Skip to main content
Key Specialties
Cardiology Diabetology Endocrinology Gastroenterology Geriatrics and Gerontology Gynecology and Obstetrics Hematology Infectious Disease Internal Medicine Nephrology Neurology Oncology Pediatrics Respiratory Medicine Rheumatology Surgery
Congress Coverage
2024 ACC Congress 2023 ESMO Congress 2023 EASD Congress 2023 ERS Congress 2023 ESC Congress
Clinical Collections
Advances in Alzheimer’s

At a glance: The STEP trials

A round-up of the STEP phase 3 clinical trials evaluating semaglutide for weight loss in people with overweight or obesity.
ADVANCED SEARCH
Log in
Top
European Journal of Ageing
Published in: European Journal of Ageing 3/2016

01-09-2016 | Original Investigation

The distribution and the functions of autobiographical memories: Why do older adults remember autobiographical memories from their youth?

Authors: Tabea Wolf, Daniel Zimprich

Published in: European Journal of Ageing | Issue 3/2016

Login to get access

Abstract

In the present study, the distribution of autobiographical memories was examined from a functional perspective: we examined whether the extent to which long-term autobiographical memories were rated as having a self-, a directive, or a social function affects the location (mean age) and scale (standard deviation) of the memory distribution. Analyses were based on a total of 5598 autobiographical memories generated by 149 adults aged between 50 and 81 years in response to 51 cue-words. Participants provided their age at the time when the recalled events had happened and rated how frequently they recall these events for self-, directive, and social purposes. While more frequently using autobiographical memories for self-functions was associated with an earlier mean age, memories frequently shared with others showed a narrower distribution around a later mean age. The directive function, by contrast, did not affect the memory distribution. The results strengthen the assumption that experiences from an individual’s late adolescence serve to maintain a sense of self-continuity throughout the lifespan. Experiences that are frequently shared with others, in contrast, stem from a narrow age range located in young adulthood.
Footnotes
1
Naturally, distributions (of AM) might differ in more respects than location and scale. However, many probability distributions—notably those distributions from the exponential dispersion family (Jørgensen 1987)—can be described by two parameters that correspond to location and scale of the distribution.
 
2
Another 54 participants completed the first measurement occasion only and were, therefore, not included into the present study.
 
3
The decision to exclude AMs older than 10 years represents a rather conservative criterion. However, we aimed to eliminate the recency effect for two reasons. First, more recent memories may be qualitatively different from long-term AMs because their distribution closely resembles a forgetting function (where accessibility decreases with the passage of time), and it remains an open question whether recent memories ever (and if so, which of them) turn into AMs that can be accessed many years later. Second, an increase of recent memories would be difficult to handle methodologically, because this would require the underlying probability distribution to increase in its right tail—which is impossible with common probability distributions.
 
4
To obtain these results, one calculates \(\frac{{\exp (\varvec{\beta}_{0} )}}{{1 + \exp (\varvec{\beta}_{0} )}} = \frac{\exp ( - 1.2577)}{1 + \exp ( - 1.2577)} = 0.22\) for the location of and \(\frac{{\exp (\varvec{\upsilon}_{0} )}}{{1 + \exp (\varvec{\upsilon}_{0} )}} = \frac{\exp ( - 0.1296)}{1 + \exp ( - 0.1296)} = 0.468\) for the scale of the memory distribution.
 
5
For an individual of average age (i.e. 62 years), mean-centred age is 0, and thus the location estimate in original age units can be calculated as \(\frac{{\exp (\varvec{\beta}_{0} +\varvec{\beta}_{1} \times age)}}{{1 + \exp (\varvec{\beta}_{0} +\varvec{\beta}_{1} \times age)}} = \frac{\exp ( - 1.2577 + 0.0253 \times 0)}{1 + \exp ( - 1.2577 + 0.0253 \times 0)} = 0.22\). For an individual 15 years older than the average age (i.e. 77 years), the location can be calculated as \(\frac{\exp ( - 1.2577 + 0.0253 \times 15)}{1 + \exp ( - 1.2577 + 0.0253 \times 15)} = 0.29\) Likewise, the scale estimate in original age units can be calculated as \(\frac{{\exp (\varvec{\upsilon}_{0} +\varvec{\upsilon}_{1} \times age)}}{{1 + \exp (\varvec{\upsilon}_{0} +\varvec{\upsilon}_{1} \times age)}} = \frac{\exp ( - 0.1296 + 0.0103 \times 0)}{1 + \exp ( - 0.1296 + 0.0103 \times 0)} = 0.468\) for an individual of average age and \(\frac{\exp ( - 0.1296 + 0.0103 \times 15)}{1 + \exp ( - 0.1296 + 0.0103 \times 15)} = 0.506\) for an individual 15 years older.
 
6
To obtain these results, one calculates \(\frac{{\exp (\varvec{\beta}_{0} +\varvec{\beta}_{3} \times valence)}}{{1 + \exp (\varvec{\beta}_{0} +\varvec{\beta}_{3} \times valence)}} = \frac{\exp ( - 1.2577 - 0.1270 \times 1)}{1 + \exp ( - 1.2577 - 0.1270 \times 1)} = 0.20\) for the location and \(\frac{{\exp (\varvec{\upsilon}_{0} +\varvec{\upsilon}_{3} \times valence)}}{{1 + \exp (\varvec{\upsilon}_{0} +\varvec{\upsilon}_{3} \times valence)}} = \frac{\exp ( - 0.1296 + 0.0533 \times 1)}{1 + \exp ( - 0.1296 + 0.0533 \times 1)} = 0.481\) for the scale of a valence-score one standard deviation above the mean. For valence-scores one standard deviation below the mean, one calculates \(\frac{\exp ( - 1.2577 + 0.1270 \times 1)}{1 + \exp ( - 1.2577 + 0.1270 \times 1)} = 0.24\) for location and \(\frac{\exp ( - 0.1296 - 0.0533 \times 1)}{1 + \exp ( - 0.1296 - 0.0533 \times 1)} = 0.454\) for scale.
 
