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Although recent research has demonstrated that intrusive memories of negative autobiographical events are an overlapping cognitive feature of depression and PTSD, there is still a general paucity of research investigating the prevalence and maintenance of these memories in depression. Accordingly, the current thesis represented a much-needed program of empirically-driven research that delineated the cognitive processes that underpin the manifestation, experience, and persistence of intrusive memories in depression. Firstly, Study 1 used descriptive and correlational methodologies to outline the content and features of these memories, and explored whether intrusion characteristics linked to intrusive memories in PTSD are also features of intrusive memories in depression. In accord with studies in PTSD samples, sensory features accounted for unique variance in the prediction of depression severity, over and above that accounted for by intrusion frequency. This commonality raised the possibility that cognitive management strategies linked to the persistence of intrusive memories in PTSD may also play a role in depression. Accordingly, Study 2 utilized a cross-sectional and prospective design to investigate whether negative appraisals and cognitive avoidance strategies, which are key to the persistence of intrusive memories in PTSD, similarly play a role in depression. The results demonstrated that assigning negative appraisals to one???s intrusive memory, and attempts to control the memory, were positively associated with intrusion-related distress, level of depression, and cognitive avoidance mechanisms. Additionally, negative appraisals and the use of cognitive mechanisms were predictive of depression concurrently, but not prospectively. Studies 3, 4, and 5 further investigated avoidant intrusion- response strategies by assessing the role of recall vantage perspective in mediating the effects of intrusion-related distress. Study 3 found that although field memories were not experienced as more distressing than observer memories, the results supported an association between an observer vantage perspective and cognitive avoidance mechanisms. As this study employed a correlational design, Study 4 addressed the question of directionality by experimentally manipulating mode of recall to ascertain whether shifting participants into a converse perspective would have differential effects on the reported experience of their intrusive memory. Results indicated that shifting participants from a field to an observer perspective resulted in decreased experiential ratings; specifically, reduced distress and vividness and increased detachment and observation. Also, as anticipated, the converse shift in perspective (from observer to field) did not lead to a corresponding increase in experiential ratings, but resulted in reduced ratings of observation. Study 5 attempted to investigate the stability of this memory orientation phenomenon by investigating mode of recall vantage perspective prospectively. Attrition of participants across the 12-month study limited analyses to the descriptive level, but illustrated that, at least for some individuals, recall vantage perspective remained stable across assessments periods. Collectively, the findings supported the notion that recall perspective has a functional role in the regulation of intrusion-related distress and represents a cognitive avoidance mechanism. Studies 6 and 7 employed experimental methodologies to investigate whether adopting an abstract/analytical mode of processing following a negative event would result in poor emotional processing, or increased distress associated with intrusive memories. Study 6 found no differences in either intrusion frequency or associated levels of distress across the processing conditions, as hypothesized. The results of Study 6 suggested that the predicted effects of ruminative self-focus on intrusion severity may be dependent upon the self-referential nature of the material being processed. Results of Study 7 indicated that inducing an analytical ruminative mode of processing resulted in participants rating their naturally occurring, self-referential intrusive memories as more negative, more distressing, and evoking a more negative emotional response compared to inducing distraction. Taken together, Studies 6 and 7 suggest the possibility that depressed individuals may get caught up in a ruminative cycle that, due to the documented effects of analytical self-focus, may exacerbate the emotional response elicited by the intrusions and perpetuate biased attentional focus towards them. Finally, Studies 8 and 9 explored suppression as a cognitive avoidance mechanism and addressed some methodological concerns regarding the measurement of this construct. Study 8 investigated the effects of repeated suppression using a method to index the frequency, duration, and associated levels of distress of an experimentally-induced intrusive memory, and assessed whether any observed effects were differentially linked to depressive symptomatology. Results supported a secondary rebound effect in those participants who were most successful at suppressing target intrusions. Study 9 was an investigation of the English version of the TCAQ (Luciano, Algarabel, Tom??s, & Mart??nez, 2005), an index of cognitive control. Study 9 evaluated the association between this measure and performance on a thought suppression task. The results indicated that low TCAQ-20 scorers experienced intrusions of a longer duration and rated these intrusions as more distressing than high TCAQ-20 scorers, supporting the validity of the measure. These findings highlight the role of suppression as a maladaptive mental control strategy and the potential for elevated intrusion-distress to perpetuate its use. Together, the findings of this program of research confirm the importance of intrusive memories in depression, and underscore the need for an empirically-supported model to account for the occurrence and maintenance of these memories.

