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Music-evoked autobiographical memories (MEAMs) are typically elicited by music that listeners have heard before. While studies that have directly manipulated music familiarity show that familiar music evokes more MEAMs than music listeners have not heard before, music that is unfamiliar to the listener can also sporadically cue autobiographical memory. Here we examined whether music that sounds familiar even without previous exposure can produce spontaneous MEAMs. Cognitively healthy older adults (N = 75, ages 65-80 years) listened to music clips that were chosen by researchers to be either familiar or unfamiliar (i.e., varying by prior exposure). Participants then disclosed whether the clip elicited a MEAM and later provided self-reported familiarity ratings for each. Self-reported familiarity was positively associated with the occurrence of MEAMs in response to familiar, but not the unfamiliar, music. The likelihood of reporting MEAMs for music released during youth (i.e., the "reminiscence bump") relative to young adulthood (20-25 years) included both music released during participants' adolescence (14-18 years) and middle childhood (5-9 years) once self-reported familiarity was accounted for. These developmental effects could not be accounted for by music-evoked affect. Overall, our results suggest that the phenomenon of MEAMs hinges upon both perceptions of familiarity and prior exposure.

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a debilitating mental health condition characterized by recurrent re-experiencing of traumatic events. Despite increasing evidence suggesting that the cerebellum is involved in PTSD pathophysiology, it remains unclear whether this involvement is related to symptoms directly resulting from previous trauma exposure, such as involuntary re-experiencing of the traumatic events, or reflects a broader cerebellar engagement in negative affective states. In this study, we investigated the specific role of the cerebellum in PTSD by employing a script reactivation paradigm with personalized traumatic and sad autobiographical memories in 28 individuals diagnosed with chronic PTSD. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data were collected while participants listened to their own autobiographical narratives recounted by a third person. Activation in the right cerebellar lobule VI was uniquely associated with traumatic autobiographical recall and was parametrically modulated by the severity of re-experiencing symptoms. In contrast, cerebellar Crus II showed increased activation during both traumatic and sad autobiographical recall, suggesting a broader involvement in processing negative emotions. Our findings highlight the unique contribution of the right cerebellar lobule VI in the processing of traumatic autobiographical memories, potentially through its engagement in low-level representation of sensory and emotional aspects of traumatic events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is increasing interest in exploring how education abroad can contribute to enhancing sustainable behaviors. We adopted a functional approach to autobiographical memory to investigate the relationship between the directive function of study abroad memories (directing travel behavior, and directing life trajectory) and sustainable tourist behaviors (environmental, economic, social, and cultural). Global citizenship identity was tested as a mediator between functions of study abroad memories and sustainable tourist behaviors. A total of n = 493 study abroad alumni (2012–2022) from two U.S. universities completed an online questionnaire. Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling was used to analyze the model. The results show that (1) the directing travel behavior function of study abroad memories enhances culturally and economically sustainable tourist behaviors; (2) the directing life trajectory function of study abroad memories enhances socially and environmentally sustainable tourist behaviors; and (3) global citizenship identity mediated the relationship between the directive functions of study abroad memories and sustainable tourist behaviors. Accordingly, we discuss the differences in adopting culturally and economically sustainable tourist behaviors versus socially and environmentally sustainable tourist behaviors, the application of autobiographical memory for study abroad program evaluation, and recommendations for future studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gestures are an integral and inseparable component of speech and people frequently use gestures when retelling their autobiographical memories. This study investigates whether gestures are associated with the retrieval of episodically and phenomenologically rich memories and how this association changes during development. Thirty-five children and 46 adults were asked to report autobiographical memories. Then, they rated the recalled memories on phenomenological qualities. Episodic and non-episodic details of autobiographical memories and representational gestures produced during memory narration were coded. The use of representational gestures was positively correlated with the episodic details of adult memories; however, the same correlation was not present in child memories. The representational gesture use was not associated with the phenomenological qualities in both groups. Gesture use may be related to the retrieval of autobiographical memories, particularly in adults capable of reporting long, coherent memories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Objectives: Autobiographical memories have been found to be related to one's current psychological state. Biases in autobiographical memories in terms of valence, content, and specificity are thought to be related to one's well-being and mental health. Previous studies have shown that by using cognitive bias modification techniques that aim to alter one's interpretation bias, memory valence bias could also be altered. The goal of the current study was to investigate if these techniques can also alter overgenerality of autobiographical memory, a phenomenon strongly associated with different psychopathologies. We hypothesized that creating a positive interpretation would decrease overgenerality of autobiographical memories while a negative interpretation bias would increase overgenerality. Methods: Sixty participants were recruited and divided into two groups, positive vs. negative imagery Cognitive Bias Modification (i-CBM). Both groups completed an Autobiographical Memory Test (AMT) before and after undergoing one i-CBM session (positive or negative). Results: positive i-CBM reduced overgenerality of autobiographical memories, while negative i-CBM increased it. Conclusions: These results suggest that changing one's cognitive interpretation bias also changes one's memory bias. Thus, the same task that reduces negative bias from autobiographical memories also reduces overgenerality of autobiographical memories. In addition, the results strengthen the suggestion that the use of imagery and the ability to generate specific autobiographical memories are related. These findings hold great potential for our understanding of the interconnection between the different cognitive memory biases that lay at the base of several psychopathologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This experiment investigated rumination as a possible mechanism for the phenomenon of depression increasing negative autobiographical memories. Participants recalled a negative autobiographical memory involving school before rating the negative mood intensity of that memory, then half of the participants ruminated on that memory and half of the participants were distracted from it. Participants then rated the memory again, and either ruminated or were distracted for a second time before rating the memory for a third time and completing the Beck Depression Inventory-II, the Rumination on Sadness Scale, and demographic questions. The negative mood intensity of the autobiographical memory decreased over time, but did so to a lesser extent when participants ruminated on it versus being distracted (interaction p < .001, d = 1.01). Furthermore, for the rumination condition, participants with greater depression scores reported negativity ratings that decreased at a slower rate over time; for the distraction condition, participants with greater depression scores reported negativity ratings that decreased at a faster rate over time (interaction p = .040, R2 = .047). Depression leads to rumination, and may also amplify the effect of rumination on the negativity of autobiographical memories. The effects of rumination may be due to memory effects such as retrieval practice and mood congruency. Individuals experiencing higher levels of depressive symptom severity may be more likely to experience increasingly negative memories due to rumination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Negative self-schemas are fundamental to social anxiety disorder and contribute to its persistence, thus understanding how to change schemas is of critical importance. Memory-based interventions and associated theories propose that reconstructing autobiographical memories tethered to schemas with conceptual details that challenge the associated expectations will lead to schema change. Here, we test this proposal in a between-subjects behavioural experiment with undergraduate participants with social