Autobiographical Memory Analysis

Many individuals often aspire to pursue their own aspirations in hopes of achieving greater accomplishments while abandoning their past. However, despite their numerous achievements they may accomplish in the future, individuals are incapable of altering the initial perception others have already formed upon them despite the significant character changes they experience themselves. In the “Prodigal”, Bob Hicok suggests that when individuals aspire to pursue their own personal ambitions and motivations, they will experience an internal feeling of pride and self-satisfaction within themselves but people who thoroughly understand the individual from the past will still perceive him/her the same way as before. It is through the understanding or

In further studies with human memory it has been found that information that is related to a person’s self is recalled better. This is called SRE or self-reference effect. There have been several explanations for this effect. One is that the self is thought of as a very elaborative memory structure and so when information is related to it is easier to recall because of its connection to that structure. It has also been thought that this might be because of the fact that a person is asked to evaluate a word and this improves recall. One proposition that has been proven experimentally is that the SRE exists because of better recall through organization. In any question where a word has to be related to oneself it has to be organized into one of at least two categories. Through doing this a person will be able to assist his recall of these words. (Klein, Stanley B. & Kihlstrom, Jhon F. 1986)

The study of creation of false memories has been a topic of interest since the 1930s when Bartlett (1932) conducted the first experiment on the topic. Though the results of this experiment were never replicated, they contributed greatly to research by distinguishing between reproductive and reconstructive memory (Bartlett 1932 as cited in Roediger & McDermott, 1995). Reproductive memory refers to accurate production of material from memory and is assumed to be associated with remembering simplified materials (e.g., lists). Reconstructive memory emphasizes the active process of filling in missing elements while remembering and is associated with materials rich in meaning (e.g., stories).

There are many phrases in our culture that frown upon quitting and promotes determination to achieve success. For example, “a quitter never wins and a winner never quits”, “no pain, no gain”, and “when the going gets tough, the tough gets going” are just a few examples of notions that we are taught when we are growing up and experiencing life’s obstacle. Qi Wang, a psychology professor at Cornell university, researched how autobiographical memory is affected by culture in her article, “Autobiographical Memory and Culture”. In the article, she compares how autobiographical memory differs in the following cultures: American, Asian and European. However, she concluded that: “Culture, through intrapersonal and interpersonal processes, plays a critical role in shaping autobiographical remembering. By internalizing prevailing cultural views of the self into one’s own self-construal, and by acquiring culturally appropriate knowledge of emotion situations, individuals are afforded or constrained in the endeavor of remembering autobiographical events and their details (Wang 8-9)”. To sum this up, Wang concluded that people’s culture influence how they may remember a particular event. We use our culture to fill in the gaps in our memory, and add cultural values when retelling the story, even though they may not have actually existed. When I remember my memory, I always say that I

Memory is a set of cognitive processes that allow us to remember past information (retrospective memory) and future obligations (prospective memory) so we can navigate our lives. The strength of our memory can be influenced by the connections we make through different cognitive faculties as well as by the amount of time we spend devoting to learning specific material across different points in time. New memories are created every time we remember specific event, which results in retrospective memories changing over time. Memory recall can be affected retrospectively such as seeing increased recall in the presence of contextual cues or false recall of information following leading questions. Memory also includes the process

False memories are an apparent recollection of an event that did not actually occur. The reason why false memories happen are due to the fact that one's brains can only handle so much.There has been several experiment pertaining to the phenomenon, to find how it works.In the next part of the experiment the psychologist showed the participants a word list.False memories are very common and can happen to anyone. On very rare occasions false memories can be harmful to someone and the people around them.False memories are so common that they affect all of a person's memories. False memories can be made more clear by others memories or they could become more distorted. False memories have caused many wrongful convictions. A psychologist

Everyone remembers the moment in time that they absolutely refuse to acknowledge from the past. Any extremely embarrassing instance in our life could suddenly come back to the surface of our memory to humiliate us all over again. This common occurrence only serves as part of an over all process of denying the undesirable parts of ourselves for the sake of our self-esteem. “The Epiphany Machine”, written by David Burr Gerrard, focuses upon the unconscious and how repression of oneself influences the psyche. Through the use of characterization, conflict, and point of view, Venter Lowood and the epiphany machine are set up as a metaphor for the development of self-awareness of oneself as one comes of age.

