Flashbulb memories are highly vivid and long-lasting memories for events that are emotionally significant and personally important. These memories are held in very high confidence in accuracy over an extended period. In particular, individuals believe that they can remember the personal details surrounding the event such as where they were and what they were doing at the time the event occurred. Evidence from research, however, indicates that this may not be the case. The study of flashbulb memories has typically been confined to negative events such as September 11, 2001. In the current study, we employ the methods of Talarico and Rubin (2003) to investigate flashbulb memory formation to a positive event. The event is the assassination of Osama bin Laden, which resonated as a highly positive event for many Americans evidenced by the thousands of people flooding the streets of Washington, D.C. and New York City to celebrate. We examined various memory properties over a one-year period, including vividness, rehearsal, belief in accuracy, and consistency. Results confirm the formation of flashbulb memories to the assassination event, but results did not support many of the proposed hypotheses. Some differences were found for different testing groups (i.e., immediate versus one week delay), but these were not replicated at the one year follow-up. Overall, however, it is believed that the current event, while still a flashbulb memory, was not a strong enough event to stir strong emotions and form memories on par with 9/11.

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This program of research was designed to examine the role of thought suppression in the retrieval of autobiographical memories (ABMs). The principal theory proposed here is that thought suppression is an important mechanism in explaining certain ABM retrieval patterns relevant to trauma and self-harm. Study 1 examined the role of thought suppression as a correlate of ABM retrieval in a nonclinical student sample, and showed that higher levels of thought suppression were significantly correlated with the faster recall of negative episodic ABMs as well as the recall of fewer personal semantic memories. Study 2 used a suppression manipulation procedure designed to examine whether this was a causal relationship, and revealed that induced thought suppression directly led to a significant enhancement in the retrieval of negative episodic ABMs as well as significantly fewer overgeneral first responses to negative cues. Furthermore, the induced thought suppression also resulted in the recall of significantly fewer personal semantic memories. Together these results support the theory that thought suppression is an important factor in ABM recall. The enhanced recall of negative memories could be particularly important in individuals who are self-harming, suicidal and/or suffering from PTSD, as enhanced negative recall has previously been observed in these populations. In order to further examine how thought suppression affects ABM retrieval and whether the enhanced negative recall observed in Study 2 was a result of mood-congruent recall, Study 3 used a similar suppression manipulation paradigm to examine the effects of induced thought suppression on mood. The results suggested that the enhanced negative ABM recall was unlikely to have been a by-product of the suppression manipulation resulting in a more negative mood state. Finally, Study 4 examined the role of thought suppression and ABM recall in a clinical sample of self-harming adolescents (who also reported high levels of post-traumatic stress symptoms). The results showed that levels of thought suppression were significantly higher in the self-harmers than the control group, indicating that thought suppression is an important coping mechanism in self-harmers. Furthermore, in terms of the autobiographical memory retrieval, it was found that the self-harmers were significantly faster in their retrieval of negative episodic ABMs and recalled fewer personal semantic memories than the control group. Multiple regression analysis of the data revealed that thought suppression remained as the most important predictor of variability in negative episodic ABM retrieval and personal semantic memory retrieval, even when variability explained by symptoms of depression and PTSD was considered. This program of research extends current theories of ABM retrieval by identifying thought suppression as a cognitive mechanism that directly affects the retrieval of both episodic as well as personal semantic ABMs. The theoretical importance and clinical relevance of this program of research are discussed.

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the overgenerality phenomenon and to draw some inferences on possible encoding problems of autobiographical memories (ABMs) in a non-clinically depressed sample. Eighty-eight university students (25 male, 63 female) participated in the experiment using the Autobiographical Memory Test (AMT / Williams &amp / Broadbent, 1986). The effects of depression level (low or high), cue emotional valences (positive, negative and neutral) and cue number (one or two at each step) on the specificity, overgenerality, and latency of the ABMs recalled were examined. The results showed that the group having high depression scores (Depressed group) was less specific than the group having low depression scores (Non-depressed group) on the specificity levels of the ABMs recalled. Also, the students who were primed with one cue in the AMT were less specific than the students who were primed with two cues simultaneously. The depressed group primed with one cue also recalled less specific ABMs than the non-depressed group primed with two cues / and, the non-depressed group primed with either one cue or two cues in the AMT did not differ in terms of the specificity of the ABMs recalled. Regarding the cue type, the students recalled less specific ABMs as a response to the positive cues than to the neutral cues. However, they did not differ on the specificity of ABMs recalled as a response to the negative and neutral cue words in the AMT. Additionally, the significant interaction between depression level and cue type / cue type and cue number / and, depression level, cue type, and cue number could be summarized with the overall findings that the depressed subjects had the benefit of the two cues priming in the AMT by being more specific on ABMs. For the overgenerality, as a counterpart of the specificity, the results also indicated that the subjects in the depressed group were more overgeneral on the ABM recall than the non-depressed group / and, the simultaneous two cues priming in the AMT had an effect to decrease the overgenerality seen in one cue conditions. The interactions between depression level and cue number, and cue type and cue number on the overgeneral ABM recalls further indicate that the subjects took the benefit of two cues priming with a decrease on overgeneral recall. This benefit of two cues is also seen on the reaction times of specific ABM recalls. Moreover, the subjects reported that they utilized the cues more consecutively than simultaneously and they reported to utilize the first cues more than the second cue when the paired cues were emotional. However, the preference for sequence was almost equal for the neutral-neutral pairs. Supporting the hypotheses of the study, the results suggested that multiple cues in the AMT had an effect to increase the specificity level of the ABMs recalled in the depressed subjects, which was not seen in one-cue conditions. Findings were discussed on the basis of the literature and some proposals were given on the overgenerality of the ABMs by emphasizing the encoding processes.