anxiety. All participants were asked to recall aversive social memories, evaluated these memories on a series of scales, including estimates of reoccurrence, and provided ratings of negative and positive schema beliefs. Next, half the participants reconstructed (rescripted) these aversive memories with conceptual details that challenged the active schema (conceptual condition) and the other half reconstructed the memories with additional experiential details (perceptual condition). All participants provided again evaluations of the original memory and their schema beliefs. Our analysis revealed that the conceptual condition led to significant reductions in negative self-schemas, increases in positive self-schemas, and decreases in estimates of future negative event reoccurrence. Thus, effective schema-change, both a weakening of negative schemas and a strengthening of more positive, adaptive schemas, is dependent on altering the underlying meaning of associated autobiographical memories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Self-disorders constitute a core feature of the schizophrenia spectrum, including early stages such as first-episode psychosis (FEP). These disorders impact the minimal Self, or bodily self-consciousness, which refers to the basic, pre-reflective sense of embodied experience. The minimal Self is intrinsically linked to episodic memory, which captures specific past experiences of the Self. However, research on this relationship in the schizophrenia spectrum remains scarce. This pilot study aimed to investigate how the minimal Self modulated episodic memory of naturalistic events in FEP, using immersive virtual reality. A secondary objective was to examine the relationships between sense of Self, embodiment, episodic memory, schizotypal personality traits in healthy participants (CTL), and psychopathology in FEP. Methods: A full-body illusion was induced in 10 FEP and 35 matched CTL, using a first-person avatar, with synchronous or asynchronous visuomotor stimulation (strong or weak embodiment conditions, respectively). Following embodiment induction, participants navigated a virtual city and encountered naturalistic daily life events, which were incidentally encoded. Episodic memory of these events was assessed through a comprehensive recognition task (factual and contextual information, retrieval phenomenology). Sense of Self, schizotypal personality traits, and psychopathology were assessed via self-reported questionnaires or clinical assessments. Results: Synchronous visuomotor stimulation successfully induced a stronger sense of embodiment in both FEP and CTL. The strong embodiment condition was associated with reduced perceived virtual space occupation by the body in FEP. Under strong embodiment, FEP performed significantly worse than CTL in contextual information recognition, but their ratings for retrieval phenomenology were comparable to CTL. Conversely, under weak embodiment, FEP performed similarly to CTL in contextual information recognition, but they rated retrieval phenomenology significantly lower. For CTL, we observed a slight, though non-significant, enhancement in recognition memory under strong compared to weak embodiment. Additionally, higher schizotypy in CTL correlated with a diminished sense of Self and poorer episodic memory. Conclusions: Disturbances in the minimal Self in FEP are associated with episodic memory impairments. These findings emphasise the importance of targeting minimal Self-disorders in schizophrenia spectrum disorders, since episodic memory impairments may negatively affect patients' quality of life and psychosocial outcomes. Additionally, they support a fully dimensional model of schizotypy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Knowledge about personally familiar people and places is extremely rich and varied, involving pieces of semantic information connected in unpredictable ways through past autobiographical memories. In this work, we investigate whether we can capture brain processing of personally familiar people and places using subject-specific memories, after transforming them into vectorial semantic representations using language models. First, we asked participants to provide us with the names of the closest people and places in their lives. Then we collected open-ended answers to a questionnaire, aimed at capturing various facets of declarative knowledge. We collected EEG data from the same participants while they were reading the names and subsequently mentally visualizing their referents. As a control set of stimuli, we also recorded evoked responses to a matched set of famous people and places. We then created original semantic representations for the individual entities using language models. For personally familiar entities, we used the text of the answers to the questionnaire. For famous entities, we employed their Wikipedia page, which reflects shared declarative knowledge about them. Through whole-scalp time-resolved and searchlight encoding analyses, we found that we could capture how the brain processes one's closest people and places using person-specific answers to questionnaires, as well as famous entities. Overall encoding performance was significant in a large time window (200-800ms). Using spatio-temporal EEG searchlight, we found that we could predict brain responses significantly better than chance earlier (200-500ms) in bilateral temporo-parietal electrodes and later (500-700ms) in frontal and posterior central electrodes. We also found that XLM, a contextualized (or large) language model, provided superior encoding scores when compared with a simpler static language model as word2vec. Overall, these results indicate that language models can capture subject-specific semantic representations as they are processed in the human brain, by exploiting small-scale distributional lexical data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

My goal in this paper is to argue that some cases of autobiographical remembering can be, and sometimes are, experienced aesthetically. Building on a Deweyan approach to the nature of aesthetic experiences, I show how Dewey conceived of aesthetic experiences as having a cumulative and progressive structure—I call experiences with such structure Deweyan experiences—and how that structure is replicated in some cases of autobiographical remembering in virtue of their having narrative structure. I also discuss the relationship between remembering and other forms of narrative thinking and argue that not only it is easier for remembering to be experienced aesthetically, but also that only remembering can have the cumulative and progressive structure that characterizes Deweyan experiences. I conclude by showing how the Deweyan approach allows us to conceive of the aesthetic value of remembering in terms of the pleasurable or hedonic character of Deweyan experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spontaneous mind wandering has been implicated as a feature of attention‐deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and researchers have wondered if spontaneous remembering is also a feature of ADHD. In this study, we compared spontaneous cognition, principally involuntary autobiographical memories, in participants who scored inside the ADHD range on BAARS‐IV to those who scored outside of the ADHD range. In Study 1, participants reported their involuntary memories and spontaneous thoughts on a laboratory measure of involuntary memory (the vigilance task), as well as estimated their daily involuntary memory frequencies on a separate questionnaire. The results showed that ADHD range participants did not differ from non‐ADHD range participants in reports of involuntary memories and spontaneous thoughts on the vigilance task, but ADHD range participants estimated higher daily involuntary memory frequencies than non‐ADHD range participants on the questionnaire. Additionally, on the questionnaire, ADHD participants reported that their involuntary memories were less positive and more repetitive than non‐ADHD participants. In Study 2, participants recorded their naturally occurring involuntary memories in a structured diary for 48 hours. The results showed that ADHD range participants had more involuntary memories than non‐ADHD range participants, and they also reported that they experienced them as less positive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research comprises three studies centered on the development and validation of a self-report measure of psychological closure and resolution, the Closure and Resolution Scale (CRS). Study 1 used exploratory factor analysis (EFA) in two samples to probe the factor structure for closure using original (Study 1a N = 284) and revised (Study 1b N = 158) item pools. Study 2 (N = 159) examined model fit using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), and revealed a good-fitting simple structural solution. The CRS consists of 34 items assessing six facets of event resolution: (1) finality, (2) understanding, (3) felt distance, (4) emotional relief, (5) mental release, and (6) behavioural deactivation. Study 3 (N = 182) examined convergent and discriminant validity for the CRS and provided evidence of construct validity. Participants resided in North America and primarily identified as White (68.7%−77.5%), male (44.3%−59.3%) or female (40.1%−55.7%), with post-secondary education (69.3%−71.7%). We offer a novel measure of psychological closure and resolution with preliminary evidence of good psychometric properties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

