Observer memories may not be for everyone

How shifting visual perspective during autobiographical memory retrieval influences emotion: A change in retrieval orientation

Visual perspective during autobiographical memory (AM) retrieval influences how people remember the emotional aspects of memories. Prior research in emotion regulation has also shown that shifting from an own eyes to an observer-like perspective is an efficient way of regulating the affect elicited by emotional AMs. However, the impact of shifting visual perspective is also dependent on the nature of the emotion associated with the event. The current review synthesizes behavioral and functional neuroimaging findings from the event memory and emotion regulation literature that examine how adopting particular visual perspectives and actively shifting across them during retrieval alters emotional experience, by primarily focusing on emotional intensity. We review current theories explaining why shifts in perspectives may or may not change the emotional characteristics of memories, then propose a new theory, suggesting that the own eyes and observer-like perspectives are two different retrieval orientations supported by differential neural activations that lead episodic details to be reconstructed in specific ways.

Are observer memories (accurate) memories? Insights from experimental philosophy

A striking feature of our memories of the personal past is that they involve different visual perspectives: one sometimes recalls past events from one's original point of view (a field perspective), but one sometimes recalls them from an external point of view (an observer perspective). In philosophy, observer memories are often seen as being less than fully genuine and as being necessarily false or distorted. This paper looks at whether laypeople share the standard philosophical view by applying the methods of experimental philosophy. We report the results of five studies suggesting that, while participants clearly categorize both field and observer memories as memories, they tend to judge that observer memories are slightly less accurate than field memories. Our results suggest, however, that in lay thought, the difference between field and observer memories is not nearly as clear-cut as philosophers have generally taken it to be.

Visual perspective as a two-dimensional construct in episodic future thought

Visual perspective (first-person vs. third-person) is a salient characteristic of memory and mental imagery with important cognitive and behavioural consequences. Most work on visual perspective treats it as a unidimensional construct. However, third-person perspective can have opposite effects on emotion and motivation, sometimes intensifying these and other times acting as a distancing mechanism, as in PTSD. For this reason among others, we propose that visual perspective in memory and mental imagery is best understood as varying along two dimensions: first, the degree to which first-person perspective predominates in the episodic imagery, and second, the degree to which the self is visually salient from a third-person perspective. We show that, in episodic future thinking, these are anticorrelated but non-redundant. These results further our basic understanding of the potent but divergent effects visual perspective has on emotion and motivation, both in everyday life and in psychiatric conditions.

The stability of visual perspective and vividness during mental time travel

When remembering or imagining, people can experience an event from their own eyes, or as an outside observer, with differing levels of vividness. The perspective from, and vividness with, which a person remembers or imagines has been related to numerous individual difference characteristics. These findings require that phenomenology during mental time travel be trait-like-that people consistently experience similar perspectives and levels of vividness. This assumption remains untested. Across two studies (combined N = 295), we examined the stability of visual perspective and vividness across multiple trials and timepoints. Perspective and vividness showed weak within-session stability when reported across just a few trials but showed strong within-session stability when sufficient trials were collected. Importantly, both visual perspective and vividness demonstrated good-to-excellent across-session stability across different delay intervals (two days to six weeks). Overall, our results suggest that people dependably experience similar visual phenomenology across occurrences of mental time travel.

Memories for third-person experiences in immersive virtual reality

We typically experience the world from a first-person perspective (1PP) but can sometimes experience events from a third-person perspective (3PP) much as an observer might see us. Little is known about how visual perspective influences the formation of memories for events. We developed an immersive virtual reality paradigm to examine how visual perspective during encoding influences memories. Across two studies, participants explored immersive virtual environments from first-person and third-person avatar perspectives while wearing an Oculus Rift headset. Memory was tested immediately (Study One and Study Two) and following a one-week delay (Study Two). We assessed the accuracy of visual memory using cued recall questions and spatial memory by asking participants to draw maps of the layout of each environment (Study One and Study Two). Additional phenomenological ratings were included to assess visual perspective during remembering (Study Two). There were no differences in the accuracy of visual information across the two studies, but 3PP experiences were found to increase spatial memory accuracy due to their wider camera field of view when compared to 1PP experiences. Our results also demonstrate that 3PP experiences create 3PP memories, as reflected by an increase in subjective ratings of observer-like perspectives during remembering. In sum, visual perspective during memory formation influences the accuracy of spatial but not visual information, and the vantage point of memories during remembering.

Do depressive symptoms and subjective well-being influence the valence or visual perspective of autobiographical memories in young adults?

The present study examines predictors of autobiographical memory valence and visual perspective. Participants (N = 144) between the ages of 18-35 years completed an online survey assessing depressive symptoms, and different aspects of subjective well-being (i.e., life satisfaction, positive affect, and negative affect). Participants retrieved six autobiographical memories cued via positive, negative, and neutral words and completed a questionnaire assessing characteristics of the memories, including memory valence and visual perspective. Using structural equation modelling, we found that the valence of neutral cued memories were significantly negatively associated with depressive symptoms and negative affect, and significantly positively associated with life satisfaction, even after controlling for current mood. Depressive symptoms were generally not significantly related to visual perspective. These results support previous findings that depressive symptoms and well-being are related to differences in memory characteristics but suggest that some of the relationships may be less robust when examined in a non-clinical sample.

A New Perspective on Visual Perspective in Memory

Memories for events require adopting a particular visual perspective—viewing the past from our own eyes or from an observerlike perspective in which we see ourselves in the memory. The current review synthesizes new behavioral and functional-neuroimaging evidence on the role of visual perspective in reshaping memories and how shifting visual perspective to novel viewpoints relies on similar constructive processes during imagination. Directions for future research are also discussed.