Steen F. Larsen

The formation of flashbulb memories

A large group of subjects took part in a multinational test-retest study to investigate the formation of flashbulb (FS) memories for learning tie news of the resignation of the British prime minister, Margaret Thatcher. Over 86% of the U.K. subjects were found to have FB memories nearly 1 year after the resignation; their memory reports were characterized by spontaneous, accurate, and full recall of event details, including minutiae. In contrast, less than 29%a of the non-U.K. subjects had FB memories 1 year later; memory reports in this group were characterized by forgetting, reconstructive errors, and confabulatory responses. A causal analysis of secondary variables showed that the formation of FB memories was primarily associated with the level of importance attached to the event and level of affective response to the news. These findings lend some support to the study by R. Brown and Kulik (1977), who suggest that FB memories may constitute a class of autobiographical memories distinguished by some form of preferential encoding.

Reconstructive memory in the dating of personal and public news events

Two experiments investigated memory for the dates of events selected and recorded by subjects in diaries. In Experiment 1, personal events and public news events were compared, with retention time varying from 1 week up to 9 months. It was found that the day of the week was more accurately identified for personal events than for news events, that day-of-the-week (DOW) accuracy did not decrease with increasing retention time, and that memory of the personal context of both event types was more important for DOW accuracy than was memory of the core of the events. These results support our view that memory of the day of the week is mainly reconstructed by reference to a temporal week schema based on personal experiences, and that the relation of news events to the week schema is mediated by memory of personal context. The distribution of DOW errors was modeled as the outcome of a process of guessing constrained by subdivisions of the week schema, without assuming any special temporal memory trace. In Experiment 2, the model was shown to fit independently collected data from a different subject pool and country equally well.

Personal Context in Autobiographical and Narrative Memories

The concepts of autobiographical memory and episodic memory are examined. Since the study of autobiographical memory was revitalised in the 1980s, its relation to the strong tradition of verbal learning research, and in particular to the distinction between episodic and semantic memory, has been a nagging problem. The analysis results in the proposal of a taxonomy of memory which respects the meaning of well-established concepts. Autobiographical memory is seen as a subcategory of episodic memory, in parallel with a new category of “narrative memories” which also have personal context but lacks a personal core event. Some studies illustrating this distinction are described.

Autobiographical memory and life-history narratives in aging and dementia (Alzheimer type)

The distribution of autobiographical memories across the life-span obtained by using the Galton-Crovitz prompt word method is discussed. It is demonstrated that a free life-history narrative produces results very similar to prompting for vivid memories. The distribution of remote memories found in patients with Alzheimer’s dementia by this method is identical to that of normal agemates, though at a much lower level. This suggests a uniform impairment of memory across the life span in dementia. A quite different distribution of historical memories (memories of public events) indicates that the cultural structuring of the life course is a potent determinant of the results found with this family of methods.

Reconstructing dates of true and false autobiographical memories.

Two subjects kept records of everyday events and thoughts over a 5 month period. Each day both true and false records were created. Seven months later, the subjects attempted to recognise each diary entry and to judge whether it referred to a true or false record. The subjects also dated each entry believed to be true and provided various ratings, including the nature of memory awareness associated with the recognition judgement. Those items remembered correctly as true were dated more accurately than items incorrectly remembered as true (false memories). However, even false memories that is, self-convincing lies were consistently dated better than chance. Furthermore, events were dated more accurately than thoughts, and items that were recollectively experienced were associated with enhanced dating accuracy. These findings are at odds with the notion of temporal traces or tags and instead support the reconstructive nature of temporal knowledge in autobiographical memory.

Knowledge Updating in Text Processing

Updating ones knowledge is necessary to keep it current despite continuous changes in the world. Updating is argued to be basic to survival and to developing a knowledge of historical events, including ones personal history. Texts particularly contribute to update knowledge of the world beyond personal experience, e.g., in the case of news reports. A distinction between corrective updating (maintaining the currency of knowledge) and progressive updating (maintaining out-of-date knowledge) is proposed and several subtypes are outlined. In discussing the cognitive process of updating, a number of empirical problems are pointed out.

EGOCENTRISK TALE, BEGREBSSTRUKTUR OG SEMANTISK UDVIKLING

Artiklen soger at vise, at sakaldt egocentrisk tale ikke skyldes en sxrlig “kognitiv egocentri” hos forskoleborn (som Piaget haevder) og heller ikke blot er en forlober for “indre tale” (som haevdet af Vygotsky). Ud fra de seneste ars undersogelser af referentiel kommunikation kan egocentrisk tale derimod forstas som et aiment faenomen hos savel born som voksne, betinget af begrebssystemets struktur og udvikling.

Procedural thinking, programming, and computer use

Information processing technologies are spreading rapidly throughout the industrialized world. Can we identify cognitive prerequisites — knowledge and skills — which are particular to understanding, using, and constructing such devices? If so, we will be better prepared to deal with present difficulties of novices and workers, to educate people for future mastering of the technology, and to foresee psychological and social consequences that the dissemination of these abilities may engender. The assumption behind the talk of “computer literacy” is that such cognitive prerequisites exist and can be taught, though nobody seems to agree what they are. I shall begin by presenting and discussing a proposal about the cognitive contents of computer literacy, put forward at a conference in Houston a few years ago by B.A. Sheil (1981), a psychologist at Xerox.

ET TIDSSKRIFTS ANSIGT: INDHOLDSANALYSE AF SCANDINAVIAN JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLOGY

I artiklen anvendes en simpel bibliometrisk metode til at belyse de aendringer, der er sket i den emnemaessige fordeling af artiklerne i Scandinavian Journal of Psychology i perioden 1967–1980.

Chapter 10. Commentary: Memory of Schemata, Details and Selves

Publisher Summary This chapter presents a commentary on a study related to memory of schemata, details, and selves. Remembering ourselves is a curious phrase; it suggests that we can also do the opposite, forget ourselves. If this is taken to mean that one is completely unable to recall any information about oneself, then it occurs only in the most extreme circumstances. For instance, in Fromholt and Larsens study of the life history narratives of old people suffering from Alzheimers dementia, subjects in the most severely demented group at least knew their names and could tell about a few events from their lives. Craig Barclays stimulating account of memory and self is based on such an understanding. He emphasizes rightly, the importance of ones autobiographical memories in forming a sense of self and the social significance of this process. Barclays position on the self only becomes really radical, because of his uncompromisingly reconstructive view of autobiographical memory. In accordance with the pioneering theories of Bartlett and others, memory is seen as the result of a process of schematization of experiences and subsequent reconstruction from the schemata at the time of recollection. This strong form of the reconstructive view is problematic as a theory of the nature of memory in general, which is discussed in the chapter. If there are no memories to remember, there is no self and it becomes hard to explain not only the relative stability of ones self-image, but also the individuality we perceive in people and ourselves.