical activity in securely and insecurely attached first-year college students (N=49) using three n-back task conditions. Cortical activity was recorded by functional near-infrared spectroscopy during these three conditions of the n-back task. Attachment style was assessed using the Relationship Scale Questionnaire, categorized into four groups.

Results

Both study groups showed similar working memory performance. The cortical representation of working memory was different between the two groups. The securely attached group demonstrated higher activity in the right superior frontal and superior-medial frontal areas across all n-back conditions as well as in the right superior frontal cortex during the two-back and three-back conditions. The insecurely attached group displayed higher activity in the bilateral supplementary motor area and the left premotor area only during the three-back condition.

Conclusion

These findings emphasize the potential influence of attachment style on the cortical representation of working memory. Different activity maps between the two groups may reflect varying cognitive strategies employed to achieve a comparable working memory performance. Moreover, these results suggest that each style may have a distinct strategy to achieve attachment-relevant and irrelevant neurocognitive tasks.

Attachment patterns and autobiographical episodic memory functioning: A systemic review of adult studies to advance clinical psychological science

Patterns of insecure attachment are associated with psychopathology but the mechanisms involved remain poorly understood. Cognitive science proposes that attachment patterns are influenced by the autobiographical memory system and in turn influence its ongoing functioning. Disturbances in autobiographical memory represent cognitive risks for later emotional difficulties. We systemically reviewed 33 studies (in 28 articles) examining the association between attachment patterns and autobiographical episodic memory (AEM) in individuals from the age of 16 (i.e., from young to older adulthood). Attachment patterns were associated with key areas of AEM phenomenology, including intensity and arousal; detail, specificity, and vividness; coherence and fragmentation; and accuracy and latency. These associations appeared to be moderated by contextual and individual factors; mediated by emotional regulation and schema-based processing; linked to mental health outcomes. Attachment patterns may also influence the impact of certain AEM-based manipulations. We conclude by providing a critical discussion and a research agenda for bringing together attachment, memory, and emotion, with a view to promote mechanism-driven treatment innovation in clinical psychology.

Brain structure correlates of expected social threat and reward

Prospection (mentally simulating future events) generates emotionally-charged mental images that guide social decision-making. Positive and negative social expectancies-imagining new social interactions to be rewarding versus threatening-are core components of social approach and avoidance motivation, respectively. Interindividual differences in such positive and negative future-related cognitions may be underpinned by distinct neuroanatomical substrates. Here, we asked 100 healthy adults to vividly imagine themselves in a novel self-relevant event that was ambiguous with regards to possible social acceptance or rejection. During this task we measured participants' expectancies for social reward (anticipated feelings of social connection) or threat (anticipated feelings of rejection). On a separate day they underwent structural MRI; voxel-based morphometry was used to explore the relation between social reward and threat expectancies and regional grey matter volumes (rGMV). Increased rGMV in key default-network regions involved in prospection, socio-emotional cognition, and subjective valuation, including ventromedial prefrontal cortex, correlated with both higher social reward and lower social threat expectancies. In contrast, social threat expectancies uniquely correlated with rGMV of regions involved in social attention (posterior superior temporal sulcus, pSTS) and interoception (somatosensory cortex). These findings provide novel insight into the neurobiology of future-oriented cognitive-affective processes critical to adaptive social functioning.

Implicit Memory, Constructive Memory, and Imagining the Future: A Career Perspective

In this article I discuss some of the major questions, findings, and ideas that have driven my research program, which has examined various aspects of human memory using a combination of cognitive, neuropsychological, and neuroimaging approaches. I do so from a career perspective that describes important scientific influences that have shaped my approach to the study of memory and discusses considerations that led to choosing specific research paths. After acknowledging key early influences, I briefly summarize a few of the main takeaways from research on implicit memory during the 1980s and 1990s and then move on to consider more recent ideas and findings concerning constructive memory, future imagining, and mental simulation that have motivated my approach for the past 2 decades. A main unifying theme of this research is that memory can affect psychological functions in ways that go beyond the simple everyday understanding of memory as a means of revisiting past experiences.