\nIntroduction: Beyond the memory deficits classically observed in individuals with alcohol use disorder (IwAUD), research has recently focused on the study of autobiographical memory (AM) processes in IwAUD by analysing the content of AM narratives, and the implications for self-conception have been discussed. However, little is known about how IwAUD subjectively experience autobiographical recall. Methods: Thirty-seven IwAUD and 37 control participants were invited to perform an AM task that involved recalling memories for 4 life periods (2 important memories per period). Then, they assessed their subjective experience during AM recall using 6 phenomenological scales evaluating emotional valence, emotional intensity, sensory details, distancing, sharing, and vividness. Anxiety and depression symptoms, interoceptive sensibility, and difficulties in emotion regulation were also measured. Results: The IwAUD experienced greater distancing during AM recall, except during childhood AM recall, indicating that IwAUD are more prone to feeling that the person they are today is different from the person in their retrieved AMs. Very few intergroup differences were observed for AMs from childhood, adolescence-young adulthood, and adulthood, and a greater number of differences were observed for AMs from the last year: the IwAUD experienced AMs with a more negative valence, greater emotional intensity, fewer sensory details, greater distancing, and less sharing. A positive correlation was observed between distancing and interoceptive sensibility in the IwAUD group. Conclusion: Although these results suggest good preservation of autonoetic consciousness in IwAUD, except for more recent AMs, it is insufficient for IwAUD to experience a sense of self-continuity. This difficulty in maintaining a continuous sense of self may constitute a risk for AUD relapse. Beyond the memory deficits classically observed in individuals with alcohol use disorder (IwAUD), research has recently focused on the study of autobiographical memory (AM), which is the memory of personal experiences and facts about the self. By analysing the content of AM narratives in IwAUD, recent studies have reported a degradation of AMs content that may impact the self-conception of IwAUD. However, little is known about how IwAUD subjectively experience autobiographical recall. Thirty-seven IwAUD and 37 control participants were invited to perform an AM task that involved recalling memories for 4 life periods (2 important memories per period) and to assess their subjective experience during AM recall using 6 phenomenological scales. Anxiety and depression symptoms, interoceptive sensibility, and difficulties in emotion regulation were also measured. The IwAUD were more likely to feel that the person they are today is different from the person in their retrieved AMs (greater distancing), except during childhood AM recall. Very few intergroup differences were observed for AMs from childhood, adolescence-young adulthood, and adulthood, and a greater number of differences were observed for AMs from the last year: the IwAUD experienced AMs with a more negative valence, greater emotional intensity, fewer sensory details, greater distancing, and less sharing. A positive correlation was observed between distancing and interoceptive sensibility in the IwAUD group, indicating that the greater their interoceptive sensibility was, the more the IwAUD felt that they were a different person from the person in their AMs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emerging evidence suggests that autobiographical memory (ABM) is altered in Huntington's disease (HD). While these impairments are typically attributed to frontostriatal dysfunction, the neural substrates of ABM impairment in HD remain unexplored. To this end, we assessed ABM in 30 participants with genetically confirmed HD (18 premanifest, 12 manifest) and 24 age‐matched healthy controls. Participants completed the Autobiographical Interview to assess free and probed ABM recall and underwent structural brain imaging. Whole‐brain voxel‐based morphometry (VBM) was used to explore voxel‐wise associations between ABM performance and grey matter intensity (False Discovery Rate corrected at q = 0.05). Relative to controls, HD participants displayed significantly less detailed ABM retrieval across free and probed recall conditions, irrespective of disease stage. Recall performance did not differ significantly between manifest and premanifest HD groups. VBM analyses indicated that poorer ABM performance was associated with atrophy of a distributed cortico‐subcortical network. Key regions implicated irrespective of ABM condition included the bilateral occipital cortex, left precuneus, right parahippocampal gyrus and right caudate nucleus. In addition, probed ABM recall was associated with the superior and inferior frontal gyri, frontal pole, right hippocampus, nucleus accumbens, paracingulate gyrus and cerebellum. Overall, our findings indicate that ABM impairments in HD reflect the progressive degeneration of a distributed cortico‐subcortical brain network comprising medial temporal, frontal, striatal and posterior parietal cortices. Our findings advance our understanding of the neurocognitive profile of HD, providing an important foundation for future interventions to support memory function in this population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We know much about people’s problematic reactions—such as distressing intrusions—to negative, stressful, or traumatic past events. But emerging evidence suggests people react similarly to negative and potentially-traumatic future events. Given similar processes underlie remembering the past and imagining the future more generally, we wondered how similar involuntary memories, or intrusions, are for experienced vs. anticipated events. We focused primarily on intrusions because they are a transdiagnostic reaction to traumatic events. We asked subjects to report either a very stressful event they had experienced in the past 6 months, or one they anticipated they could experience in the next 6 months. We measured the frequency of intrusions about these reported events, and intrusions’ phenomenological characteristics (such as emotional intensity), negative appraisals about their meaning, and reactions to them more generally. Overall, we found intrusions about experienced vs. anticipated autobiographical events were similarly troubling. This pattern supports the idea that anticipating the future can be aversive and elicit post-traumatic-stress-like symptoms, just as remembering the past can. Our findings have implications for theoretical models of traumatic-stress and treatment of traumatic-stress symptoms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Objective Method Results Conclusion The evolving life story is integral to personality, and motivational themes are central features of the life story. Personality implies individual differences that are relatively stable over time, but still allow for developmental processes. This study explored both long‐term stability and developmental change in thematic content of the life story.Fulfilled and unfulfilled agency and communion were studied in brief entire life narratives across 4 measurements in 12 years in a cohort‐sequential design including six cohorts (n = 172; age 8–77).Fulfilled agency and communion, as well as unfulfilled agency exhibited moderate rank order stability over 4 and 8 years, fulfilled communion showed even a modest 12‐year stability, whereas unfulfilled communion displayed an unsystematic pattern. Developmentally, multilevel analyses revealed an inverted U‐shaped association between age and both fulfilled and unfulfilled agency, peaking in mid‐life. Fulfilled communion declined after emerging adulthood, but unexpectedly did not increase again in old age. Unfulfilled communion showed no systematic age trends. Girls and women told life narratives with more fulfilled and unfulfilled communion, whereas genders did not differ in either kind of agency.The content of the life story exhibits rank‐order stability over time and systematic mean‐level development across the life span. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is the most effective treatment for patients suffering from treatment-resistant depression but its use is often limited by the concern for cognitive side effects. This study examines the effect of ECT on autobiographical and verbal memory compared to a healthy control group and the impact of the mean stimulus dose on cognition after ECT. Methods: Autobiographical and verbal memory were assessed in depressed patients and healthy controls before the first and within one week after the last ECT treatment. Neuropsychological testing included the Autobiographical Memory Interview, the Verbal Learning and Memory Test and five tests from the Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery. The mean charge delivered across the ECT series and the total number of sessions were examined in relationship to cognitive impairment after ECT using a multiple regression model. Results: Autobiographical memory was significantly impaired after ECT treatment compared to healthy controls. Baseline scores were lower for depressed patients on all cognitive domains. Improvements in performance after ECT were found on tests for executive functions and working memory. Effects of the mean charge delivered on cognitive functioning after ECT were heterogeneous across cognitive domains but significant for verbal retrograde memory. Conclusion: ECT led to autobiographical memory impairment. The relationship between mean charge delivered and cognitive performance is heterogeneous across different cognitive domains and requires further research. Significant effects of the mean charge delivered were found without a significant difference in cognitive functioning compared to a healthy control group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Episodic memories are experienced as belonging to a self that persists in time. We review evidence concerning the nature of human episodic memory and of the sense of self and how these emerge during development, proposing that the younger child experiences a persistent self that supports a subjective experience of remembering. We then explore recent research in cognitive architectures for robotics that has investigated the possibility of forms of synthetic episodic and autobiographical memory. We show that recent advances in generative modeling can support an understanding of the emergence of self and of episodic memory, and that cognitive architectures which include a language capacity are showing progress towards the construction of a narrative self with autobiographical memory capabilities for robots. We conclude by considering the prospects for a more complete model of mental time travel in robotics and the implications of this modeling work for understanding human episodic memory and the self in time. This article is part of the theme issue 'Elements of episodic memory: lessons from 40 years of research'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tulving's concept of mental time travel (MTT), and the related distinction of episodic and semantic memory, have been highly influential contributions to memory research, resulting in a wealth of findings and a deeper understanding of the neurocognitive correlates of memory and future thinking. Many models have conceptualized episodic and semantic representations as existing on a continuum that can help to account for various hybrid forms. Nevertheless, in most theories, MTT remains distinctly associated with episodic representations. In this article, we review existing models of memory and future thinking, and critically evaluate whether episodic representations are distinct from other types of explicit representations, including whether MTT as a neurocognitive capacity is uniquely episodic. We conclude by proposing a new framework, the Multidimensional Model of Mental Representations (MMMR), which can parsimoniously account for the range of past, present and future representations the human mind is capable of creating. This article is part of the theme issue 'Elements of episodic memory: lessons from 40 years of research'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Memory is notoriously fallible and susceptible to misinformation. Yet little is known about the underlying cognitive and neural mechanisms that render individuals vulnerable to this type of false memory. The current experiments take an individual differences approach to examine whether susceptibility to misinformation reflects stable underlying factors related to memory retrieval. In Study 1, we report for the first time the existence of substantial individual variability in susceptibility to misinformation in the context of repeated memory retrieval, when the misinformation effect is most pronounced. This variability was not related to an individual's tendency to adopt an episodic retrieval style during remembering (trait mnemonics). In Study 2, we next examined whether susceptibility to misinformation is related to intrinsic functional connectivity in medial temporal lobe (MTL) networks known to coordinate memory reactivation during event retrieval. Stronger resting-state functional connectivity between the MTL and cortical areas associated with visual memory reactivation (occipital cortex) was associated with better protection from misinformation. Together, these results reveal that while memory distortion is a universal property of our reconstructive memory system, susceptibility to misinformation varies at the individual level and may depend on one's ability to reactivate visual details during memory retrieval. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When recalling autobiographical events, people not only retrieve event details but also the feelings they experienced. The current study examined whether people are able to consistently recall the intensity of past feelings associated with two consequential and negatively valenced events, i.e. the 9/11 attack (N = 769) and the COVID-19 pandemic (N = 726). By comparing experienced and recalled intensities of negative feelings, we discovered that people systematically recall a higher intensity of negative feelings than initially reported – overestimating the intensity of past negative emotional experiences. The COVID-19 dataset also revealed that individuals who experienced greater improvement in emotional well-being displayed smaller biases in recalling their feelings. Across both datasets, the intensity of remembered feelings was correlated with initial feelings and current feelings, but the impact of the current feelings was stronger in the COVID-19 dataset than in the 9/11 dataset. Our results demonstrate that when recalling negative autobiographical events, people tend to overestimate the intensity of prior negative emotional experiences with their degree of bias influenced by current feelings and well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ability to stop unwanted memories from coming to mind is theorised to be essential for maintaining good mental health. People can employ intentional strategies to prevent conscious intrusions of negative memories, and repeated attempts to stop retrieval both reduces the frequency of intrusions and improves subsequent emotions elicited by those memories. However, it is still unknown whether memory control can improve negative emotions immediately, at the time control is attempted. It is also not clear which strategy is most beneficial for emotion regulation; clearing the mind of any thoughts of negative memories via direct suppression, or substituting memory recall with alternative thoughts. Here, we provide novel evidence that memory control immediately regulates negative emotions associated with autobiographical memories of morally wrong actions. Repeated control significantly improved negative emotions over time, regardless of the strategy used to implement control. Thought substitution involving either positive diversionary thinking or counterfactual thinking both induced positive feelings, whereas direct suppression neutralised emotions, regardless of whether memories were positive or negative. These empirical findings have implications for clinical practice as they indicate that memory control strategies could be effective emotion regulation methods for real-world intrusive memories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Positive reappraisal strategies have been found to reduce negative affect following the recall of negative personal events. This study examined the restorative effect of two mood-repair instructions (self-compassion vs benefit-focused reappraisal) and a control condition with no instructions following a negative Mood Induction Procedure by using the guided recall of a negative autobiographical event. A total of 112 university students participated in the online study (81% women, Mage: 21.0 years). Immediately following the negative memory recall, participants were randomised to each condition [(self-compassion: n = 36, benefit-focused: n = 39) or a control condition (n = 37)]. Repeated measures ANOVAs 3 (Repair condition) × 3 (Time of mood assessment: pre-recall, post-recall, post-regulation) showed that, as expected, negative mood (sadness, shame, and guilt) worsened significantly after the guided recall in all groups (p <.001). After the mood-repair intervention, participants in the self-compassion and benefit-focused conditions showed a significant reduction in negative mood (p <.019), while such improvement was not observed in the control group. Self-compassion and benefit-focused reappraisal functioned similarly as mood repair strategies after experiencing negative affect induced by the recall of negative personal memories. Implications in the context of autobiographical memory biases are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: Research in adults suggests that intrusive memories and intrusive thoughts (often referred to as intrusive cognitions) are common in members of the general population and are often seen in clinical disorders. However, little is known about the experience of intrusive cognitions in adolescents, particularly in adolescents with major depressive disorder (MDD) and post‐traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The present study sought to gather fundamental data on these phenomena (i.e., frequency, characteristics and appraisals of intrusive cognitions) in adolescents with MDD and PTSD. Methods: Adolescents aged 11–18 with MDD (n = 11), PTSD (n = 13) and a non‐clinical control group (n = 25) completed structured interviews concerning their intrusive memories and thoughts. Results: Intrusive thoughts were common in all three groups but were particularly frequently experienced in the MDD group. Intrusive memories were