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Autobiographical memory is not as reliable and accurate as most people think. In fact, autobiographical memory can be fallible, incomplete and susceptible to external factors. The paradigm, however, is that people are most likely to trust themselves and their own memories more than anything else and will generally stick to their own story, even in the face of contrary evidence.
Autobiographical memories are specific, long-lasting and generally carry a great deal of personal significance. Memory for events is the largest component of autobiographical memory and is comprised of three separate but related domains, (1) memory for specific events that have happened to you, () memory for general events, which gives you a broad sequence of actions in an event, and () a generic summary of your life, which enables you to answer basic questions someone might ask about you to get to know you better. Accessing this information is generally accomplished by entering the event memory at the general-event level, although the information is at the specific-event level.
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Over the past several years, there has been an increase in the number of cases of adults undergoing psychotherapy claiming to have recovered long-repressed memories of sexual abuse at the hands of parents or other family members. Unfortunately, it is often difficult to determine whether and in what sense these types of individual memories are true or false. The extreme emotional stress of both the patients and their families highlights the importance memory plays in our lives, regardless of accuracy.
One category of autobiographical memory, known as flashbulb memory, is exceptionally vivid. Flashbulb memory is the memory for a situation in which a person first learned of a very surprising and emotionally arousing event. This typically involves memories of events of national or international significance, such as the assassination of President Kennedy or Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the Columbia disintegration, or the verdict in the Rodney King beating trial. Related to flashbulb memory are the six 'Canonical Categories of Information' in flashbulb memories (Brown & Kulik, 177), which includes place, ongoing event, informant, affect in others, own affect, and aftermath. This can best be shown in recounting two different persons' recounting the same event. First, Brown's account of the assassination of President Kennedy
I was on the telephone with Miss Johnson, the Dean's secretary, about some departmental business. Suddenly, she broke in with "Excuse me a moment; everyone is excited about something. What? Mr. Kennedy has been shot!" We hung up, I opened my door to hear further news, as it came in, and then resumed my work on some forgotten business that 'had to be finished' that day.
Next, Kulik recounts the assassination of President Kennedy
I was seated in a sixth-grade music class, and over the intercom I was told that the president had been shot. At first, everyone just looked at each other. Then the class started yelling, and the music teacher tried to calm everyone down. About ten minutes later, I heard over the intercom that Kennedy had died and that everyone should return to their homeroom. I remember that when I got to my homeroom, my teacher was crying and everyone was standing in a state of shock. They told us to go home.
On the other hand, one of the problems associated with flashbulb memory is veridicality. Veridicality means not taking recalled memories at face value as being accurate. The best example is Neisser's (18) erroneous flashbulb memory of Pearl Harbor
For many years I have remembered how I heard of the news of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, which occurred on the day before my thirteenth birthday. I recall sitting in the living room of our house -- we only lived in that house for one year, but I remember it well -- listening to a baseball game on the radio. The game was interrupted by an announcement of the attack, and I rushed upstairs to tell my mother. This memory has been so clear for so long that I never confronted its inherent absurdity until last year no one broadcasts baseball games in December!
A study on the accuracy of personal memories (Field, 181) found a .88 correlation for factual information among family members, but a .4 correlation for emotions and attitudes. This is because the memory for events reflects what we expect to happen, not what may have actually occurred. It is because of this that unexpected events and new events or first-time experiences are better remembered. If a person does not have an existing script for the event, or if the event is atypical enough not to easily fit an existing script, you cannot mould the experience to your expectations.
Over time specific events become merged into a general event. For example, all of the times you have been to the dentist would have blurred into a generic script, which incorporates all the key experiences and actions that are typical of that event. After the specific event has become consolidated into the script, only distinctive events are likely to be specifically remembered. By this I mean events when something unusual, interesting or humorous happened.
The power of these scripts can be so strong that people often feel they remember details of a specific event that never actually happened. This is because the event is typical of the type of script for that event. This can have negative consequences, because inaccurate memories can be both costly and dangerous, and can lead to faulty conclusions.