7
More specifically, self-functions accounted for 4 %, directive for 1 %, and social for 8 % of variance in location. In the scale parameter, the self-, directive, and social functions explained 2.5, 0, and 7.5 % of variance, respectively.
 
8
Zimprich and Wolf (2015, 2016) used a very similar approach to model individual differences in the distribution of autobiographical memories. See their study for a detailed discussion of possible advantages and drawbacks.
 
Literature
Alea N, Ali S, Marcano B (2014b) The bumps in Trinidadian life: reminiscence bumps for positive and negative life events. Appl Cogn Psychol 28:174–184. doi:10.​1002/​acp.​2975 CrossRef
Bluck S, Alea N (2002) Exploring the functions of autobiographical memory: Why do I remember the autumn? In: Webster JD, Haight BK (eds) Critical advances in reminiscence: from theory to application. Springer, New York, pp 61–75
Bluck S, Baron JM, Ainsworth SA, Gesselman AN, Gold KL (2013) Eliciting empathy for adults in chronic pain through autobiographical memory sharing. Appl Cogn Psychol 27:81–90. doi:10.​1002/​acp.​2875 CrossRef
Cohen G (1998) The effects of aging in autobiographical memory. In: Thompson CP, Herrman DJ, Bruce D, Read JD, Payne DG, Toglia MP (eds) Autobiographical memory: theoretical and applied perspectives. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Inc., Hillsdale, pp 105–123
Crovitz HF, Schiffman H (1974) Frequency of episodic memories as a function of age. Bull Psychon Soc 4:517–518CrossRef
Ebner NC, Freund AM, Baltes PB (2006) Developmental changes in personal goal orientation from young to late adulthood: from striving for gains to maintenance and prevention of losses. Psychol Aging 21:664–678. doi:10.​1037/​0882-7974.​21.​4.​664 CrossRef
Erikson EH (1950) Child and society. Norton, New York
Janssen SMJ, Murre JMJ (2008) Reminiscence bump in autobiographical memory: unexplained by novelty, emotionality, valence, or importance of personal events. Q J Exp Psychol 61:1847–1860. doi:10.​1080/​1747021070177424​2 CrossRef
Janssen SMJ, Rubin DC, St. Jacques JL (2011) The temporal distribution of autobiographical memory: changes in reliving and vividness over the life span do not explain the reminiscence bump. Mem Cogn 39:1–11. doi:10.​3758/​s13421-010-0003-x CrossRef
Jørgensen B (1987) Exponential dispersion models. J R Stat Soc B Methodol 49:127–162
McFadden D (1974) Conditional logit analysis of qualitative choice behavior. In: Zarembka P (ed) Frontiers in econometrics. Academic Press, New York, pp 104–142
Pasupathi M (2003) Emotion regulation during social remembering: differences between emotions elicited during an event and emotions elicited when talking about it. Memory 11:151–163. doi:10.​1080/​741938212 CrossRef
Pillemer DB (1992) Remembering personal circumstances: a functional analysis. In: Winograd E, Neisser U (eds) Affect and accuracy in recall: Studies of “flashbulb” memories. Cambridge University Press, New York, pp 236–264CrossRef
Rasmussen AS, Berntsen D (2009) Emotional valence and the functions of autobiographical memories: positive and negative memories serve different functions. Mem Cogn 37:477–492. doi:10.​3758/​MC.​37.​4.​477 CrossRef
Rubin DC, Berntsen D (2003) Life scripts help to maintain autobiographical memories of highly positive, but not highly negative, events. Mem Cogn 31:1–14. doi:10.​3758/​BF03196077 CrossRef
Rubin DC, Wetzler SE, Nebes RD (1986) Autobiographical memory across the adult lifespan. In: Rubin DC (ed) Autobiographical memory. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 202–221CrossRef
SAS Institute Inc. (2008) SAS/STAT 9.2 Users’ Guide. SAS Institute Inc, Cary
Zimprich D, Wolf T (2016) Modeling individual differences in autobiographical memory distributions using mixed logitnormal regression. Appl Cogn Psychol. doi:10.​1002/​acp.​3211
Metadata
Title
The distribution and the functions of autobiographical memories: Why do older adults remember autobiographical memories from their youth?
Authors
Tabea Wolf
Daniel Zimprich
Publication date
01-09-2016
Publisher
Springer Netherlands
Published in
European Journal of Ageing / Issue 3/2016
Print ISSN: 1613-9372
Electronic ISSN: 1613-9380
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10433-016-0372-5

Other articles of this Issue 3/2016

European Journal of Ageing 3/2016 Go to the issue

Original Investigation

Gender difference in the prevalence and socio-demographic correlates of mobility disability among older adults in Nigeria

Original Investigation

Identifying important factors for older adults’ physical activity participation across individual/group, structured/unstructured contexts

Original Investigation

Life resources and personal goals in old age

Original Investigation

Active ageing within the nursing home: a study in Flanders, Belgium

Original Investigation

Positive messages enhance older adults’ motivation and recognition memory for physical activity programmes

Review

Providing informal care in a changing society