expectedly very common in the PTSD group but also experienced by over half of the adolescents with MDD. Both clinical groups reported more negative emotions in response to their intrusive thoughts or memories and appraised these cognitions more negatively than the non‐clinical group. Conclusion: Intrusive memories and thoughts are common experiences in adolescents with MDD and PTSD. Emotions and appraisals relating to these cognitions may be targets for psychological intervention in this age group. However, small sample sizes limit the conclusions that can be drawn. Replication is needed with larger numbers of clinical participants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Self-efficacy is associated with positive mental health outcomes. We developed and tested a digital self-efficacy training for daily recall of autobiographical self-efficacy memories (e.g., memories of successfully overcoming a personal challenge). Method: In this randomized controlled trial, we investigated the effects of the week-long digital self-efficacy training on key mental health outcomes, including anxiety, stress, and hopelessness, and on self-efficacy in 93 university students (mean age 23.3 years, SD: 3.49) with elevated self-reported stress levels. Participants completed either the self-efficacy training combined with ecological momentary assessment (EMA) (training group) or EMA only (control group). Results: We found significantly reduced hopelessness and trait anxiety in the training group compared to the control group at post-assessment (one day post intervention). Effects on ratings of self-efficacy at post-assessment were also significant when controlling for baseline self-efficacy. Conclusions: This stand-alone digital self-efficacy training was significantly associated with a number of positive effects on outcomes compared to a control condition, including reduced hopelessness, trait anxiety, and increased self-efficacy. Future work is needed to replicate and investigate the long-term effects of the training and explore its implementation in clinical populations. Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT05617248 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Episodic autobiographical memory (EAM) is a long-term memory system of personally experienced events with their context – what, where, when – and subjective elements, e.g., emotions, thoughts, or self-reference. EAM formation has rarely been studied in a controlled, real-life-like paradigm, and there is no predictive model of long-term retrieval from self-rated subjective experience at encoding. The present longitudinal study, with three surprise free recall memory tests immediately, one-week and one-month after encoding, investigated incidental encoding of EAM in an immersive virtual environment where 30 participants either interacted with or observed specific events of varying emotional valences with simultaneous physiological recordings. The predictive analyses highlight the temporal dynamics of the predictors of EAM from subjective ratings at encoding: common characteristics related to sense of remembering and infrequency of real-life encounter of the event were identified over time, but different variables become relevant at different time points, such as the emotion and mental imagery or prospective aspects. This dynamic and time-dependent role of memory predictors challenges traditional views of a uniform influence of encoding factors over time. Current evidence for the multiphasic nature of memory formation points to the role of different mechanisms at play during encoding but also consolidation and subsequent retrieval. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article "Please Tell About Dad": Anxiety and Nostalgia in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman" by Fukui Huang explores the themes of anxiety and nostalgia in postwar America as depicted in Arthur Miller's play. The text delves into the anxious conditions of characters like Willy and his sons, examining their struggles with masculine identity and societal pressures. Through a detailed analysis of the play, the article highlights how Miller uses memory episodes to portray the existential anxiety that haunts middle-class American men amidst social and economic changes. [Extracted from the article]

Music accompanies all phases of our lives, and when we reach old age, music becomes a direct symbol of nostalgia. Autobiographical memories are essential to an individual's sense of identity, continuity, and meaning. But some pathologies, such as dementia, can interrupt the memory storage process. Music can help recall and evoke memories and can be used in alternative treatments for dementia. This work aims to propose an architecture for a music recommendation system capable of recommending music according to musical genre, with the aim of helping music therapists in therapies addressed to elderly people with dementia in initial states. Here we used data from the public music database Emotify, which is composed of 400 songs labeled by 1595 participants in 7975 sessions. Both channels of the songs were windowed using 10s windows with 5s overlap. The data from these windows were represented by 34 time and frequency features. Then, we assessed and compared the performance of classifiers based on support vector machines, decisions trees and Bayesian network. The most suitable architecture in this experimental study was the Random Forest with 250 trees, with an accuracy of 83.42% ± 1.72%, kappa statistic of 0.78 ± 0.02, AUC-ROC of 0.99 ± 0.00, sensitivity of 0.96 ± 0.02, and specificity of 0.94 ± 0.01. this exploratory study found promising results that indicates the possibility of building recommendation systems to support music therapy based on the automatic classification of songs according to the most appropriate musical genre for the patient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Prominent eating disorders (EDs) theories identify a critical relationship between body and self. One of the ways to study this relationship is through autobiographical memories (AMs). The present review aimed to evaluate the studies that investigated AM in patients with EDs. Methods: A search of PubMed, ScienceDirect, and Scopus databases was performed to identify relevant articles. Of the 57,113 studies found, 25,016 were not duplicated. After screening, 27 articles were included. Results: The studies had some methodological flaws: none of the articles was a randomized control trial and the sample sizes were small. Nevertheless, important evidence emerged because all studies showed that patients with EDs have impaired AM function. This is because the way patients with EDs remember and define themselves is through an allocentric perspective associated with the gazes of others whose role has an impact on AM, body shape, and self. Conclusion: To our knowledge, this is the first systematic review to examine AM in patients with EDs. Future research is needed in EDs to expand knowledge about the relationship between the body and the self. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Autobiographical memory (ABM) is memory for past personal experiences and is foundational to the development of many cognitive processes. As such, ABM and social learning are developmentally intertwined and functionally dependent, and impairments in each are well-documented in autism. Evidence suggests that elaborative reminiscing (ER) causally and positively impacts neurotypical children's ABM and social learning. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a new caregiver-mediated ABM intervention that adapts the principles of ER in ways that align with best practices for supporting social learning in autistic children. Participants were 26 caregiver-child dyads; all children (ages 6-15 years) had a diagnosis of autism. We hypothesized that: (1) caregivers would demonstrate improvements in ER across three phases of study (pre-treatment, post-treatment, and follow-up) and (2) children would demonstrate improvements in supported and unsupported ABM and social learning. Results indicated that caregivers demonstrated increased elaborativeness at post-intervention, and that this was maintained at follow-up. Additionally, children demonstrated improvements in supported memory and some measures of social learning at post-intervention, and this was maintained at follow-up. Children also showed improvements in unsupported memory at post-intervention; however, this was not maintained. Results suggest that caregivers of autistic children can be trained to use ER, and that ER is associated with the development of supported memory in autistic children across a wide range of ages. Clinical applications include supporting social learning and connection in autism using ER. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Autobiographical memory (ABM) and social cognition are mutually constituted, and both are affected in autism. Meanwhile, very little is known about the heterogeneity of ABM in autism, how ABM differences are present in real-world contexts, and how to best respond to autistic children's ABM differences. The goals of this qualitative study were to examine the nature of ABM in autistic youth to understand its presentation and practical impacts in everyday life and to identify research priorities to inform clinical and educational practice. Nineteen parents of autistic children (ages 6-15) participated in a semi-structured interview designed to solicit information about their children's ABM. Interviews were transcribed and coded for the presence of themes. The main themes and their subthemes (in parentheses) were: (1) episodic memory problems (disorganized/overgeneralized narratives; poor episodic foresight; confabulation and avoidance/escape) that demonstrated an effect of task support and (2) ABM strengths (semantic memory; sensory-perceptual memory; emotional memory) that were described as forms of motivated memory. Results were broadly consistent with existing empirical data but expand understanding of the complexity of the memory profiles of autistic youth with important research, practice, and advocacy implications. We conclude that a focus on ABM assessment and support is overdue and critically relevant for clinical and educational goals involving social cognition and communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do we remember traumatic events, and are these memories different in individuals who experience post-traumatic stress? Some evidence suggests that traumatic events are mnemonically enhanced, or include more episodic detail, relative to other types of memories. Simultaneously, individuals with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) have more non-episodic details in all of their memories, a pattern hypothesized to result from impairment in executive function. Here, we explore these questions in a unique population that experienced severely traumatic events more than 20 years ago – individuals who lived through the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. Participants recalled events from the genocide, negative events unrelated to the genocide, neutral events, and positive events. We used the Autobiographical Interview method to label memory details as episodic or non-episodic. We found that memories from the genocide showed robust mnemonic enhancement, with more episodic than non-episodic details, and contained more details overall than any other memory type. This pattern was not impacted by post-traumatic stress. Overall, this study provides evidence that traumatic events create vivid long-lasting episodic memories, in this case even more than 20 years later. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is characterized by autobiographical memory deficits, with the ability to retrieve episodic-rich memories being particularly affected. Here, we investigated the influence of AD on a specific subtype of episodic memories known as flashbulb memories (i.e., the ability to remember the personal circumstances for the reception of important news events). We examined the frequency, characteristics, and the temporal distribution of flashbulb memories across the life span. To this aim, 28 older adults diagnosed with AD and a matched sample of 29 healthy older controls were probed for flashbulb memories for two historical events from each decade of their lives. They also estimated the subjective degree of reexperiencing for the memories reported. AD participants showed impaired access to flashbulb memories, the frequency of reported memories being lower than for healthy older adults. However, qualitative aspects of AD participants' flashbulb memories were quite similar to those of the controls, as no group differences were obtained with respect to the canonical categories or degree of reexperience. AD participants' flashbulb memories clustered during the early years of their life, consistent with a reminiscence bump, whereas healthy controls also reported memories dated to later lifetime periods. Our results suggest that probing for personal memories of important public events may serve as a powerful cue for detailed episodic memories in AD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: This study aims to investigate whether the reminiscence bump in older adults' autobiographical memory is influenced by the interviewer's age. Methods: I arranged four interviewer. Conditions: child, university student, middle-aged adult, and older adult. The participating older adults were asked individually to describe three memories and the age at which the event occurred. I analyzed the temporal distribution of the bumps and the recall order. Results: The results indicate that the interviewer's age, especially the child interviewers were influenced the temporal location of the reminiscence bump. Conclusion: This study discusses the implications of these findings for older adults' social communication processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A lifetime of resilience through emotionally challenging experiences may benefit older adults, lending to emotion regulation mastery with time. Yet the influence of autobiographical experiences on momentary reappraisal, the reinterpretation of negative stimuli as more positive, has never been empirically tested. This online study examined the extent to which associating life memories of resilience with novel negative scenarios enhanced reappraisal efficacy and reduced difficulty to reappraise. Younger and older adults reappraised negative images by associating reappraisals to freely selected autobiographical resilience memories, cued autobiographical resilience memories, or by finding situational silver linings without mnemonic association (control). Changes in image emotional intensity ratings revealed no difference across reappraisal conditions for younger adults, while older adults most effectively down-regulated emotional intensity using the control reappraisal strategy. Older adults found autobiographical memories more helpful for mood regulation and less difficult to implement, and identified greater similarities between novel negative scenarios and their memories than younger adults. Surprisingly, greater similarity between resilience memories and negative images was associated with lower reappraisal efficacy for both age groups. Findings demonstrate the age-equivalent benefits of utilizing reappraisals associated with past narratives of resilience and suggest a sacrifice of immediate hedonic benefit for disproportionately greater subjective benefits with age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The existence or questionability of "repressed memories" can be discussed as being a matter of definition. It seems, however, far‐fetched to consider all "lost" memories as caused by encoding problems, brain damage, forgetfulness, failure to disclose events, and so on. We argue that dissociative amnesia (DA) (or "psychogenic amnesia," or "functional amnesia," or, as we favor to call it, "mnestic block syndrome") is caused by psychic alterations, but ultimately they can be traced to changes in the physiology of the brain, as we are of the opinion that all memory processes—positive or negative—alter brain functions, sometimes more permanently, sometimes transiently. We have proven this idea using functional imaging techniques, in particular fluoro‐deoxy‐d‐glucose positron emission tomography. Having investigated dozens of patients with severe and long‐lasting DA conditions, we believe it to be disrespectful to many (but not to all) of the affected patients to question their disease condition, which can be proven to be not caused by feigning, malingering, or direct brain damage. We argue that "repressed memories" – as found in dissociative or psychogenic amnesia – are caused by major stress and trauma conditions and lead to changes in the brain. These alterations can be proven by functional brain imaging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Think/No‐Think (T/NT) task was designed to test whether the deliberate avoidance of retrieving a memory (i.e., suppression) hinders the subsequent recall of that memory. Forgetting effects obtained with the T/NT‐task (Suppression‐Induced Forgetting) are thought to result from memory inhibition: the deactivation of the representation of the to‐be‐suppressed memory. Memory inhibition can be specifically inferred from decreased performance on a test using Independent Probes—cues that are unrelated to the initial study phase in the T/NT‐procedure. The present contribution explores the evidence for the idea that Suppression‐Induced Forgetting obtained with such Independent Probes may provide a viable model for repression. A review of the literature on Suppression‐Induced Forgetting with Independent Probes (SIF‐IP) suggests that reliable estimates of the overall effect size are unavailable, that the extent to which the literature suffers from publication bias is unknown and that reporting bias may obstruct a clear view of the percentage of studies that find a statistically significant effect. In addition, it is difficult to study SIF‐IP in autobiographical memories, due to their complexity and idiosyncrasy. All in all, it seems questionable whether suppression‐induced forgetting obtained with independent probes provides a viable model of repression. The Think/No‐Think (T/NT) task (Anderson & Green, 2001) examines whether intentional suppression of memory retrieval hampers subsequent recall, known as Suppression‐Induced Forgetting (SIF). Initially, the T/NT task was proposed as an experimental analogue for repressed memory, particularly when examining SIF with Independent Probes (unrelated cues). However, the present paper argues that the literature on SIF with Independent Probes lacks reliable effect size estimates, may suffer from publication and reporting bias, and faces challenges in studying autobiographical memories, casting doubt on its viability as a model for repression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the