The armchair social scientist will notice that individuals frequently refer to consumption that occurred in childhood. Books, toys, movies, cartoon characters, and even favorite foods are just a few examples of these childhood consumption referents. In her now well-cited and classic study on 15 different consumer-brand relationships, Fournier (1998) identified individual's relationships with childhood consumption referents and called them childhood friendships. Nevertheless, there is a relative dearth of consumer research exploring effects of marketing that begin in childhood and extend into adulthood, what functions childhood friendships might serve, and what consequences there might be to these relationships. In my dissertation, I aim to contribute to the consumer psychology literature with two separate essays pertinent to childhood friendships. In the first essay, I explore the meaning of these relationships and the functions they serve in consumer identity throughout the life cycle. In the second essay, I examine effects of early childhood brand relationships on biased judgments and decision-making.

<p>The focus on how one is behaving, feeling, and thinking, provides a powerful source of self-knowledge. How is this self-knowledge utilized in the dynamic reconstruction of autobiographical memories? How, in turn, might autobiographical memories support identity and the self-system? I address these questions through a critical review of the literature on autobiographical memory and the self-system, with a special focus on the self-concept, self-knowledge, and identity. I then outline the methods and results of a prospective longitudinal study examining the effects of an identity change on memory for events related to that identity. Participant-rated memory characteristics, computer-generated ratings of narrative content and structure, and neutral-observer ratings of coherence were examined for changes over time related to an identity-change, as well as for their ability to predict an identity-change. The conclusions from this study are threefold: (1) when the rated centrality of an event decreases, the reported instances of retrieval, as well as the phenomenology associated with retrieval and the number of words used to describe the memory, also decrease; (2) memory accuracy (here, estimating past behaviors) was not influenced by an identity change; and (3) remembering is not unidirectional – characteristics of identity-relevant memories and the life story predict and may help support persistence with an identity (here, an academic trajectory).</p> / Dissertation

Objective: This study aimed to test predictions made by the self-memory system (SMS) model (Conway & Pleydell-Pearce, 2000), extensions of Williams et al.’s (2007) “capture and rumination” (CaR) mechanism (Debeer, Hermans, & Raes, 2009) and control theories of rumination (Martin & Tesser, 1996, 2006) in a non-clinical sample to further understand the processes underlying overgeneral memory (OGM). It was hypothesised that (i) ruminating on unresolved goals, compared to thinking about resolved goals, would increase OGM, in participants reporting high levels of trait brooding and (ii) that this effect would be greater following goal-cues that are derived from goal cues rated as (a) more important compared to those rated as less important; (b) more progress-discrepant compared to those rated as less progress-discrepant; (c) more relevant to unresolved goals compared to those that are rated as less relevant to unresolved goals. Method: A between-subjects factor of condition (resolved versus unresolved goal-focus induction) and a within-subjects factor of time (pre- and post-manipulation Minimal Instruction Autobiographical Memory Test [MI-AMT; Debeer et al., 2009]) design was utilised with 75 undergraduate and three masters psychology students (86.3 % female [n = 65]; age, M = 20.2 years, range = 18-43, SD = 4.9) from the University of Exeter. The MI-AMT was used to measure autobiographical memory (AM) specificity before and following a manipulation whereby participants were randomly assigned to either a control condition in which participants focussed on a resolved goal or an experimental condition which was designed to induce rumination about an unresolved (i.e., self-discrepant) goal. MI-AMT cues were adjectives relating to nomothetic goal-statements. Results: Hierarchical multiple regression analyses found neither an overall effect of condition nor an interaction between condition and brooding on AM specificity. Thus, induced rumination over unresolved goals did not lead to higher levels of OGM than induced focus on resolved goals amongst individuals high in trait brooding. Multilevel hierarchical regression found that the extent to which people high on brooding were less specific in the unresolved condition did not depend on the importance or progress-discrepancy ratings of the goal-statements from which the MI-AMT cues were developed, nor on the relevance of the goal-cues to the concern identified in the goal cueing task. Goal-cue relevance ratings showed a significant main effect on AM specificity qualified by an interaction with condition whereby participants reported decreasingly specific AMs in response to cues related to the concern after the resolved goal manipulation. Conclusion: These null findings suggest that rumination over unresolved goals may not increase OGM amongst non-clinical samples. A replication of this study should utilise state rumination checks to ensure that the goal cueing task successfully differentially induced state rumination between conditions. Further exploration of the role of reflection might elucidate which qualities of rumination are positively associated with OGM but not present in rumination about unresolved goals. Given that Williams et al.’s CaR mechanism was constructed to understand OGM in clinical depression, a replication of this study using a clinical sample may be a useful next step in testing predictions made by this theory.

