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Memory Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/pmem20
Visual perspective in autobiographical memories: Reliability, consistency, and relationship to objective memory performance Karen L. Siedlecki
a
a
Department of Psychology, Fordham University, New York, NY, USA Published online: 17 Feb 2014.
Click for updates To cite this article: Karen L. Siedlecki (2015) Visual perspective in autobiographical memories: Reliability, consistency, and relationship to objective memory performance, Memory, 23:2, 306-316, DOI: 10.1080/09658211.2014.885054 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09658211.2014.885054
PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content. This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions
Memory, 2015 Vol. 23, No. 2, 306–316, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09658211.2014.885054
Visual perspective in autobiographical memories: Reliability, consistency, and relationship to objective memory performance Karen L. Siedlecki
Downloaded by [University of Leeds] at 11:30 04 March 2015
Department of Psychology, Fordham University, New York, NY, USA
(Received 17 June 2013; accepted 15 January 2014)
Visual perspective in autobiographical memories was examined in terms of reliability, consistency, and relationship to objective memory performance in a sample of 99 individuals. Autobiographical memories may be recalled from two visual perspectives—a field perspective in which individuals experience the memory through their own eyes, or an observer perspective in which individuals experience the memory from the viewpoint of an observer in which they can see themselves. Participants recalled nine word-cued memories that differed in emotional valence (positive, negative and neutral) and rated their memories on 18 scales. Results indicate that visual perspective was the most reliable memory characteristic overall and is consistently related to emotional intensity at the time of recall and amount of emotion experienced during the memory. Visual perspective is unrelated to memory for words, stories, abstract line drawings or faces.
Keywords: Autobiographical memory; Episodic memory; Visual perspective.
Memories may be retrieved from a field perspective (also called first-person perspective) in which the individual relives the memory as he/she originally experienced it, through their own eyes or memories may be retrieved from an observer perspective (also called third-person perspective) in which the individual sees him or herself in the memory. In their seminal paper on the topic of memory perspective, Nigro and Neisser (1983) reported that one-third of memories are viewed from the observer perspective. Research has demonstrated that the perspective from which we view our memories can influence our thoughts and feelings. For example, recalling memories from an observer perspective is associated with reduced sensory details and emotion (e.g., Bernsten & Rubin, 2006). Visual perspective is thought to be
influenced by many factors. For example, age of the memory, features of original experience (e.g., emotion or self-awareness at the time of the event) and the purpose of or mindset while retrieving the memory has been associated with visual perspective (Nigro & Neisser, 1983). Whereas attributes of the retrieved memory as well as the mindset and mood while retrieving a memory have been examined in relation to visual perspective, fewer studies have examined attributes of the individual. The purpose of the current study was to take an individual differences approach to examining visual perspective in order to investigate whether individuals have a tendency to retrieve memories from one type of perspective, and to examine whether visual perspective is consistently related to other phenomenological
Address correspondence to: Karen L. Siedlecki, Department of Psychology, Fordham University, 113 W. 60th Street, New York, NY 10023, USA. Email: [email protected]
© 2014 Taylor & Francis
VISUAL PERSPECTIVE IN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL MEMORIES
memory characteristics and to objective memory performance.
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RELIABILITY AND CONSISTENCY Although several memory characteristics predict visual perspective, it may also be the case that there are individual differences in the type of perspective one generally takes in retrieving memories. One way to evaluate this is to examine the reliability of visual perspective across several memories that differ in emotional valence and intensity. High reliability would suggest that despite differing characteristics of the memory, individuals consistently recall memories from the same perspective (field, observer or a combination of both). Another interesting aspect of visual perspective that has yet to be systematically examined is whether the relations among visual perspective and other characteristics are consistent across memories (i.e., is the magnitude of correlation between visual perspective and emotional valence, for example, the same across positive, negative and neutral memories?) If visual perspective is reliably related to other memory characteristics (e.g., emotional valence, emotional intensity, visual detail, vividness and age of memory), then we would expect that the magnitude of the relationship between visual perspective and each of the memory characteristics would be similar across different memories. Although these analyses are exploratory, it is expected that visual perspective will demonstrate some level of consistency given that previous studies have shown some consistent relationships between visual perspective and memory characteristics (e.g., emotional intensity and memory age).