possibility of practitioners who mistake organic memory loss for dissociative amnesia. It starts with the case of a young man with complete retrograde amnesia due to a traumatic head injury. Because he did not show any gross neurological abnormalities, a neurologist thought his amnesia had a psychological origin. An extensive neuropsychological examination revealed that the man did have an organic reason for his amnesia. Next, the existence of dissociative memory loss as well as isolated organic retrograde amnesia is considered. While cases of organic memory loss are well‐documented, there is hardly any evidence for dissociative amnesia. It is argued that organic memory loss might be mistakenly taken for dissociative amnesia. In line with the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, practitioners are advised to rule out the possibility of organic memory loss, before diagnosing a patient with dissociative amnesia. A patient with autobiographical memory loss but without gross neurological abnormalities may be diagnosed with dissociative amnesia, i.e., amnesia with a psychological origin. In this article, I argue that the absence of apparent neurological symptoms does not mean that a patient's amnesia is caused by psychological factors. Only when a medical history, neuropsychological testing, and brain scans rule out a neurological origin of the memory loss, a patient may genuinely suffer from dissociative amnesia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People often have difficulties remembering prior episodes of remembering, a phenomenon known as the forgot‐it‐all‐along (FIA) effect. Although the effect was first discovered among victims of spontaneously recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse, laboratory paradigms of the FIA have shown that difficulties in remembering "remembering" can be elicited when the memory was previously recalled in a different context. Although much attention has been paid to establishing the robustness of the FIA phenomenon, little emphasis has been placed on the cognitive mechanisms underlying the effect. The goal of the present review is, therefore, to organize the literature surrounding the FIA effect and to discuss cognitive mechanisms that may explain the effect: source monitoring errors, the Encoding Specificity principle, and dating inaccuracies. By providing a brief overview of the literature surrounding the FIA phenomenon, this review can serve as a guide for how future studies may approach the FIA effect in the context of recovered memories. People have difficulties remembering 'remembering' when the memory was previously recalled in a different context, a phenomenon known as the Forgot‐It‐All‐Along (FIA) effect. Because the FIA effect may explain why people who claim to have recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse could have mentioned the abuse to others in the period they had allegedly forgotten the abuse, the present review provides a brief overview of the literature surrounding the effect and discusses the cognitive mechanisms that may explain the phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Early childhood events are rarely remembered in adulthood. In fact, memory for these early experiences declines during childhood itself. This holds regardless of whether these memories of autobiographical experiences are traumatic or mundane, everyday experiences. Indeed, what people tend to remember from their childhoods involves relatively innocuous experiences, ones often devoid of emotion. In this article, I provide an overview of the types of memories adults recall from their childhoods and the ages at which these memories are believed to have been formed. Along the way, I provide a brief exegesis of the neurobiological and cognitive underpinnings of early memory development. I will show that changes and growth in neural interconnectivity as well as the development of various cognitive structures (e.g., the inception of the cognitive self) help propel the emergence of a mature autobiographical memory system, one that can and does serve as a reconstructive base for remembering events that occur in later childhood and adulthood. During the course of this review, I detail the nature of early memories, their fragility, and the adaptive consequences of forgetting and supplanting these memories with newer, more age‐appropriate experiences throughout childhood. In this article, I provide an overview of the types of memories adults recall from their childhoods and the ages at which these memories are believed to have been formed. I detail the fragility of early memories and the adaptive consequences of forgetting and supplanting these memories with newer, more age‐appropriate experiences throughout childhood. This includes a brief exegesis of the neurobiological and cognitive underpinnings of early memory development where I show that changes and growth in neural interconnectivity as well as the development of various cognitive structures (e.g., the inception of the cognitive self) help propel the emergence of a mature autobiographical memory system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Alzheimer's disease (AD) is characterized by severe memory alterations, affecting especially memories of personal past events. Until now, autobiographical memory impairments have been characterized using formal memory assessments, requiring patients to strategically and deliberately recall past events. However, contrary to this highly cognitively demanding mode of memory recall, autobiographical memories frequently come to mind unexpectedly based on automatic associative processes. The involuntary recall of personal memories is effortless and possibly represents a preserved way for AD patients to remember past events. Objective: This study aimed to investigate involuntary autobiographical memory in AD patients and compare the characteristics of these memories with those of healthy controls. Methods: Involuntary autobiographical memory was measured in 24 AD patients and 24 matched control participants using self-report measures. Participants were asked to report the frequency with which involuntary autobiographical memories were experienced in their daily life and to describe and self-assess one example of an involuntary memory. Results: We showed that AD patients and control participants did not differ in terms of the frequency or subjective characteristics of their involuntary autobiographical memories in daily life, except for feelings of intrusiveness. Compared to control participants, AD patients reported their involuntary autobiographical memories as being more intrusive. In addition, more negative and vague involuntary autobiographical memories were associated with greater depressive symptoms. Conclusions: These findings open up a new avenue for research to better understand the extent to which involuntary autobiographical memory might be preserved in AD patients and why these memories may in turn become intrusive to patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

PRACTICE IMPACT STATEMENTThis study examines the autobiographical memories of 84 individuals convicted of sexual offences. Our results indicate that despite their adverse childhoods, chaotic families, and compromised social competence, justice-involved clients can engage meaningfully in longform narrative interviews that contain probing personal and reflective questions about their early lives. In fact, many participants expressed gratitude that they were invited to engage and share their experiences in this way. This pioneering interdisciplinary study has important practical implications for providers of psychotherapeutic treatment who work with custodial and community samples of people convicted of sexual offences. We conclude by emphasising the value of narrative therapy and present directions for future research.Most therapeutic approaches offered in correctional settings emphasise a cognitive behavioural approach intended to dismantle cognitive distortions. Our results suggest that the willingness and ability of justice-involved individuals to participate in narrative therapy has been likely underestimated. Accordingly, this study will help clients and clinicians alike to make the treatment experience more personalised and meaningful. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to recent theoretical work, certain event memories are more likely to be remembered or forgotten in their entirety. This prior work focused on collections of concepts, such as person-location-object triples. To explore this idea with complex materials, we created triples of people, locations, objects, or activities from events in real-world novels. People who had read one of the included novels were provided with one element from these triples (the cue) and asked to identify which of six alternatives best went with it. The results revealed that memory for the narrative events remained stable across many years. Moreover, people recalled events in a more holistic manner than would be expected by chance. This was more likely the more causally important an event was. This pattern of performance also remained stable over time. Our results are consistent with the idea that event models involve integrating separate elements into a single coherent representation, and this is likely to stay integrated over long periods of time. However, the degree to which this is so appears to be related to how well-integrated the information is within a larger set of events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is now well established that general information processing causes the activation of memories in the autobiographical memory system, and these memories on occasion emerge as involuntary autobiographical memories. This priming phenomenon has been dubbed semantic-to-autobiographical memory priming, and our goal in the current study was to examine the effects of cue/prime repetition on the production of involuntary autobiographical memories that were primed with semantic stimuli. In three experiments, participants were primed with words (e.g., cat), and then they were given an involuntary memory task (the vigilance task), which contained cues related to the primed stimuli. In Experiment 1, the cues were phrases containing the primes (e.g., getting a cat), which were presented one or five times. In Experiment 2, the cues were also phrases containing the primes (e.g., getting a cat), but they changed their context (e.g., feeding a cat), every time they repeated in the five-presentation condition. Experiment 3 also presented the cues one or five times, but the cues were replicas of the primes (e.g., cat). Consistent with predictions, greater priming was found in the five-presentation cue conditions in all three experiments, and Experiment 3 failed to find priming in the one-presentation cue condition, also consistent with predictions. We explain the findings in terms of semantic-to-autobiographical memory priming theory, and also argue that the results help explain the production of involuntary memories in everyday life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transgender individuals face challenges to identity as they transition from their sex assigned at birth to their affirmed gender. Memories may support a sense of self through the recall of events with more phenomenological detail than others, making them feel closer to the current self. Autobiographical memories of 90 transgender and 90 cisgender adults were compared on self-reported memory phenomenology. Memory phenomenology was more variable in transgender individuals, with a larger difference between phenomenological ratings of recent and distant memories. Memory phenomenology specifically varied in relation to the timing of coming out to a parent. High points reported after this time were rated with higher phenomenological quality and these ratings were linked to positive well-being. Results affirm the relevance of phenomenological continuity to the identity of transgender individuals, suggesting that events from before coming out are recalled with less phenomenological quality than events after coming out. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this selective review, we describe the current neuroscientific literature on disturbances of the self-other boundary in schizophrenia as they relate to structural and experiential aspects of the self. Within these two broad categories, the structural self includes body ownership and agency, and the experiential self includes self-reflection, source monitoring, and self-referential and autobiographical memory. Further, we consider how disturbances in these domains link to the phenomenology of schizophrenia. We identify faulty internal predictive coding as a potential mechanism of disturbance in body ownership and agency, which results in susceptibility to bias (over- or under-attributing outcomes to one's own actions or intentions). This is reflected in reduced activity in the temporoparietal junction (TPJ), a heteromodal association area implicated in several aspects of self-other processing, as well as reduced fronto-parietal functional connectivity. Deficits of the experiential self in schizophrenia may stem from a lack of salience of self-related information, whereby the mental representation of self is not as rich as in healthy controls and therefore does not result in the same level of privileged processing. As a result, memory for self-referential material and autobiographical memory processes is impaired, which hinders creation of a cohesive life narrative. Impairments of the experiential self implicate abnormal activation patterns along the cortical midline, including medial prefrontal cortex and posterior cingulate/precuneus, as well as TPJ. In fact, TPJ appears to be involved in all the reviewed aspects of the self-other disturbance. We conclude with suggestions for future work, including implications for interventions with critical timing considerations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Music is a powerful medium that influences our emotions and memories. Neuroscience research has demonstrated music's ability to engage brain regions associated with emotion, reward, motivation, and autobiographical memory. While music's role in modulating emotions has been explored extensively, our study investigates whether music can alter the emotional content of memories. Building on the theory that memories can be updated upon retrieval, we tested whether introducing emotional music during memory recollection might introduce false emotional elements into the original memory trace. We developed a 3-day episodic memory task with separate encoding, recollection, and retrieval phases. Our primary hypothesis was that emotional music played during memory recollection would increase the likelihood of introducing novel emotional components into the original memory. Behavioral findings revealed two key outcomes: 1) participants exposed to music during memory recollection were more likely to incorporate novel emotional components congruent with the paired music valence, and 2) memories retrieved 1 day later exhibited a stronger emotional tone than the original memory, congruent with the valence of the music paired during the previous day's recollection. Furthermore, fMRI results revealed altered neural engagement during story recollection with music, including the amygdala, anterior hippocampus, and inferior parietal lobule. Enhanced connectivity between the amygdala and other brain regions, including the frontal and visual cortex, was observed during recollection with music, potentially contributing to more emotionally charged story reconstructions. These findings illuminate the interplay between music, emotion, and memory, offering insights into the consequences of infusing emotional music into memory recollection processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Identity research focuses on multiple processes capturing how adolescents form and maintain a sense of self. However, identity content (the "what" of identity) might impact associations between identity and the association with well-being. We examined this potential role of content (i.e., valence and life domain) in two studies, focusing on autobiographical reasoning in written narratives (i.e., self-event connections), educational identity commitment and exploration processes, and measures of general and domain-specific functioning. Study 1 (N = 180, M age = 14.7) and Study 2 (N = 160, M age = 13.1) provided little evidence for the hypothesized role of identity content, but moderation analyses in Study 1 showed that self-event connections were more strongly related to life satisfaction in narratives about relational events than other events. These findings suggest a more fine-grained approach is needed to capture the role of identity content. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) previous studies have found that activation differences in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) during an autobiographical memory task (AMT) under the condition of different emotional valences may be neurophysiological markers of depression and different depression subtypes. Additionally, compared with non-anxious depression, anxious depression presents abnormal hemodynamic activation in the DLPFC. This study aimed to use fNIRS to investigate hemodynamic activation in the DLPFC of depression patients with and without anxiety during AMT triggered by different emotional valence stimuli. We recruited 194 patients with depression (91 with non-anxious depression, 103 with anxious depression) and 110 healthy controls from Chinese college students. A 53-channel fNIRS was used to detect cerebral hemodynamic differences in the three groups during AMT. The results showed that: (1) the activation of oxy-Hb in the left DLPFC was significantly higher under positive emotional valence than under negative emotional valence for healthy controls and patients with non-anxious depression, while there was no significant difference between positive and negative emotional valence observed in response to anxious depression; and (2) Oxy-Hb activation under negative emotional valence was significantly higher in the anxious depression group than in the non-anxious depression group. This study revealed that the hemodynamic hyperactivation of negative emotional valence in the left DLPFC may be due to the neurophysiological differences between anxious and non-anxious patients with depression. • Activation in the left DLPFC may be the neurophysiological differences between anxious and non-anxious depression. • Activation in the left DLPFC was significantly higher under positive than negative valence for healthy controls and non-anxious depression. • No significant activation difference in the left DLPFC between positive and negative valence was observed in response to anxious depression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]