Events in memory and environment Steve M. J. Janssen , Antonio G. Chessa & Jaap M. J. Murre

1. Events in memory and environment Steve M. J. Janssen, Antonio G. Chessa & Jaap M. J. Murre The Memory Chain Model can be completely specified by one function, the so-called intensity function, which gives the expected number of memory representations after a retention interval. An encoded memory reaches a number μ1 of memory representations at the end of a stimulus presentation and subsequently declines according to a function r(t), for retention intervals t. With the quality of a retrieval cue denoted by q, the intensity function r for one memory store has the form: In Janssen, Chessa and Murre (2003), we researched the distribution of the autobiographical memory by using the Galton-Crovitz cueing method. We obtained random memory samples of 1587 subjects between 10 and 70 years through the Internet (http://memory.uva.nl). We checked for the telescoping effect, but we found no overall effect for temporal displacement. We did find more evidence for a ‘reminiscence bump’ between 10 and 30 years, which can be explained by differentiating the memory distribution into two separate functions, namely a decline function and an encoding-sampling function. Our new Memory Chain Model, which can incorporate both functions, was used to fit the empirical distributions and gave good fits. My role in the project is to obtain a wide range of data sets and to fit the Memory Chain Model on them. Some of them are obtain through the Internet (i.e., Daily News Memory Test and Galton-Crovitz test), while others are obtain in the laboratory (e.g., cued recall). Janssen, S. M. J., Chessa, A. G., & Murre, J. M. J. (2003). Modeling the reminiscence bump in autobiographical memory with the Memory Chain Model. In B. Kokinov & W. Hirst (Eds.), Constructive Memory (pp. 138-147). Sofia, Bulgaria: New Bulgarian University. Janssen, S. M. J., Chessa, A. G., & Murre, J M. J. (2004, August). Influence of dating formats on the telescoping effect and the distribution of autobiographical memory. Paper presented at the RC33 6th International Conference on Social Science Methodology, Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Meeter, M., Murre, J. M. J., & Janssen, S. M. J., (in press). Remembering the news: Modeling retention data from a study with 14,000 participants. Memory & Cognition. Janssen, S.M.J., Chessa, A.G., & Murre, J.M.J. (in press). The reminiscence bump in autobiographical memory: Effects of age, gender, culture and education. Memory. Janssen, S.M.J., Chessa, A.G., & Murre, J.M.J. (subm.) Memory for time: How people date events. Memory & Cognition. The Memory Chain Model describes the development of the memory strength of an item in time during both the learning and the forgetting phase. In the model, memory strength is determined by three postulates: 1.  The number of ‘memory representations’ of a learned item determines memory strength. 2.  The life span of a memory is determined by the decline of memory representations in one or more neurobiologically motivated ‘memory stores’ and by the induction (transfer) of representations between each pair of successive stores, which are arranged in a feed-forward fashion. 3.  Successful retrieval of a memory depends on the number of representations in all the stores and on the quality of a retrieval cue.