VISUAL PERSPECTIVE AND OBJECTIVE MEMORY Although research has examined the influence of different contextual (e.g., emotional state at time of retrieval and characteristics of the original experience) and dispositional (e.g., personality) characteristics on visual perspective, the relationship between perspective and objective memory performance has not been examined (for an exception, see McNamara, Benson, McGeeney, Brown, & Albert, 2005).
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Autobiographical memories are generally considered to be a subtype of episodic memory (e.g., Nelson, 1993). Episodic memory refers to memory for events or information that is associated with a time or place, and is often tested in the context of the laboratory using objective measures of memory (e.g., memory for a list of unrelated words). Autobiographical memory refers to memory for an event that is personally relevant and is typically complex and context-rich (Conway & Pleydell-Pearce, 2000). Similar brain regions have been shown to be active during the retrieval of autobiographical and episodic memories (e.g., Burianova & Grady, 2007). The existence of observer memories is an interesting characteristic of autobiographical memories because, generally speaking, all observer memories are essentially false (inaccurate) memories because unless the individual had an out of body experience during the event, only a field perspective memory is possible (Sutin & Robins, 2008). As described by Sutin and Robins, observer memories share many characteristics with false memories. For example, compared to true memories, false memories of autobiographical experiences have been shown to be rated as less emotionally intense and less rich in recollective experience (Heaps & Nash, 2001). These characteristics are similar to observer memories that are rated as less detailed (McIsaac & Eich, 2002) and less vivid (e.g., Sutin & Robins, 2010), and associated with more neutral memories and less emotional intensity (e.g., Talarico, LaBar, & Rubin, 2004) as compared to field perspective memories. Interestingly, false autobiographical memories are more likely to be viewed from an observer perspective, as compared to true memories (Heaps & Nash, 2001). The link between observer memories and false (i.e., inaccurate) memories can be explored in several ways. One way to examine the link between visual perspective and inaccurate memories is to examine whether there is a relationship between the visual perspective and memory accuracy. As a function of having a visual perspective, one must retrieve a memory with visual images. Performance on visual memory tasks may therefore be linked to visual perspective—perhaps through visual imagery. Imagery, and visual imagery in particular, is considered as a component process of autobiographical memory and studies of individuals with visual imagery deficits have shown that visual imagery is an important factor in autobiographical memory (Greenberg & Rubin, 2003).
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When reconstructive processes generate a memory from an observer perspective, that visual imagery associated with that memory is flawed, or inaccurate, in some manner. Although these analyses are exploratory, it seems possible that the observer perspective will be negatively correlated with performance on measures of visual memory (but not related to measures of verbal memory). Alternately, observer perspective could be associated with greater cognitive flexibility and increased ability to manipulate visual images which could therefore be associated with increased visual memory performance. However, this alternative seems less likely because previous research has failed to detect a relationship between the ability to manipulate images and visual perspective (Robinson & Swanson, 1993). To investigate the relationship between visual perspective and memory accuracy, several measures of objective episodic memory were administered and the relationship between visual perspective and episodic memory performance was examined. Importantly, two measures of visual memory were included—memory for abstract line drawings, and memory for faces.
then asking them to recall their experiences from either a field or observer perspective. Participants who recalled their experiences from a field perspective made more statements containing affective reactions, physical sensations, psychological states and associated ideas as compared to participants who recalled their experiences from an observer perspective. Those in the observer perspective condition made more statements referring to their personal appearance, actions they made and spatial locations of the objects used in the tasks. Thus, visual perspective had a large impact on the type of information recollected, especially in terms of emotional features. The link between visual perspective and emotional features of memories has therefore been substantiated with both correlational and experimental data. Because of the potential role emotion may play in influencing visual perspective, participants in the current study were asked to retrieve three positive, three negative and three neutral memories and both emotional valence and intensity were assessed. Based on the research reviewed above, it is hypothesised that both emotional intensity and emotional valence will be correlated with visual perspective.
