The Importance of Memory Specificity and Memory Coherence for the Self: Linking Two Characteristics of Autobiographical Memory

[Trauma and memory-A contribution to the current debate in law and psychotherapy]

The recall of memories of past events, experiences and emotions is a complex process. When experiencing traumatic events, as is the case with sexual violence, a host of additional complexities and difficulties arise. This becomes especially important in court cases which rely mostly or exclusively on the testimony of the victim, where the problem of the fallibility of memory takes center stage. Some research studies emphasize the possibility of inducing, altering or suppressing memories, especially in the context of psychotherapy. This has led to the unfortunate reality that the testimony of victims who have undergone psychotherapy is often considered to be unreliable. This in turn can lead to the impression that a decision has to be made between treatment of the adverse effects of traumatic events and maximizing the chances for a conviction of the perpetrator in court. This article introduces some central concepts of our current understanding of memory and gives an overview of the relevant scientific literature and debate. Following this, it examines the dilemma as it pertains to the different groups of all involved parties (i.e., victims, members of the judiciary and psychotherapists). Lastly, it proposes a framework of how to approach a solution to this problem by focusing on research in critical areas, expansion of therapy guidelines and documentation procedures as well as communication of these efforts to all parties involved.

The Self Course: Lessons Learned from Students' Weekly Questions

In this paper, I tentatively answer 50 questions sampled from a pool of over 10,000 weekly questions formulated by students in a course entitled "The Self". The questions pertain to various key topics related to self-processes, such as self-awareness, self-knowledge, self-regulation, self-talk, self-esteem, and self-regulation. The students' weekly questions and their answers highlight what is currently known about the self. Answers to the student questions also allow for the identification of some recurrent lessons about the self. Some of these lessons include: all self-processes are interconnected (e.g., prospection depends on autobiography), self-terms must be properly defined (e.g., self-rumination and worry are not the same), inner speech plays an important role in self-processes, controversies are numerous (are animals self-aware?), measurement issues abound (e.g., self-recognition as an operationalization of self-awareness), deficits in some self-processes can have devastating effects (e.g., self-regulatory deficits may lead to financial problems), and there are lots of unknowns about the self (e.g., gender differences in Theory-of-Mind).

Autobiographical memory and psychopathology: Is memory specificity as important as we make it seem?

Several decades of research have established reduced autobiographical memory specificity, or overgeneral memory, as an important cognitive factor associated with the risk for and maintenance of a range of psychiatric diagnoses. In measuring this construct, experimenters code autobiographical memories for the presence or absence of a single temporal detail that indicates that the remembered event took place on a single, specific, day (Last Thursday when I rode bikes with my son), or multiple days (When I rode bikes with my son). Studies indicate that the specificity of memories and the amount of other episodic detail that they include (e.g., who, what, and where) are related and may rely on the same neural processes to elicit their retrieval. However, specificity and detailedness are nonetheless separable constructs: imperfectly correlated and differentially associated with current and future depressive symptoms and other associated intrapersonal (e.g., rumination) and interpersonal (e.g., social support) outcomes. The ways in which the details of our memories align with narrative themes (i.e., agency, communion, identity) and the coherence with which these details are presented, are also emerging as important factors associated with psychopathology. The temporal specificity of autobiographical memories may be important, but other memory constructs warrant further attention in research and theory, especially given the associations, and dependencies, between each of these constructs. Researchers in this area must consider carefully whether their research questions necessitate a focus on autobiographical memory specificity or whether a more inclusive analysis of other autobiographical memory features is necessary and more fruitful. This article is categorized under: Psychology > Memory.

Mentalizing and narrative coherence in autistic adults: Cerebellar sequencing and prediction

BYLEMANS, T., et al. Mentalizing and narrative coherence in autistic adults: Cerebellar sequencing and prediction. NEUROSCI BIOBEHAV REV, 2022. - This review focuses on autistic adults and serves 4 purposes: (1) providing an overview of their difficulties regarding mentalizing (understanding others' mental states) and narrative coherence (structured storytelling), (2) highlighting the relations between both skills by examining behavioral observations and shared neural substrates, (3) providing an integrated perspective regarding novel diagnostic tools and support services, and (4) raising awareness of adult autism. We suggest that mentalizing and narrative coherence are related at the behavioral level and neural level. In addition to the traditional mentalizing network, the cerebellum probably serves as an important hub in shared cerebral networks implicated in mentalizing and narrative coherence. Future autism research and support services should tackle new questions within a framework of social cerebellar (dys)functioning.