Age is one cause of inaccuracies in memory. In studies comparing the autobiographical memory of younger and older adults, results showed that younger and older adults do not differ in their ability to recall the gist of an autobiographical event. Younger adults, however, were better at dating the event. (Bluck 1)
It has also been proven that differences in gender can suggest differences in memory recollection. In a series of studies conducted by Davis (1), both children and adult males and females were tested on their autobiographical memory using various techniques. According to the study, females displayed a better autobiographical memory for childhood experiences than males did. This finding was consistent across independent samples of participants, both in Australia and in the United States. Under both free-recall and cued-recall conditions, females remembered more childhood memories than males did, and they were generally faster in accessing the memories recalled.
The enhanced recall of females was evident in adults remembering back to childhood as well as in children themselves. This was also seen across events involving a diverse range of emotions experienced by both the subject and others, and was seen even when memories associated with emotion were not specifically requested. Further analysis revealed the enhanced recall of females was specific to autobiographical memories of events associated with emotion, while there was no gender difference apparent in the number of non-emotional events recalled.
In his book, White Gloves, how we create ourselves through memory, John Kotre recounts the studies of psychologist Craig Barclay, who demonstrated people will accept altered memories as their own if they are consistent the script they already have. The more distinctive an event - the more the event breaks with your script for that type of event - the better the memory for that particular event will be. The failure to remember trivial events demonstrates how people pay little attention to routine actions that are already scripted. To remember an event you need to look for distinctive details.
One fascinating topic in this area is the study of event memory in diary studies. In a 178 study, a Dutch psychologist called Willem Wagenaar recorded his days events every day for six years, noting down who was involved, what the event was, where it occurred, when it occurred. Of these, Wagenaar was hoping to discover the best cue for optimal retrieval. At the conclusion of his study he reported that what was the best cue, followed by who and where. When was the least effective of the cues. Later, Wagenaar reanalysed his data, and found that most of the difference in the memorability of these cues was due to their relative distinctiveness. Thus, the nature of the event is usually the most distinctive aspect of the event, while the people involved and the location are usually more distinctive bits of information than the date or time of occurrence.
One final question is what do autobiographical memories represent. The answer depends upon what is being examined. Information about the location of an event or about the date of occurrence of an event are usually inferred. However, factual information is in the form of actors, actions, and locations. Context-specific sensory and perceptual attributes are always present, while imagery is frequently present. Finally, the experience of remembering is always present, and the duration of the memory can last for years.
Memory is a constructive process that is influenced by a wide range of cognitive and social events, including information that is provided during the encoding of the original event, during storage of that memory, and during the retrieval of that memory.
Memory research and clinical studies has made it clear that memories are far from perfect records of past events. Having accurate memories of one's past is important and perhaps more care should be given in obtaining and securing information about the personal past.
Take an event that affected the life of more than one person. In each person's retelling of the story, one might find significant differences. The reason behind this is that autobiographical memory is extremely susceptible to change. These memories with a great deal of psychological significance prove to alter themselves within a particular individual, based on the affect they have had on that individual. As time passes, these memories remain intact. Their chronological placement, however, can become questionable. Quite often, these memories can have such a great impact on a person that the event stays in their long term memory for a very long time. Often, the interpretation of a memory that has changed can shed light on a person's situation. It is for this reason that autobiographical memories are important cues for psychologists, though not necessarily accurate.
Bibliography
Bluck, Susan; Levine, Linda J; Laulhere, Tracy M. (1) Autobiographical remembering and hypermnesia A comparison of older and younger adults. Psychology & Aging, 4, (Vol. 14, 671-68).
Brown, R., & Kulik, J. (177). Flashbulb memories. Cognition, 5, (7-).
Davis, Penelope J. (1). Gender differences in autobiographical memory for childhood emotional experiences. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, , (Vol. 76, 48-510).
Kotre, J. (16). White gloves How we create ourselves through memory. New York W.W. Norton & Company.
Neisser, U. (18), Memory Observed Remembering in Natural Contexts. San Francisco Freeman.
Schacter, D. L. (16). Searching for memory The brain, the mind, and the past. New York, NY Basic Books.
Wagenaar, W. (186), My memory a study of autobiographical memory over six years. Cognitive Psychology, (Vol. 18, 5-5).
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