According to the critical tradition, Gustav Mahler’s music is full of memories, memories portrayed most frequently as being Mahler’s recollections of his own childhood. My study interrogates this trope—that Mahler’s entire oeuvre is an autobiographical puzzle waiting to be solved—using each of his first four symphonies as a case study. To accomplish this, I offer interpretations of each symphony, which rely on an analysis of the musical substance of the piece, and also refer to Mahler’s programs, potential allusions to preexisting material, and critical reception. Chapter 1 lays the theoretical foundation for these analyses, which draws on cultural memory, nostalgia studies, and the hermeneutics of Paul Ricoeur. In Chapter 2, by proposing connections between the Third Symphony and both the antisemetic political climate in Vienna and Mahler’s hopes for a conducting career in the city, I suggest that interpretation can make recourse to the composer’s biography without focusing on his childhood. Moreover, I use Mahler’s biography to suggest new avenues for approaching his music, rather than using his music to shed light on his life. In Chapter 3, I move interpretation away from details of the composer’s biography: I analyze his First Symphony with Freudian repression as a theoretical framework, but I focus on how repression might eludicate both the musical processes in the piece itself and the persistent recourse made to the suppressed program in reception of the piece, rather than attempting to explain Mahler’s own supposed neuroses. After proposing several ways in which music processes might resonate with forgetting in the form of repression, in Chapters 4 and 5, the Second and Fourth Symphonies are discussed in terms of mourning and nostalgia respectively, defined as two specfic types of remembrance. Turning in the final chapter to the later Seventh Symphony, I unwind the implications of the standard image of Mahler as a figure obsessed with the past. Mahler’s music grants us no access to his memories, but it does allow us to remember him. Our memories are all that remains, and the Mahler that we hear has always been merely our own construction. / text

Although recent research has demonstrated that intrusive memories of negative autobiographical events are an overlapping cognitive feature of depression and PTSD, there is still a general paucity of research investigating the prevalence and maintenance of these memories in depression. Accordingly, the current thesis represented a much-needed program of empirically-driven research that delineated the cognitive processes that underpin the manifestation, experience, and persistence of intrusive memories in depression. Firstly, Study 1 used descriptive and correlational methodologies to outline the content and features of these memories, and explored whether intrusion characteristics linked to intrusive memories in PTSD are also features of intrusive memories in depression. In accord with studies in PTSD samples, sensory features accounted for unique variance in the prediction of depression severity, over and above that accounted for by intrusion frequency. This commonality raised the possibility that cognitive management strategies linked to the persistence of intrusive memories in PTSD may also play a role in depression. Accordingly, Study 2 utilized a cross-sectional and prospective design to investigate whether negative appraisals and cognitive avoidance strategies, which are key to the persistence of intrusive memories in PTSD, similarly play a role in depression. The results demonstrated that assigning negative appraisals to one???s intrusive memory, and attempts to control the memory, were positively associated with intrusion-related distress, level of depression, and cognitive avoidance mechanisms. Additionally, negative appraisals and the use of cognitive mechanisms were predictive of depression concurrently, but not prospectively. Studies 3, 4, and 5 further investigated avoidant intrusion- response strategies by assessing the role of recall vantage perspective in mediating the effects of intrusion-related distress. Study 3 found that although field memories were not experienced as more distressing than observer memories, the results supported an association between an observer vantage perspective and cognitive avoidance mechanisms. As this study employed a correlational design, Study 4 addressed the question of directionality by experimentally manipulating mode of recall to ascertain whether shifting participants into a converse perspective would have differential effects on the reported experience of their intrusive memory. Results indicated that shifting participants from a field to an observer perspective resulted in decreased experiential ratings; specifically, reduced distress and vividness and increased detachment and observation. Also, as anticipated, the converse shift in perspective (from observer to field) did not lead to a corresponding increase in experiential ratings, but resulted in reduced ratings of observation. Study 5 attempted to investigate the stability of this memory orientation phenomenon by investigating mode of recall vantage perspective prospectively. Attrition of participants across the 12-month study limited analyses to the descriptive level, but illustrated that, at least for some individuals, recall vantage perspective remained stable across assessments periods. Collectively, the findings supported the notion that recall perspective has a functional role in the regulation of intrusion-related distress and represents a cognitive avoidance mechanism. Studies 6 and 7 employed experimental methodologies to investigate whether adopting an abstract/analytical mode of processing following a negative event would result in poor emotional processing, or increased distress associated with intrusive memories. Study 6 found no differences in either intrusion frequency or associated levels of distress across the processing conditions, as hypothesized. The results of Study 6 suggested that the predicted effects of ruminative self-focus on intrusion severity may be dependent upon the self-referential nature of the material being processed. Results of Study 7 indicated that inducing an analytical ruminative mode of processing resulted in participants rating their naturally occurring, self-referential intrusive memories as more negative, more distressing, and evoking a more negative emotional response compared to inducing distraction. Taken together, Studies 6 and 7 suggest the possibility that depressed individuals may get caught up in a ruminative cycle that, due to the documented effects of analytical self-focus, may exacerbate the emotional response elicited by the intrusions and perpetuate biased attentional focus towards them. Finally, Studies 8 and 9 explored suppression as a cognitive avoidance mechanism and addressed some methodological concerns regarding the measurement of this construct. Study 8 investigated the effects of repeated suppression using a method to index the frequency, duration, and associated levels of distress of an experimentally-induced intrusive memory, and assessed whether any observed effects were differentially linked to depressive symptomatology. Results supported a secondary rebound effect in those participants who were most successful at suppressing target intrusions. Study 9 was an investigation of the English version of the TCAQ (Luciano, Algarabel, Tom??s, & Mart??nez, 2005), an index of cognitive control. Study 9 evaluated the association between this measure and performance on a thought suppression task. The results indicated that low TCAQ-20 scorers experienced intrusions of a longer duration and rated these intrusions as more distressing than high TCAQ-20 scorers, supporting the validity of the measure. These findings highlight the role of suppression as a maladaptive mental control strategy and the potential for elevated intrusion-distress to perpetuate its use. Together, the findings of this program of research confirm the importance of intrusive memories in depression, and underscore the need for an empirically-supported model to account for the occurrence and maintenance of these memories.

