Why are we not flooded by involuntary autobiographical memories? Few cues are more effective than many

Abstract

Recent research on involuntary autobiographical memories (IAMs) has shown that these memories can be elicited and studied in the laboratory under controlled conditions. Employing a modified version of a vigilance task developed by Schlagman and Kvavilashvili (Mem Cogn 36:920-932, 2008) to elicit IAMs, we investigated the effects of varying the frequency of external cues on the number of IAMs reported. During the vigilance task, participants had to detect an occasional target stimulus (vertical lines) in a constant stream of non-target stimuli (horizontal lines). Participants had to interrupt the task whenever they became aware of any task-unrelated mental contents and to report them. In addition to line patterns, participants were exposed to verbal cues and their frequency was experimentally manipulated in three conditions (frequent cues vs. infrequent cues vs. infrequent cues plus arithmetic operations). We found that, compared to infrequent cues, both conditions with frequent cues and infrequent cues plus arithmetic operations decreased the number of IAMs reported. The comparison between the three experimental conditions suggests that this reduction was due to the greater cognitive load in conditions of frequent cues and infrequent cue plus arithmetic operations. Possible mechanisms involved in this effect and their implications for research on IAMs are discussed.

Reduced mind-wandering in mild cognitive impairment: Testing the spontaneous retrieval deficit hypothesis.

“…Most importantly, in line with findings on young adults using the same vigilance task paradigm, the majority of spontaneous task-unrelated thoughts were reported to have been triggered by irrelevant cue-words presented on the slides (Cole, Staugaard & Berntsen, 2016;Vannucci et al, 2015;Schlagman & Kvavilashvili, 2008).…”

A closer look at the timecourse of mind wandering: pupillary responses and behaviour

“…Participants completed a modified version of the computer-based vigilance task [15] already used in previous studies [e.g., 11,13,20]. The task consisted of 1020 trials, presented in a fixed order, each lasting 2 s. A white fixation point (0.2 deg diameter) was always shown at screen centre.…”

“…At the methodological level, an important contribution has been provided by a new experimental paradigm, developed by Schlagman and Kvavilashvili (2008) and extensively used to investigate involuntary autobiographical memories [e.g., [16][17][18][19][20], and recently adapted to study MW [11,13].…”

Manipulating cues in mind wandering: Verbal cues affect the frequency and the temporal focus of mind wandering

“…Participants completed a modified version of the computer-based vigilance task developed by Schlagman and Kvavilashvili (2008) and already used in previous studies (Barzykowski & Niedzẃieńska, 2016;Vannucci et al, 2014;Vannucci, Pelagatti, Hanczakowski, Mazzoni, & Rossi Paccani, 2015). The task consisted of 600 trials, presented in a fixed order, each remaining on the screen for 1.5 sec.…”

“…In the Verbal-cues condition, cue words (e.g., "stainless steel", "long hair", "paper bag") in 18-CPI Arial font were shown in the middle of the image on 108 (18%) trials. The words that served as cues were selected from the pool of 800 word-phrases developed by Schlagman and Kvavilashvili (2008) and adapted to the Italian sample (for more details on the Italian adaptation, see Vannucci et al, 2015). Temporally-oriented word-phrases (e.g., "old family photos", "forgotten appointment") were not included in the sample and, when necessary, the words were slightly modified to make them emotionally neutral (e.g., "jealous behaviour" was replaced by "behaviour").…”