ROLE OF EMOTION THE CURRENT STUDY Emotion has been linked to characteristics of autobiographical memories. For example, researchers have found that memories that are positive are more vivid than memories that are negative (e.g., Destun & Kuiper, 1999; Raspotnig, 1997). Emotion has also been shown to be related to visual perspective (D’Argembeau, Comblain, & Van der Linde, 2003; Nigro & Neisser, 1983; Strongman & Kemp, 1991; Talarico et al., 2004). For instance, D’Argembeau et al. (2003) found that emotional memories were more likely to be viewed from a field perspective, whereas neutral memories were more likely to be viewed from an observer perspective. Talarico et al. (2004) examined both emotional intensity and emotional valence in regard to visual perspective. They found that emotional intensity was a greater predictor of visual perspective than emotional valence and often accounted for more variance in visual perspective than did emotional valence. In an experimental setting, McIsaac and Eich (2002) examined the influence of visual perspective on aspects of recollection (including emotional features) by having participants complete a series of manual tasks (e.g., lifting small barbells) and
There were several goals of the current study: (1) examine the reliability of visual perspective (and other memory characteristics) across several memories, (2) examine whether the relations among visual perspective and other memory characteristics are consistent across memories, and (3) examine whether visual perspective is related to objective memory performance.
METHOD Participants Participants were 99 individuals (n = 32 were males) between the ages of 18–65 (M = 23.03, SD = 8.13) with a mean of 14.45 years of education (SD = 2.31). Participants were recruited through Fordham University’s participant pool and through flyers posted on campus and were compensated with a $10 gift card for participating. Seventeen per cent of the sample (n = 17) answered “yes” to the question “Are you Hispanic or Latino?”. One per cent of the sample (n = 1)
VISUAL PERSPECTIVE IN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL MEMORIES
identified as American Indian/Alaskan native, 10% (n = 10) identified as Asian, 4% (n = 4) identified as Black, 63% (n = 62) identified as White, 8% (n = 8) identified as “more than one race” and 11% (n =11) identified as “other”. Three participants did not answer the question.
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Design and materials The study consisted of two parts. In the first part, participants completed a questionnaire in which they answered questions about nine different memories, and in the second part participants completed a set of episodic memory tasks. As is customary in individual differences research, participants were presented with all the stimuli (including the word cues on the survey and the memory tasks) in the same order. Memory Questionnaire Participants were provided with nine cue words (three positive, three negative and three neutral) and asked to generate a memory for each. The positive cue words, taken from a list provided by Williams and Broadbent (1986), were “happy”, “successful” and “interested”, and the negative cue words were “lonely”, “sad” and “angry”. The neutral cue words included the words “city”, “book” (taken from a list provided by Rubin, Schrauf, & Greenberg, 2003) and the word “busy”. Participants were given detailed instructions and several examples as to what comprised an appropriate memory (i.e., a personal event that occurred only one time, at a particular place and date and lasted less than one day). Participants rated each memory on 18 different scales using a seven-point Likert scale. The questions were drawn primarily from Johnson, Foley, Suengas, and Raye’s (1988) Memory Characteristics Questionnaire, with the addition of two questions that were previously used by Crawley and French (2005). Participants received additional instruction regarding visual perspective: You will be asked many different questions about your memory. One question you will be asked that may be a little confusing is whether your memory is from a first person perspective, also called field perspective or a third person perspective, also called an observer perspective. In your memory, if you imagine the scene from your original point of view, that is considered a first person, or field perspective. If you imagine it as an observer might see it, and you can see yourself
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in the memory, then that is a third-person, or observer perspective. Does that make sense?