Nature and Effects of Autobiographical Memory Issues in Persons with Autism Spectrum Disorders

This comprehensive thematic review focuses on autobiographical memory (AM) in individuals with Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) with the overarching aim of informing and instructing stakeholders on this important memory structure that is often compromised in individuals with ASD. Accordingly, articles that best address the theme were selected from legitimate publishers with prime peer-reviewed journals. ASD is recognized as a neurodevelopmental disorder, often impacting on many aspects of language, cognitive, and social-emotional development. Considerable research has documented the problems children and adults with ASD frequently exhibit in language and its offshoots, the development of executive function, and theory of mind or the ability to reflect on the thoughts and feelings of self and others. These studies resulted in numerous assessments and intervention strategies designed to target the noted issues, among them problems with AM. Specialists in a variety of medical, psychological, and educational fields are exploring the nature and development of AM across the lifespan and the effects of AM weaknesses on cognitive and social-emotional factors such as self-regulation, social interactions, and self-identity. Researchers are reporting on the nature of AM deficits in persons with ASD and how AM deficits interact with or may explain other difficulties exhibited by these persons, but to date, little of this research has been incorporated into assessment and intervention strategies for persons with ASD. The aims of this article are to: 1. Describe the nature of AM, 2. Expound on assessments of AM, 3. Explain the effects of deficits in AMs on the personal narratives, self-regulation, and self-identity of persons with ASD, and 4. Explore intervention strategies to facilitate AM and the abilities of persons with ASD to tell coherent personal narratives.

A story to tell: the role of narratives in reducing delay discounting for people who strongly discount the future

Delay Discounting (DD) or devaluing a future, larger reward in favour of a smaller, more immediate reward, has been linked to negative health behaviours. One intervention that reduces DD is Episodic Future Thinking (EFT). EFT has participants generate cues representing positive future events that correspond to temporal windows during the DD task. The current study examined if incorporating EFT cues into narratives would strengthen effects on DD. One hundred and sixty adults were recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk and were randomised to traditional or narrative EFT. Results showed that participants in narrative EFT discounted the future less (p = 0.034) than participants who engaged in traditional EFT. This novel approach to EFT is well grounded in research and theory on the power of narratives to influence behaviour and can open a new window into ways to reduce DD to strengthen engagement in positive choices.

Narrative coherence of autobiographical memories in women with borderline personality disorder and associations with childhood adversity

BACKGROUND

People suffering from Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) seem to have incoherent autobiographical narratives. Tentative evidence suggests that reduced narrative coherence of autobiographical memories is associated with insecure attachment. However, it remains unknown whether incoherent autobiographical narratives in people with BPD are coupled to experiences of childhood trauma, which is highly prevalent in BPD.

METHOD

We examined if written autobiographical memories in 26 female participants with BPD had reduced narrative coherence relative to 28 healthy female controls and whether more incoherent narratives were associated with childhood trauma.

RESULTS

As hypothesized, results showed that compared to controls, the autobiographical memories in participants with BPD had reduced narrative coherence, specifically inadequate orientation about the narrative and lack of narrative structure. More self-reported childhood adversity was coupled to lower orientation across groups whereas increased childhood adversity showed a specific relationship to lowered narrative structure in BPD participants.

CONCLUSION

Women with BPD had incoherent autobiographical narratives, and reduced narrative coherence was associated with more self-reported childhood adversity, which appeared to explain the group differences.

