Rachel J. Anderson

Imagining novel futures: The roles of event plausibility and familiarity

The constructive episodic simulation hypothesis suggests that episodic memory supports the simulation of future events through extraction and recombination of stored information. The current study explicitly investigated the use of past episodic thought in the simulation of future scenarios. Participants simulated one of three possible scenarios, differing in plausibility and participants’ prior experience of similar events. Participants recorded related memories and whether they were explicitly used during future event simulation. Memories were rated for source (self-experienced, other-experienced, or media). Findings suggest prior experience and event plausibility did not impact upon ease of future event simulation or the extent of memory usage during simulations. Differences emerged in the source of information used to assist future event simulation. These findings provide support for the hypothesis that episodic memories from a variety of sources are recombined when generating future simulations of novel events.

A gender difference in the false recall of negative words: Women DRM more than men

Gender differences in susceptibility to associative memory illusions in the Deese/Roediger–McDermott paradigm were investigated using negative and neutral word lists. Women (n=50) and men (n=50) studied 20 lists of 12 words that were associates of a non-presented critical lure. Ten lists were associates of negatively valenced lures (e.g., cry, evil) and ten were associates of neutral lures (e.g., chair, slow). When asked to recall the words after each list, women falsely recalled more negative lures than men, but there was no gender difference in the false recall of neutral lures. These findings suggest that women reflect on associations within negative lists to a greater degree than men and are thereby more likely to generate the negative critical lures.

Overgeneral past and future thinking in dysphoria: the role of emotional cues and cueing methodology

Overgeneral memory, where individuals exhibit difficulties in retrieving specific episodes from autobiographical memory, has been consistently linked with emotional disorders. However, the majority of this literature has relied upon a single methodology, in which participants respond to emotional cue words with explicit instructions to retrieve/simulate specific events. Through the use of sentence completion tasks the current studies explored whether overgenerality represents a habitual pattern of thinking that extends to how individuals naturally consider their personal past and future life story. In both studies, when compared with controls, dysphoric individuals evidenced overgeneral thinking style with respect to their personal past. However, overgeneral future thinking was only evident when the sentence stems included emotional words. These findings highlight the importance of investigating the overgenerality phenomenon using a variety of cueing techniques and results are discussed with reference to the previous literature exploring overgenerality and cognitive models of depression.

Adaptive false memory: Imagining future scenarios increases false memories in the DRM paradigm

Previous research has shown that rating words for their relevance to a future scenario enhances memory for those words. The current study investigated the effect of future thinking on false memory using the Deese/Roediger–McDermott (DRM) procedure. In Experiment 1, participants rated words from 6 DRM lists for relevance to a past or future event (with or without planning) or in terms of pleasantness. In a surprise recall test, levels of correct recall did not vary between the rating tasks, but the future rating conditions led to significantly higher levels of false recall than the past and pleasantness conditions did. Experiment 2 found that future rating led to higher levels of false recognition than did past and pleasantness ratings but did not affect correct recognition. The effect in false recognition was, however, eliminated when DRM items were presented in random order. Participants in Experiment 3 were presented with both DRM lists and lists of unrelated words. Future rating increased levels of false recognition for DRM lures but did not affect correct recognition for DRM or unrelated lists. The findings are discussed in terms of the view that false memories can be associated with adaptive memory functions.

Direct and generative retrieval of autobiographical memories: The roles of visual imagery and executive processes.

Two experiments used a dual task methodology to investigate the role of visual imagery and executive resources in the retrieval of specific autobiographical memories. In Experiment 1, dynamic visual noise led to a reduction in the number of specific memories retrieved in response to both high and low imageability cues, but did not affect retrieval times. In Experiment 2, irrelevant pictures reduced the number of specific memories but only in response to low imageability cues. Irrelevant pictures also increased response times to both high and low imageability cues. The findings are in line with previous work suggesting that disrupting executive resources may impair generative, but not direct, retrieval of autobiographical memories. In contrast, visual distractor tasks appear to impair access to specific autobiographical memories via both the direct and generative retrieval routes, thereby highlighting the potential role of visual imagery in both pathways.

A dysphoric's TALE: The relationship between the self-reported functions of autobiographical memory and symptoms of depression.