The following questions were presented in the same order for each memory cue: . (Years since memory) How many years have passed since the event? . (Visual detail) My memory for this event involves visual detail (1= a little; 7 = a lot). . (Sensory detail) My memory for this event involves other sensory details (sounds, smell, touch and taste; 1= a little; 7 = a lot). . (Vividness) The overall vividness of this memory is: (1= vague; 7 = very vivid). . (Detailed) My memory for this event is: (1= sketchy; 7 = very detailed). . (Tone) In my memory of this event the overall tone is: (1= negative; 7 = positive). . (Emotional valence) In my memory of this event my feelings at the time were: (1= negative; 7 = positive). . (Feelings intensity) In my memory of this event my feelings at the time were: (1 = not intense; 7 = very intense). . (Current intensity) As I am remembering now, my feelings are: (1 = not intense; 7 = very intense). . (Location clarity) In my memory of this event the clarity of the location of the memory is: (1= vague; 7 = clear and distinct). . (Time clarity) In my memory of this event the clarity of the time of the memory (year, season, day, time of day) is: (1= vague; 7 = clear and distinct). . (Amount emotion) In my memory of this event the amount of emotion accompanying the memory is: (1 = a little; 7 = a lot). . (Doubts) In my memory of this event I have doubts about the accuracy (1 = many doubts; 7 = no doubts at all). . (Frequency) My frequency of thinking or talking about this event since it occurred: (1 = not at all; 7 = many times). . (Implications) This event had serious implications: (1= none; 7= several). . (Records) How many records (photos, diaries, videos, etc.) exist of the event? (1= none at all; 7 = a great deal). . (Perspective) In my memory of this event my perspective (point of view) is: (1= exclusively third person [observer]; 7 = exclusively first person [field]). . (Similarity) How close do you feel to the “you” in the memory? That is, do you feel as
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if the person in the memory is very similar to your current self, or very different from your current self? (1= very similar to current self; 7 = very different from current self).
task comprising 16 old and 16 new faces. Corrected recognition was calculated by subtracting the false alarm rate from the hit rate.
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RESULTS Episodic memory tasks In the second part of the study participants completed four tests of episodic memory. Four diverse tasks (two verbal and two visual) were chosen in order to broadly assess episodic memory. These tasks include a standard word list recall task (the Wechsler Memory Scale-Third Edition (WMS-III; Wechsler, 1997) word recall subtest), a test of more meaningful verbal information (the WMS-III Logical memory subtest), a task involving memory for abstract line drawing (Siedlecki, 2007) and a test of more meaningful visual information (i.e., faces). In the WMS word recall subtest participants were presented with 12 unrelated words across four trials. After each presentation, the participant recalled as many words as possible. The total number of words remembered across four trials was used as the measure of word recall. In the WMS Logical memory subtest participants were read two stories (one story was read twice). After each story was read the participant recalled as much information as possible from the story. The number of idea units remembered across the three trials is the measure of logical memory. In the visual memory task, participants were presented with an abstract line drawing on a computer screen. The stimulus was presented for 3 s. After the stimulus presentation, the participant completed a visual-spatial distractor task for 8 s. Following completion of the distractor task, the participant drew the abstract line drawing in an answer booklet. Responses were scored on a three-point scale by two independent raters. Participants recalled a total of 10 line drawings. The mean of rater 1 across the 10 drawings and the mean of rater 2 across the 10 drawings were highly correlated (r = .91). Consequently, a mean score for each drawing was created by taking the mean of the rater 1 score and the rater 2 score. In the faces recognition task participants were presented with 16 faces, each for 1 s with an interstimulus interval of 1 s. After approximately 30 minutes during which the participants completed the above described memory tasks, participants were presented with a yes/no recognition