Autobiographical Memory in Autism Spectrum Disorder, Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, Hearing Loss, and Childhood Trauma: Implications for Social Communication Intervention

Purpose Speech-language pathologists (SLPs) work with a variety of populations at risk for poor autobiographical and episodic memory. The purpose of this tutorial is to describe autobiographical memory and how it is affected in children with autism spectrum disorder, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, hearing loss, and childhood trauma, as well as provide clinicians with practical strategies for supporting autobiographical memory in each of these clinical populations. Method This tutorial reviews the literature on (a) autobiographical and episodic memory in typical development; (b) its relation to theory of mind, personal narrative skills, and executive functions; (c) elaborative reminiscing in typical development; (d) how autobiographical memory is impaired in children with autism spectrum disorder, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, hearing loss, and childhood trauma; and (e) strategies for supporting autobiographical memory in each clinical population. Conclusions When adequately prepared, SLPs are uniquely situated to address autobiographical and episodic memory in their work with children, families, and related professionals. This is a long-overdue focus of such great clinical import that justifies its inclusion in the traditional training and preparation of SLPs. Adapting elaborative reminiscing strategies for use with various clinical populations is promising for facilitating healthy EM development and related cognitive functions.

I like you better when you are coherent. Narrating autobiographical memories in a coherent manner has a positive impact on listeners' social evaluations

INTRODUCTION

We all have stories to tell. The stories that prevail in our conversations frequently concern significant past personal experiences and are accordingly based on autobiographical memory retrieval and sharing. This is in line with the social function of autobiographical memory, which embodies the idea that we share memories with others to develop and maintain social relationships. However, the successful fulfilment of this social function is dependent on phenomenological properties of the memory, which are highly inter-individually different. One important individual difference is memory coherence, operationalized as narrative coherence. The objective of this study was to investigate the impact of memory coherence on the social evaluations of listeners. We hypothesized that being incoherent in the sharing of autobiographical memories, would evoke more negative social evaluations from listeners, in comparison to coherently sharing autobiographical memories.

METHODS

In a within-subject experimental study, 96 participants listened to four pre-recorded audio clips in which the speaker narrated about an autobiographical experience, in either a coherent or an incoherent manner.

RESULTS

Results were in line with our hypotheses. Participants showed more willingness to interact, more instrumental support, more positive feelings, more empathy and more trust towards those narrators who talked in a coherent manner about their autobiographical memories, as compared to those that talked in an incoherent manner. Negative feelings in the listener were evoked when the speaker talked incoherently, but especially when it concerned a positive memory.

DISCUSSION

Results can be explained in terms of a reduction in the attraction effect when effortful processing is increased, which is in line with the dual processing theory of impression formation. Another explanation involves the idea that coherence is necessary to establish truthfulness in communication. The clinical relevance of these findings is further illustrated in light of the relation between social support and psychological well-being.

Projecting the self in aging: an exploratory study of self-defining future projections

The concept of "Self-Defining Future Projections" (SDFPs) has been recently introduced to better explore the link between future thinking and identity. To date, SDFPs have only been examined in young adults and it remains unknown how self-defining future thoughts evolve in aging. In this cross-sectional study, 43 young adults (age range = 19-28; mean age = 23.06) and 43 older adults (age range 60-80; mean age = 69.46) were asked to generate three SDFPs. Our results indicated that SDFPs were less specific in older adults compared to young adults, but there was no difference between the two groups concerning autobiographical reasoning. However, regarding subjective experience, older adults rated imagined future events as containing more sensory details and contextual information and reported a higher feeling of pre-experiencing the personal future. Additionally, older participants described future events that were more positive and less distant in the future, with fewer narratives about future achievements but more narratives describing leisure time, with a similar probability between the two groups that the event will occur in the future. Our study extends previous aging research and adds to the literature by better understanding how future event representations are formed in older adults.

Autobiographical memory coherence in emotional disorders: The role of rumination, cognitive avoidance, executive functioning, and meaning making

The ability to construct coherent narratives about significant personal experiences, commonly referred to as autobiographical memory coherence, has been related to various emotional disorders, though insight regarding mechanisms that might underlie this relation is scarce. The present study contributes to this growing body of research by examining the relation between memory coherence and both depression and PTSD and by investigating the role of rumination, cognitive avoidance, executive functioning, and meaning making in that relation in a large-scale community sample. The negative relation between memory coherence and both depression and PTSD could not be replicated, nor could the hypothesized negative relation between memory coherence and both rumination and cognitive avoidance be confirmed. In contrast, results indicated more memory coherence to be related to more rumination. Additional analyses in light of these surprising findings revealed that there was a significant indirect relation between memory coherence and both depression and PTSD-related symptoms through rumination. When the latter was controlled for, memory coherence was predictive of PTSD diagnosis and the hypothesized negative association with cognitive avoidance could be confirmed. In line with predictions, both executive functioning and meaning making were positively related to memory coherence. Theoretical and clinical implications are discussed.

