The Relationship Between Parent and Adolescent Autobiographical Memory Specificity

<p>The ways we remember our past have been demonstrated to have important implications regarding our psychological functioning (Waters, 2014). Research suggests parents scaffold early remembering skills which can shape the amount of specific detail children can recall from their autobiographical memories (Autobiographical Memory Specificity; AMS) (Reese & Fivush, 1993; Reese, Haden, & Fivush, 1993; Valentino et al., 2014). The current study investigated whether parents and their adolescent children display similar patterns of AMS. In addition, previous literature has predominately utilised only one measure of AMS – the Autobiographical Memory Test (Williams & Broadbent, 1986). A critique of this measure and an argument for adopting a new measure of AMS is provided. A secondary aim was to examine the relationship between parent and adolescent rumination which has been shown to share an important relationship with AMS (Williams et al., 2007) and, like AMS, is suggested to be socialised early in the life span (Nolen-Hoeksema, Wisco, & Lyuboirsky, 2008). Sixty-seven parent-adolescent dyads were recruited, and measures of AMS and rumination were administered. A significant positive relationship between parent and adolescent rumination was found, however, the relationships between parent and adolescent AMS were non-significant. Implications regarding existing theory, limitations, and ideas for future research are discussed.</p>

The Relationship Between Parent and Adolescent Autobiographical Memory Specificity

<p>The ways we remember our past have been demonstrated to have important implications regarding our psychological functioning (Waters, 2014). Research suggests parents scaffold early remembering skills which can shape the amount of specific detail children can recall from their autobiographical memories (Autobiographical Memory Specificity; AMS) (Reese & Fivush, 1993; Reese, Haden, & Fivush, 1993; Valentino et al., 2014). The current study investigated whether parents and their adolescent children display similar patterns of AMS. In addition, previous literature has predominately utilised only one measure of AMS – the Autobiographical Memory Test (Williams & Broadbent, 1986). A critique of this measure and an argument for adopting a new measure of AMS is provided. A secondary aim was to examine the relationship between parent and adolescent rumination which has been shown to share an important relationship with AMS (Williams et al., 2007) and, like AMS, is suggested to be socialised early in the life span (Nolen-Hoeksema, Wisco, & Lyuboirsky, 2008). Sixty-seven parent-adolescent dyads were recruited, and measures of AMS and rumination were administered. A significant positive relationship between parent and adolescent rumination was found, however, the relationships between parent and adolescent AMS were non-significant. Implications regarding existing theory, limitations, and ideas for future research are discussed.</p>

Autobiographical memory specificity and mnemonic discrimination

Autobiographical memory specificity (AMS), which is the tendency to recall events that occurred at a particular time and place, enables everyday functioning, such as well-being and social problem-solving skills. A mechanism that may be important for AMS, hinting at the neural basis, is the possibility that pattern separation of similar events contributes to AMS. Pattern separation is an essential component of episodic memory and may allow us to encode and retain the unique aspects of events, making it easier to retrieve event-specific knowledge during retrieval. We examined the hypothesis that poor pattern separation is associated with a low proportion of specific memories and a high proportion of categoric memories derived from a lack of details regarding events. In Experiment 1 (N = 94) and Experiment 2 (preregistered; N = 99), participants completed the Autobiographical Memory Test (AMT), which measures AMS, and a pattern separation measure. We coded AMT responses conventionally and then further classified the categoric memory responses based on abstract representations that contained words denoting high frequency and those derived from lacking context information such as when and/or where event occurs. As predicted, the lure discrimination score was positively correlated with specific memories and negatively correlated with categoric memories derived from lacking context information. These results were invariant when controlling for participants’ characteristics, general intelligence, and recognition measures. We propose to distinguish between these two types of general categoric memory and discuss the development of an integrative model of autobiographical memory structure.

Exploring autobiographical memory specificity and narrative emotional processing in alexithymia

Alexithymia encompasses difficulties in identifying and expressing feelings along with an externally oriented cognitive style. While previous studies found that higher alexithymia scores were related to an impaired memory for emotional content, no study so far investigated how alexithymia affects autobiographical narratives. Narrating personal events, however, is impaired in emotionally disturbed patients in that they tend to recall overgeneral descriptions instead of specific episodes, which impairs their narrative emotional processing. Adopting a qualitative approach, this pilot study explored autobiographical memory specificity, cognitive, perceptual and emotional word use, and narrative closure in eight alcohol-dependent participants scoring very high or low in alexithymia. High alexithymia participants showed no reduced memory specificity but impaired emotional processing and narrative elaboration, especially when talking about negative events. Presumably because of this we found no group differences regarding narrative closure. Results are discussed in terms of cognitive and emotional processing, avoidance strategies, and narrative psychology.