Reliability The first goal of the current study was to examine the reliability of visual perspective and other memory characteristics across memories. Generalizability theory can be used to guide the analysis of reliability. The current study design can be considered a single-facet fully crossed design. In this case, G coefficients are identical to intra-class correlations (ICC; Hoyt & Melby, 1999). Consequently, ICCs (two-way random consistency effects) were calculated for each memory characteristic (see Table 1). The magnitude of the ICCs can be interpreted similarly to Pearson correlation coefficients in which ICCs of .1, .3 and .5 are considered small-, medium- and large-sized effects, respectively. In general, the reliability estimates were small to moderate (see Table 1). The visual perspective characteristic had the highest ICC within the negative (.46) and neutral (.42) categories, as well as overall (.37), with values indicating a moderate-to-high level of reliability. Within the positive category visual perspective was not the most reliable characteristic, although the magnitude of the coefficient also indicated a moderate level of consistency (.31). The overall TABLE 1 Reliability (G coefficient) of each memory characteristic
Perspective Tone Emotional valence Feelings intensity Current intensity Amount emotion Detailed Visual detail Sensory detail Vividness Location clarity Time clarity Doubts Frequency Records Implications Similarity Years since memory
Positive
Negative
Neutral
Overall
0.31 0.24 0.13 0.33 0.47 0.33 0.30 0.25 0.20 0.30 0.09 0.11 0.32 0.40 0.17 0.35 0.17 0.22
0.46 0.23 0.20 0.28 0.29 0.32 0.21 0.31 0.26 0.29 0.23 0.26 0.26 0.21 0.18 0.19 0.19 0.29
0.42 0.03 0.03 0.24 0.24 0.19 0.22 0.20 0.24 0.23 0.09 0.12 0.27 0.20 0.09 0.26 0.12 0.31
0.37 0.06 0.05 0.15 0.27 0.24 0.22 0.23 0.24 0.24 0.11 0.16 0.31 0.24 0.15 0.22 0.13 0.25
VISUAL PERSPECTIVE IN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL MEMORIES
reliabilities for the items asking about emotional valence and tone were low, as would be expected, since the cue words differed on valence (positive, negative and neutral).
memories as measured both by tone and by emotional valence of the memory. Negative memories were associated with significantly more intense feelings than positive or neutral memories, and positive memories were associated with more intense feelings than neutral memories. Positive and negative memories were associated with greater amounts of emotion at the time of recollection, and greater amount of emotion at the time of the event as compared to neutral memories. Positive memories were rated as more vivid than neutral memories, and emotional memories (positive and negative) were associated with more location clarity and frequency of thinking or talking about the event than neutral memories. Across the 9 memories, the mean per cent of memories with an exclusive field perspective (scale score = 7) was 44.5% and the mean per cent of memories with an exclusive observer perspective (scale score = 1) was 9.74%. Further, when field perspective was defined as a 5, 6 or 7 on the scale, the mean per cent of memories with a field perspective was 60.02%, and when observer perspective was defined as a score of 1, 2 or 3 on the scale the mean per cent of memories with an observer perspective was 25.18%. The mean per cent of memories with a score of 4 (perspective equally field and observer) was 8.93%. This
Memory characteristics
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The means and standard deviations for each memory variable are reported in Table 2. Since different types of memories were elicited (positive, negative and neutral), the memories were separated into three categories based on emotional valence. For these analyses, scores were collapsed across memories for each respective memory type (positive, negative and neutral) to create mean scores for each characteristic. For example, an individual’s visual perspective rating for the three positively cued memories was averaged. Subsequently, these scores were collapsed across individuals to compare difference in characteristics across memory type. One-way repeated measures analysis of variances with pair-wise comparisons were conducted. As expected, positive memories were rated as being significantly more positive than negative and neutral memories, and neutral memories were rated as more positive than negative
TABLE 2 Means and standard deviations for the 18 memory characteristics as a function of memory type (positive, negative and neutral) and F and p values for the main effect of memory type Overall
Positive
Negative
Neutral
Memory characteristic
M
SD
M
SD
M
SD
M
SD
F (2,196)
p
ηρ2
Perspective Tone Emotional valence Feelings intensity Current intensity Amount of emotion Detailed Visual detail Sensory detail Vividness Location clarity Time clarity Doubts Frequency Records Implications Similarity Years since memory
5.15 4.49 4.27 5.31 4.00 4.41 4.86 5.22 3.88 5.16 6.03 5.55 5.41 3.37 2.04 3.23 2.89 3.17
1.40 0.54 0.56 0.76 1.07 1.08 0.95 1.07 1.26 0.92 0.68 0.90 0.97 1.02 0.73 1.22 0.93 2.94