Cultural self-goals influence how much is remembered from early childhood events

OBJECTIVE

Prior work examining the role of cultural self-goals on the retrieval of early memories treated the presence of self-goals; such as autonomy and relatedness, as a binary category which has led to overlooking within-group nuances. Here, based on the idea that these goals co-exist in varying degrees in individuals, we explore the relative contributions of self-goals on age-at-event and the level of detail in positive and negative early memories.

METHOD

Participants (N = 119) recalled and dated two earliest positive and negative memories that they were highly confident were memories, and answered a set of questions about event-specific details. They also completed a self-construal scale.

RESULTS

For positive memories, Autonomous-Related Self scores predicted both the age-at-event and the amount of detail in early memories, while. no such relationship was observed for negative memories.

CONCLUSIONS

Together these findings indicate that cultural self-goals operate on the accessibility of early memories not only at the level of the boundaries of childhood amnesia but also on how much is recalled from early experiences.

"All is not lost"-Rethinking the nature of memory and the self in dementia

Memory and the self have long been considered intertwined, leading to the assumption that without memory, there can be no self. This line of reasoning has led to the misconception that a loss of memory in dementia necessarily results in a diminished sense of self. Here, we challenge this assumption by considering discrete facets of self-referential memory, and their relative profiles of loss and sparing, across three neurodegenerative disorders: Alzheimer's disease, semantic dementia, and frontotemporal dementia. By exploring canonical expressions of the self across past, present, and future contexts in dementia, relative to healthy ageing, we reconcile previous accounts of loss of self in dementia, and propose a new framework for understanding and managing everyday functioning and behaviour. Notably, our approach highlights the multifaceted and dynamic nature in which the temporally-extended self is likely to change in healthy and pathological ageing, with important ramifications for development of person-centred care. Collectively, we aim to promote a cohesive sense of self in dementia across past, present, and future contexts, by demonstrating how, ultimately, 'All is not lost'.

Reduced autobiographical memory specificity affects general distress through poor social support

Sharing specific autobiographical events is likely to influence the support people give us; a person who shares little detail of their lives may be unlikely to attract social support and this may in turn contribute towards anxious and depressive symptoms. Participants (N = 142) reported memories evoked by negative and positive cue words and these memories were coded for whether or not they referred to a specific event lasting less than 24 h. At this time (T1) and one year later (T2), participants also completed the UCLA Life Stress Interview (LSI), which includes a measure of social support, and measures of depression and anxiety comprising a general distress latent construct. The tendency to recall fewer specific memories was associated with lower social support given by friends and romantic partners and this was in turn associated with elevated general distress at T2, even when accounting for T1 social support and general distress. Our findings contribute to the literature regarding the social function of memory and suggest another route via which reduced specificity contributes to emotional disorders.

Autobiographical memory coherence and specificity: Examining their reciprocal relation and their associations with internalizing symptoms and rumination

Autobiographical memories consist of different features that have been shown to relate to psychological well-being and psychopathology. Two such characteristics show quite some overlap, namely memory coherence and memory specificity, although their association has never been investigated before. In this study, we examined the association between memory coherence and memory specificity in a sample of first-year psychology students. Additionally, to gain more insight into the relation between memory coherence and psychopathology, we investigated the association with known correlates of memory specificity, namely internalizing symptoms and rumination. We found that narrating about personal experiences in a coherent manner is related to retrieving more specific memories. However, the association between memory coherence and memory specificity was rather weak. Furthermore, we found that memory coherence was negatively associated with the level of depressive symptoms and could predict these symptoms even after controlling for memory specificity and rumination. Given the potential clinical importance of these findings, future research should focus on examining the specific circumstances in which memory coherence is related to psychopathology, and on mechanisms that could explain this association.