PSYC 256 Lecture Notes - Lecture 15: Autobiographical Memory, Explicit Memory, Null Hypothesis
13 Jun 2018
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AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL MEMORY
Self-reference Effect
•
Rubin’s Basic Systems Model
• AM is comprised of individual senses (especially vision) a multimodal spatial
system; emotion; language; a narrative system that keeps track of causal relations;
and an explicit memory system that coordinates information from the other systems
•
• Executive areas in the left prefrontal regions
o Serve to evoke related memories
• AM retrieval depends on hippocampal and right IFG activity
o Hence amnesia from hippocampal damage
• Visualization areas in the occipital and temporal lobes
o Damage to these areas results in poor autobiographical memory
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•
Functions of AM
• Directive
o Using past experience to solve current problems
• Self-identity
o Creating and maintaining our self-image
• Emotion-regulation
o Remembering pleasant times when things aren’t so pleasant
o Remembering sad times to fake cry for a play
• Social
o Bonding people together or separating them
Bulk & Kulik (1977)
• Do you recall the circumstances in which you first heard that…?
o John F. Kennedy had been assassinated
o Robert F. Kennedy had been assassinated
o Martin Luther King, Jr. had been assassinated
o Malcolm X had been assassinated
• All people reported at least one memory that was
o Accurate
o Complete
o Vivid
• Why is this important?
o These memories are incidental; you don’t memorize your circumstances
when you hear about something
o About indirect experiences; nothing that happened to you personally
o Why should just learning news be encoded with what is going on in your life
right now?
Everyday Memory //////
Flashbulb Memory Hypothesis
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