Involuntary memory chains: What do they tell us about autobiographical memory organisation?

Abstract

Involuntary memory chains are spontaneous recollections of the past that occur as a sequence of associated memories. This memory phenomenon has provided some insights into the nature of associations in autobiographical memory. For example, it has shown that conceptually associated memories (memories sharing similar content, such as the same people or themes) are more prevalent than general-event associated memories (memories from the same extended event period, such as a trip). This finding has suggested that conceptual associations are a central organisational principle in the autobiographical memory system. This study used involuntary memories chains to gain additional insights into the associative structure of autobiographical memory. Among the main results, we found that general-event associations have higher rates of forgetting than conceptual associations, and in long memory chains (i.e., those with more than two memories) conceptually associated memories were more likely to activate memories in their associative class, whereas general-event associated memories were less likely to activate memories in their associative class. We interpret the results as further evidence that conceptual associations are a major organising principle in the autobiographical memory system, and attempt to explain why general-event associations have shorter lifespans than conceptual associations.

The reminiscence bump without memories: The distribution of imagined word-cued and important autobiographical memories in a hypothetical 70-year-old

“…Across participants, a mean of 72.0% (SD = 29.4%) of word-cued memories were coded as specific; the corresponding mean was 92.9% (SD = 13.5%) for important memories. The percentage of specific word-cued memories we attained is similar to the percentages typically found in autobiographical memory tasks that solicit specific memories (see discussion in Mace, Clevinger, & Martin, 2010). Thus, participants were able to follow the instructions at rates similar to the rates found in studies on autobiographical memory proper.…”

Semantic memories prime autobiographical memories: General implications and implications for everyday autobiographical remembering

“…Though repetition priming (e.g., where prior exposure to a stimulus speeds its subsequent processing) is likely to occur in autobiographical memory, as it does in other knowledge domains (e.g., the visual word form system, Schacter, 1992), the associative priming model (i.e., where knowledge primes or activates related knowledge) has more commonly been invoked (e.g., Conway, 2005;Mace, 2005Mace, , 2007aMace, , 2010b or studied (e.g., Ball & Hennessey, 2009;Conway, 1990;Mace, 2005; in autobiographical memory (for reviews of associative and repetition priming, see Anderson, 1983a;Roediger & McDermott, 1993). Theoretically, this model has been used to describe spreading activation between and among various autobiographical knowledge structures (e.g., between lifetime period knowledge and general event knowledge, or among episodic memories -Conway, 2005;Mace, 2005;Mace, Clevinger, & Bernas, 2013). For the most part, the focus has been on activations and priming within the autobiographical memory knowledge base.…”

‘Six Memos' for Lymph Node Fine-Needle Cytology and Flow Cytometry

“…This phenomenon has been widely explored and defined as ‘involuntary memory' or ‘stream of consciousness' in some literary masterpieces of the 20th century [1,2]. Nowadays, in psychiatry, it is known as ‘involuntary autobiographical memory chains' [3], and it may occur in one's professional life too. While I was conceiving my contribution to this issue of Acta Cytologica , dedicated to lymph node (LN) fine-needle cytology (FNC) and flow cytometry (FC), I often and involuntarily recalled the book Six Memos for the Next Millennium , also known as The American Lessons by the Italian writer Italo Calvino.…”