Memory – what it is, how it works, and how it might be manipulated – has long been a subject of curious fascination. Remembering, the mind-boggling ability in which the human brain can conjure up very specific, very lucid, long-gone episodes from any given point on the timeline of our lives, is an astounding feat. Yet, along with our brain’s ability of remembrance comes also the concept of forgetting: interruptions of memory or “an inability of consciousness to make present to itself what it wants” (Honold, 1994, p. 2). There is a very close relationship between remembering and forgetting; in fact, the two come hand-in-hand. A close reading of Joshua Foer’s essay, “The End of Remembering”, and Susan Griffin’s piece, “Our Secret”, directs us

False memories have been the subject of many studies since Deese (1959) investigated their effects.

In the first follow-up interview, roughly eighteen percent remembered the false event and in the second follow-up, twenty-five percent remembered the false event (Hyman, Husband, & Billing 1995). As this study indicates, memories are more susceptible to modification when the passage of time allows the original memory to fade. Being lost, however, is not the same as being abused. Another crucial component involved in the formation of false memories is the imagination inflation. Loftus (1997) found that the more often an individual imagined an unperformed action, the more likely they were to later on remember having performed it.

Mearns and Thorne (1998) investigates the foundations of the person centred and states that focusing on past experiences is damaging for the present self-concept. This will have a domino effect as this self-concept will not let individuals reach their full potential and therefore, they will fail in becoming fully functioning persons. Furthermore, the need for positive self-regard, according to Rogers, developed in early childhood and directly influenced one’s self worth.

Memory facilitates necessary functions in daily life activities, but it is not a perfect mechanism in operation. Goldstein (2011) states that memory is, “…the process involved in retaining, retrieving, and using information about stimuli, images, events, ideas, and skills after the original information is no longer present” (p.116). There are many adaptive functions within the complexities of the human memory system and the interlinked constructs between each function leave room for doubt in the accuracy of recollection. Study of the human mind has opened avenues of discovery on the inner workings of our brains and the resulting knowledge suggests that humans are prone to creating false memories and even remembering things that never actually happened. A great deal of information has been written explaining the nature of memory errors and within the following pages a real-life case offers a glimpse into how recall distortions and memory errors can wield unpleasant consequences. Memory errors can be avoided with a significant effort, but the truth remains that no one is perfect and memories are subject to individual bias.

One key aspect to FBM is the confidence attributed by the people with these memories. Although the recollection is vivid and appears to be a clear picture, the accuracy is surprisingly off. Studies show that over time, people’s confidence in FBM increases while the accuracy decreases. In the case of the 9/11 attacks, when people were surveyed about what they remembered “within ten days, there were significant inconsistencies. A year after the event, only about 2/3 of what people remembered was accurate” (Krauss, 2015). If people were interviewed a few days after the event happened, their story would change when asked again the following year, and yet again if questioned further. An interesting find is that when an incorrect detail is suggested or mentioned in the retelling of the event, that aspect would be most likely repeated in the next recount. Confidence correlates negatively with accuracy, although if it’s an actual flashbulb memory, the inaccuracies don’t tend to fall below a sixty percent rate (Krauss, 2015).

Memories of a Personal Event The door slammed shut. I wasn't sure what I was going to hear. To be

Case 1 tells the story of Henry Molaison (HM), a man with no memory. He lost his memory due to the operation of suctioned out the hippocampus to treat his epileptic seizures. At that time, it was not known yet that the hippocampus was essential for making memories. After operation, his seizures were significantly reduced, but Henry suffered a global amnesia. Owen et al. (2007) describes patients with global amnesia as perceptive and attentive but with a total loss of short-term memory and some trouble accessing memories of the recent past. Henry could not learn new things as he quickly forgot everything that he had learned. He could learn at a subconscious level only.