ABSTRACT Autobiographical memory (AM) is believed to serve self, social and directive functions; however, little is known regarding how this triad of functions operates in depression. Using the Thinking About Life Experiences questionnaire [Bluck, S., & Alea, N. (2011). Crafting the TALE: Construction of a measure to assess the functions of autobiographical remembering. Memory, 19, 470–486.; Bluck, S., Alea, N., Habermas, T., & Rubin, D. C. (2005). A TALE of three functions: The self–reported uses of autobiographical memory. Social Cognition, 23, 91–117.], two studies explored the relationship between depressive symptomology and the self-reported frequency and usefulness of AMs for self, social and directive purposes. Study 1 revealed that thinking more frequently but talking less frequently about past life events was significantly associated with higher depression scores. Recalling past events more frequently to maintain self-continuity was also significantly associated with higher depressive symptomology. However, results from Study 2 indicated that higher levels of depression were also significantly associated with less-frequent useful recollections of past life events for self-continuity purposes. Taken together, the findings suggest atypical utilisations of AM to serve self-continuity functions in depression and can be interpreted within the wider context of ruminative thought processes.

Episodic elaboration: Investigating the structure of retrieved past events and imagined future events

Five experiments investigated the cognitive processes involved in the elaboration of past and future events. A production listing procedure was used, in which participants listed details of each event in forwards chronological order, backwards chronological order, or free order. For both past and future events, forwards and free ordering conditions were reliably faster than backwards order. Production rates between past and future temporal directions did not differ in Experiments 1a, 1b, and 3. However, in Experiment 2, the elaboration of future events was faster than the elaboration of past events. This pattern can be explained by the findings of Experiment 4, in which production rates were faster for likely events than for unlikely events but only in the future condition. Overall, the findings suggest that the elaboration of future, but not past, events, is facilitated when constructed around current goals.

Individual differences in susceptibility to false memories: The effect of memory specificity

Previous research has highlighted the wide individual variability in susceptibility to the false memories produced by the Deese/Roediger–McDermott (DRM) procedure. This study investigated whether susceptibility to false memories is influenced by individual differences in the specificity of autobiographical memory retrieval. Memory specificity was measured using the Sentence Completion for Events from the Past Test (SCEPT). Memory specificity did not correlate with correct recognition, but a specific retrieval style was positively correlated with levels of false recognition. It is proposed that the contextual details that frequently accompany false memories of non-studied lures are more accessible in individuals with specific retrieval styles.

Simulation, false memories, and the planning of future events.

Three experiments investigated the relationship between future thinking and false memories. In Experiment 1, participants remembered familiar events (e.g., a holiday) from their past, imagined planning the same events in the future, or took part in a control condition in which they visualized typical events. They then rated a series of schema-related and schema-unrelated nouns for how likely they were to be encountered within those events. In a surprise recognition test, participants in the future condition falsely recognized more schema-related items than participants in the past and control conditions. No reliable effects of rating condition were observed in correct recognition. Experiment 2 found the same pattern when participants imagined unfamiliar events (e.g., taking part in a bank robbery) from past or future perspectives. Participants in Experiment 3 remembered a past or imagined a future holiday and were then instructed to generate items that someone might take on a holiday. Participants in the future condition generated more nonstudied items and fewer studied items relative to participants in the past condition. The findings of Experiments 1 and 2 indicate that simulating future events enhances the activation of related items that gives rise to false memories. The findings of Experiment 3 suggest that these activation processes play an adaptive role in guiding the planning of future events.

A brighter future : the effect of positive episodic simulation on future predictions in non-depressed, moderately dysphoric & highly dysphoric individuals

Previous research suggests depressed individuals have difficulties with future directed cognitions. For instance, compared with non-depressed individuals, they predict positive events are less likely to occur. Recent work suggests that episodic simulation of positive futures may represent a useful strategy for improving prospective predictions. The current studies investigated positive future episodic simulation as a method of modifying predictions regarding the likelihood of occurrence, perceived control, and importance of positive and negative future events. Experiment 1 compared positive episodic simulation to a neutral visualization task in a non-clinical sample. Predictions regarding future events were rated more positively after the use of positive episodic simulation but not as a result of neutral visualization. Experiment 2 extended these findings to show that future episodic simulation can be used to modify predictions, for both positive and negative events, in individuals experiencing significant levels of dysphoric mood and depressive symptoms. Taken together, these findings suggest that training in positive episodic future simulation can improve future outlook and may represent a useful tool within cognitive therapeutic techniques.