Thesis advisor: Elizabeth A. Kensinger / Individuals' short- and long-term goals can influence the constructive nature of autobiographical memory recall. The overarching aim of this dissertation was to examine how emotion regulation goals in particular might modulate autobiographical recall at both a behavioral and neural level. In Chapter 1, a new behavioral task instructed individuals to cognitively reappraise the emotions associated with negative and positive events. Results revealed that such emotion regulation goals influence the emotional and other subjective experiences associated with recall, such that up-regulation instructions were linked to greater reported levels of emotional intensity, sensory detail, and recollection (e.g., reliving), and vice-versa for down-regulation instructions. In Chapter 2, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used as participants were instructed to decrease, increase, or maintain the emotions associated with negative autobiographical events. Decreasing emotional intensity primarily engaged neural activity in regions previously implicated in cognitive control (e.g., dorsal and ventral lateral prefrontal cortex), emotion generation and processing (e.g., amygdala, insula), and visual imagery (e.g., precuneus) during an early phase of recall as participants searched for and retrieved events. In contrast, increasing emotional intensity engaged similar regions as individuals prepared to recall negative events (i.e., before a memory cue was presented) and again as they later elaborated upon the details of the events they had recalled. In Chapter 3, individual differences in habitual use of cognitive reappraisal were measured and their relation to neural activity during autobiographical recall was examined. Results revealed that, even when not explicitly instructed to reappraise, habitual use of reappraisal was broadly associated with neural activity in cognitive control regions (e.g., dorsal and ventral lateral prefrontal cortex, dorsal anterior cingulate cortex) as well as emotion processing regions (e.g., amygdala, insula) across memories that varied in their emotionality and specificity. Taken together, these results suggest that short- and long-term emotion regulation goals can influence the construction of autobiographical memories on both behavioral and neural levels. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2012. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Psychology.

The purpose of the study was to examine the effectiveness of autobiographical memories to support the improvement of episodic memory (i.e., word recall) in patients with mild- stage Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) and healthy older adults. Participants included 20 healthy young-old adults (M Age = 70.90; M MMSE = 28.70), 20 healthy old-old adults (M Age = 79.75; M MMSE = 28.05), and 15 patients with mild-stage AD or mixed dementia (M Age = 74.73; M MMSE = 22.47). Participants were presented with three lists of 30 words, each administered under a different support condition: (1) no cognitive support,(2) autobiographical memory support, and (3) semantic support. In the autobiographical memory support condition, participants associated each to-be- remembered word with a personal memory that was then shortened to a word cue for use in subsequent memory testing. In the semantic support condition, participants associated each to-be-remembered word with a one-word descriptor. Memory was assessed with three recall conditions: immediate free recall, cued recall, and recognition. It was expected that autobiographical memory cues would be more effective than general semantic cues in improving number of words recalled in patients with mild-stage AD and healthy older adults. The results indicated that healthy older adults and patients with mild- stage AD benefited from both forms of cognitive support. Although the young-old group recalled more words in the autobiographical than in the semantic support condition across the three recall conditions, the differences were not significant. The old-old group recalled more words in the autobiographical than in the semantic support condition on tests of immediate free recall. In contrast, the mild AD group recalled more words in the autobiographical than in the semantic support condition on tests of cued recall and recognition. A limitation was the ceiling effect for recognition performance in the young- old and old-old group. Consistent with previous studies, the results indicate that patients with mild-stage AD can benefit from cognitive support to improve episodic memory if support is provided at encoding and retrieval. The results suggest that autobiographical memory cues may be effective for improving everyday memory performance in healthy older adults and patients with mild-stage AD. / Counselling Psychology

<p>Simply recalling a memory has very different consequences than retelling it. Accuracy is often emphasized when events are recalled; however, retelling an event in a conversational manner may compromise accuracy in order to make the story more entertaining (e.g., Dudukovic, Marsh, & Tversky, 2004), or to support a specific argument (e.g., Tversky & Marsh, 2000). I will focus on the memorial consequences and underlying mechanisms of retellings. </p><p>First, I will review research that shows the inaccuracies of retellings. In reviewing this research, I will identify possible underlying mechanisms that change memory through retellings, such as the following: schema-guided reconstruction, interference, transfer inappropriate processing, and retrieval-induced-forgetting. </p><p>Second, I will experimentally investigate possible cognitive mechanisms underlying these memorial changes. In the first experiment, I show that the elaborative nature of storytelling does not influence memory more so than simply selectively rehearsing that information. In the second and third experiments, I investigate how retelling autobiographical events influences qualitative aspects of memory. These two experiments suggest that retrieving autobiographical events influences memory quality, although the specific nature in which they are retold has no effect. I close by connecting these three experiments to the broader literature.</p> / Dissertation