Autobiographical memory
[4] As an example, a lifetime period with the theme of "when I lost my job" could fall under the broader category of either "when everything went downhill for me" or "minor setbacks in my life."
[8] These memories of goal-attainment pass on important information about the self, such as how easily a skill can be acquired, or an individual's success and failure rates for certain tasks.
[4] Event-specific knowledge (ESK) is vividly detailed information about individual events, often in the form of visual images and sensory-perceptual features.
[4] The high levels of detail in ESK fade very quickly, though certain memories for specific events tend to endure longer.
[6] This way of thinking could explain the rapid loss of event-specific detail, as the links between episodic memory and the autobiographical knowledge base are likewise quickly lost.
[6] Autonoetic consciousness or recollective experience is the sense of "mental time travel" that is experienced when recalling autobiographical memories.
These personal goals and self-images work together to modify cognition and the resulting behavior so an individual can operate effectively in the world.
[3] The directive function of autobiographical memory uses past experiences as a reference for solving current problems and a guide for our actions in the present and the future.
[3] Disclosing personal experiences can increase the intimacy level between people and reminiscing of shared past events strengthens pre-existing bonds.
[3] The importance of this function can easily be seen in individuals with impaired episodic or autobiographical memory, where their social relationships suffer greatly as a result.
[15] This internal regulation of mood through autobiographical memory recall can be used to cope with negative situations and impart an emotional resilience.
For example, Easterners are more likely than Westerners to use observer perspective when remembering events where they are at the center of attention (like giving a presentation, having a birthday party, etc.).
Each culture has its own unique set of factors that affect the way people perceive the world around them, such as uncertainty avoidance, masculinity, and power distance.
[31] According to the theory - since women feel more objectified than men, they tend to be put in center-of-attention situations more often, which results in recalling more memories from the observer perspective.
[34] The observer perspective tends to focus more on one's physical appearance, along with the spatial relations and peripheral details of the scene, which allows people to remember the specifics and important facts of their traumatic experience, without reliving most of the pain.
[34] Clinical psychologists have found that the observer perspective acts like a psychological "buffer" to decrease the stress an individual feels when recalling a difficult memory.
[34] Although this is a useful coping mechanism, some argue that effective treatment of PTSD requires the patient to re-experience the emotions and fear from that traumatic event so that it can be processed into something less distressing.
[34] Peter Lang and other researchers have hypothesized that the short-term relief the observer perspective provides may actually impede long-term recovery from PTSD.
[35] These true autobiographical memories can then be presented to the participants at a later date in a recognition test, often in comparison to falsified diary entries or 'foils'.
[35][36] A study performed by Barclay and Wellman (1986) included two types of foils in their recognition task: ones that were entirely false and ones that were the original diary entry with a few details altered.
[37][38] The answers can then be analyzed in order to gain a better understanding as to how recall of autobiographical memory works, especially in cases dealing with brain damage or amnesia.
[44] Odour-cued memories for specific events were more detailed and more emotionally loaded than those for verbal, visual, or non-related odour cues.
Remembering negative events can prevent us from acting overconfident or repeating the same mistake, and we can learn from them in order to make better decisions in the future.
[50] When a specific episodic memory is recalled by an individual with depression, details for the event are almost non-existent and instead purely semantic knowledge is reported.
[52] Another explanation may be the tendency for individuals suffering from depression to separate themselves from their positive memories and focus more on evidence that supports their current negative self-image to keep it intact.
[52] Finally, the autobiographical memory differences may be attributed to a smaller posterior hippocampal volume in any individuals going through cumulative stress.
In one study where participants recalled events from five life periods, older adults concentrated more on semantic details which were not tied to a distinct temporal or spatial context.
The participants engaging in recall reported true memories as being more important, emotionally intense, less typical, and having clearer imagery.
Sensory and perceptual details of specific events are represented in posterior temporal and occipital networks, predominantly in the right cortex.
Regions of the brain that are reported infrequently, in less than a quarter of autobiographical memory imaging studies, include the frontal eye fields, motor cortex, medial and lateral parietal cortices, fusiform gyrus, superior and inferior lateral temporal cortices, insula, basal ganglia and brain stem.