False recollection refers to the retrieval of contextual information associated with an event that has not occurred. For instance, during a recognition task, one might identify a nonstudied word presented at test as old because she remembers the font color of the word during study. Although instances such as this are rare and typically occur at a varying rate of 0-5%, current models of recognition such as the Complementary Learning Systems (CLS) model and the Dual-Process Signal-Detection (DPSD) model do not contain a mechanism to account for their occurrence. Although both the CLS and DPSD models have support from studies demonstrating functional dissociations, neurophysiological dissociations, and behavioral findings of process dissociation, their ability to explain false memories has been more elusive; neither theory specifically addresses false recollection. Instead, such models have ignored false recollection as inconsequential noise in the data. The purpose of this dissertation was to determine whether the false recognition effect obtained by the Payne-Eakin paradigm was due to false recollection or familiarity. The Payne-Eakin paradigm is based on the PIER2 model, which theorizes that targets implicitly activated during study lead to the falser recognition of a false-target pair. Using a modified version of the Payne-Eakin paradigm, we investigated the nature of the false recognition effect using a priori behavioral analyses and statistical modeling. The findings of this dissertation provide a step toward a more solid understanding of the cognitive mechanisms involved in the recognition of nonstudied items. This dissertation demonstrates that modeling false recollection is possible. The results of this dissertation suggest that, because current models of recognition do not provide a mechanism to account for false recollection, our understanding of recognition is not fully understood. The results highlight that the current understanding of how false recollection contributes to recognition performance is an area in need of further development.

Yes / In a large-scale survey, 6,641 respondents provided descriptions of their first memory and their age when they encoded that memory, and they completed various memory judgments and ratings. In good agreement with many other studies, where mean age at encoding of earliest memories is usually found to fall somewhere in the first half of the 3rd year of life, the mean age at encoding here was 3.2 years. The established view is that the distribution around mean age at encoding is truncated, with very few or no memories dating to the preverbal period, that is, below about 2 years of age. However, we found that 2,487 first memories (nearly 40% of the entire sample) dated to an age at encoding of 2 years and younger, with 893 dating to 1 year and younger. We discuss how such improbable, fictional first memories could have arisen and contrast them with more probable first memories, those with an age at encoding of 3 years and older.

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Change and development over an extremely fast period of time in Qatar have shifted the atmospheric sense of the country. The distance created by the skyscrapers and their scale to people has a great impact on the behavior and interaction between the people and the city. In my research, I aim to incorporate the old experiences and behaviors with contemporary design in objects used within the house to maintain the feeling of being home through reliving the fading behaviors and traditions as well as bringing closer the modern city into the home through the use of materials. Through experimentation with human behaviors, materials and senses, I create a series of projects that deal with memory, nostalgia, and traces of time.

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico / O desenvolvimento de pesquisas recentes sobre ditaduras permitiu uma reflexão diferenciada, menos polarizada, sobre o comportamento da sociedade perante o estabelecimento de um regime de exceção. No presente trabalho, as memórias de alguns portugueses foram o objeto de análise para compreender as ambivalências, os silêncios e as oposições dos mesmos ao longo de suas vidas na vigência do salazarismo. O confronto de suas memórias com a história nos permitiu avaliar a ideia que cada um tinha sobre a instauração e permanência de uma ditadura, bem como a complexidade da relação do poder institucional com os indivíduos e de suas concepções particulares de política, justiça e bem estar social. / The development of recent research on dictatorships allowed a differentiated reflection , less polarized, about the society behavior in front of the establishment of a dictatorial regime. In this present work, the memories of some Portuguese were the subject of analysis towards to understand the ambivalence, the silences and the oppositions of them throughout their lives in the presence of Salazar period. The clash of their memories with the story allowed us to evaluate the idea that each one had on the establishment and permanence of a dictatorship, as well the complexity relationship of the institutional power with the individuals, and their particular conceptions of politics, justice and welfare state.