5.32 6.39a 6.20a 5.39a 4.37a 4.65a 5.00 5.39 4.05 5.30a 6.37a 5.71 5.50 3.66a 2.51a 3.36a 2.56a 2.85
1.51 0.64 0.75 1.13 1.40 1.35 1.23 1.25 1.52 1.18 0.79 1.06 1.15 1.40 1.19 1.60 1.24 2.96
4.98 2.04b 1.73b 6.03b 4.18a 4.97a 4.88 5.00 3.73 5.17ab 6.31a 5.53 5.41 3.55a 1.64b 3.76b 3.36b 3.24
1.76 0.90 0.83 0.91 1.38 1.43 1.16 1.37 1.53 1.67 0.96 1.25 1.12 1.31 0.89 1.51 1.40 3.76
5.17 5.04c 4.88c 4.50c 3.44b 3.62b 4.70 5.27 3.81 4.99b 6.04b 5.42 5.31 2.91b 1.96c 2.57c 2.77a 3.41
1.64 0.89 0.99 1.25 1.24 1.29 1.22 1.31 1.49 1.17 1.00 1.15 1.16 1.16 0.91 1.29 1.27 4.16
2.59 847.32 819.58 60.83 24.09 48.88 2.70 4.47 2.33 3.51 5.58 2.75 1.51 16.99 26.36 35.25 13.27 1.16
0.077
Memory Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/pmem20
Visual perspective in autobiographical memories: Reliability, consistency, and relationship to objective memory performance Karen L. Siedlecki
a
a
Department of Psychology, Fordham University, New York, NY, USA Published online: 17 Feb 2014.
Click for updates To cite this article: Karen L. Siedlecki (2015) Visual perspective in autobiographical memories: Reliability, consistency, and relationship to objective memory performance, Memory, 23:2, 306-316, DOI: 10.1080/09658211.2014.885054 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09658211.2014.885054
PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content. This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions
Memory, 2015 Vol. 23, No. 2, 306–316, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09658211.2014.885054
Visual perspective in autobiographical memories: Reliability, consistency, and relationship to objective memory performance Karen L. Siedlecki
Downloaded by [University of Leeds] at 11:30 04 March 2015
Department of Psychology, Fordham University, New York, NY, USA
(Received 17 June 2013; accepted 15 January 2014)
Visual perspective in autobiographical memories was examined in terms of reliability, consistency, and relationship to objective memory performance in a sample of 99 individuals. Autobiographical memories may be recalled from two visual perspectives—a field perspective in which individuals experience the memory through their own eyes, or an observer perspective in which individuals experience the memory from the viewpoint of an observer in which they can see themselves. Participants recalled nine word-cued memories that differed in emotional valence (positive, negative and neutral) and rated their memories on 18 scales. Results indicate that visual perspective was the most reliable memory characteristic overall and is consistently related to emotional intensity at the time of recall and amount of emotion experienced during the memory. Visual perspective is unrelated to memory for words, stories, abstract line drawings or faces.
Keywords: Autobiographical memory; Episodic memory; Visual perspective.
Memories may be retrieved from a field perspective (also called first-person perspective) in which the individual relives the memory as he/she originally experienced it, through their own eyes or memories may be retrieved from an observer perspective (also called third-person perspective) in which the individual sees him or herself in the memory. In their seminal paper on the topic of memory perspective, Nigro and Neisser (1983) reported that one-third of memories are viewed from the observer perspective. Research has demonstrated that the perspective from which we view our memories can influence our thoughts and feelings. For example, recalling memories from an observer perspective is associated with reduced sensory details and emotion (e.g., Bernsten & Rubin, 2006). Visual perspective is thought to be
influenced by many factors. For example, age of the memory, features of original experience (e.g., emotion or self-awareness at the time of the event) and the purpose of or mindset while retrieving the memory has been associated with visual perspective (Nigro & Neisser, 1983). Whereas attributes of the retrieved memory as well as the mindset and mood while retrieving a memory have been examined in relation to visual perspective, fewer studies have examined attributes of the individual. The purpose of the current study was to take an individual differences approach to examining visual perspective in order to investigate whether individuals have a tendency to retrieve memories from one type of perspective, and to examine whether visual perspective is consistently related to other phenomenological
Address correspondence to: Karen L. Siedlecki, Department of Psychology, Fordham University, 113 W. 60th Street, New York, NY 10023, USA. Email: [email protected]
© 2014 Taylor & Francis
VISUAL PERSPECTIVE IN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL MEMORIES
memory characteristics and to objective memory performance.
