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Autobiographical Memories

Explore the nature of autobiographical memories, how they change over time, and the factors that influence their retention and forgetting. Learn about the different types of memories and the relationship between memory and consciousness.

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Autobiographical Memories

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  1. Autobiographical Memories

  2. Autobiographical Memories • How well can we remember personal experiences and events from the past? • What kind of memories are remembered best? • Do memories change over time?

  3. Autobiographical Memories • In the last six months, you have become involved with the college. • Write down, quietly and by yourself, the recollections you have of the following:

  4. Autobiographical Memories • the day you enrolled • your first psychology lesson • Tuesday October 9th 2006 • what did you have for dinner on 25th November? • what did you have for dinner on Christmas Day?

  5. Marigold Linton • Marigold Linton (1982) – systematic study of her own memory over six years • every day, wrote on cards brief description of at least two events that occurred that day • every month, re-read two of these descriptions, taken at random from the collection, and tried to remember the events described, the order in which they occurred and the date of each event • rated each event for salience (importance) and emotionality – both at the time of writing and again at the time of recall

  6. Marigold Linton • For me, a typical day might include: • Meeting for degree inspection – low salience, low emotionality • Went to choir practice - low salience, low emotionality

  7. Marigold Linton • In say, one year’s time, I would probably remember the meeting but not the choir practice. • Return to the memories I asked you to recall…

  8. Marigold Linton • Marigold Linton found the same. • Two types of forgetting • One common form was repetition of the same or similar occurrences

  9. Marigold Linton • Your first psychology lesson may be more distinctive than one in October, but you may have a memory of the last lesson (I hope so!)

  10. Marigold Linton Linton gives an example: • She regularly attended committee meetings in another town • First meeting and most recent meetings remained distinctive. • The rest could not be differentiated from each other in memory. • She had a schema for ‘meetings’

  11. Schemas • A schema is a mental representation of all the experience and knowledge you have of a concept, an object or whatever. • We will talk to each other about schemas. • Going to college • Dinner • Christmas Dinner

  12. Episodic and Semantic Semantic memory Storing facts, generalized information, concepts, in the form of schema:showing the meaningful associations with the concept of “Christmas Dinner” Episodic memory Storing personal experience:recalling first day at college

  13. Episodic memory Type of information represented:- Specific events, objects, places, people Semantic memory Type of information represented:- General knowledge and facts about events and objects Episodic and Semantic

  14. Episodic How organised in memory? Chronological (i.e. by time of occurrence) or spatial (by place of occurrence) Semantic How organised in memory? In schemas (packets of general knowledge relating to the same object)

  15. Episodic Source of information: Personal experiences Semantic Source of information Abstraction from repeated experiences Generalisations learned from other experiences

  16. Episodic Focus Subjective Reality (the self) Semantic Focus Objective Reality (the world)

  17. Declarative Memory • Episodic and Semantic memory are types of Declarative Memory. • Declarative memory is a kind of “I know that…” for example, “I know that the sky is blue”

  18. Procedural Memory • Procedural memory is where we store the knowledge of how to do something. • This applies especially to a physical task, such as: • Riding a bicycle. • Walking • Staying afloat (i.e. swimming, not a boat!)

  19. Procedural Memory • Procedural memory is like “I know how to…” (ride a bike, stay afloat, play a musical instrument etc) • But the memory is not open to inspection.

  20. Procedural Memory • Tulving has investigated the possibility of different types of LTM, i.e. declarative and procedural • Pennington page 268

  21. Types of Memory

  22. Autonoetic “self aware” Episodic Noetic Aware of info, not origin Semantic Anoetic “Unaware” Procedural Procedural memory The relationship between types of LT memory and varieties of consciousness (Tulving, 1985). Degree of conscious awareness Memory System

  23. The case of H.M. • Corkin (1968) page 269 Pennington • Surgery on brain - Memory affected • Given declarative tasks – no memory overnight • Given procedural tasks • No memory of learning the task but did retain the ability. • Conclusion?

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