Downloaded by [University of Leeds] at 11:30 04 March 2015
RELIABILITY AND CONSISTENCY Although several memory characteristics predict visual perspective, it may also be the case that there are individual differences in the type of perspective one generally takes in retrieving memories. One way to evaluate this is to examine the reliability of visual perspective across several memories that differ in emotional valence and intensity. High reliability would suggest that despite differing characteristics of the memory, individuals consistently recall memories from the same perspective (field, observer or a combination of both). Another interesting aspect of visual perspective that has yet to be systematically examined is whether the relations among visual perspective and other characteristics are consistent across memories (i.e., is the magnitude of correlation between visual perspective and emotional valence, for example, the same across positive, negative and neutral memories?) If visual perspective is reliably related to other memory characteristics (e.g., emotional valence, emotional intensity, visual detail, vividness and age of memory), then we would expect that the magnitude of the relationship between visual perspective and each of the memory characteristics would be similar across different memories. Although these analyses are exploratory, it is expected that visual perspective will demonstrate some level of consistency given that previous studies have shown some consistent relationships between visual perspective and memory characteristics (e.g., emotional intensity and memory age).
VISUAL PERSPECTIVE AND OBJECTIVE MEMORY Although research has examined the influence of different contextual (e.g., emotional state at time of retrieval and characteristics of the original experience) and dispositional (e.g., personality) characteristics on visual perspective, the relationship between perspective and objective memory performance has not been examined (for an exception, see McNamara, Benson, McGeeney, Brown, & Albert, 2005).
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Autobiographical memories are generally considered to be a subtype of episodic memory (e.g., Nelson, 1993). Episodic memory refers to memory for events or information that is associated with a time or place, and is often tested in the context of the laboratory using objective measures of memory (e.g., memory for a list of unrelated words). Autobiographical memory refers to memory for an event that is personally relevant and is typically complex and context-rich (Conway & Pleydell-Pearce, 2000). Similar brain regions have been shown to be active during the retrieval of autobiographical and episodic memories (e.g., Burianova & Grady, 2007). The existence of observer memories is an interesting characteristic of autobiographical memories because, generally speaking, all observer memories are essentially false (inaccurate) memories because unless the individual had an out of body experience during the event, only a field perspective memory is possible (Sutin & Robins, 2008). As described by Sutin and Robins, observer memories share many characteristics with false memories. For example, compared to true memories, false memories of autobiographical experiences have been shown to be rated as less emotionally intense and less rich in recollective experience (Heaps & Nash, 2001). These characteristics are similar to observer memories that are rated as less detailed (McIsaac & Eich, 2002) and less vivid (e.g., Sutin & Robins, 2010), and associated with more neutral memories and less emotional intensity (e.g., Talarico, LaBar, & Rubin, 2004) as compared to field perspective memories. Interestingly, false autobiographical memories are more likely to be viewed from an observer perspective, as compared to true memories (Heaps & Nash, 2001). The link between observer memories and false (i.e., inaccurate) memories can be explored in several ways. One way to examine the link between visual perspective and inaccurate memories is to examine whether there is a relationship between the visual perspective and memory accuracy. As a function of having a visual perspective, one must retrieve a memory with visual images. Performance on visual memory tasks may therefore be linked to visual perspective—perhaps through visual imagery. Imagery, and visual imagery in particular, is considered as a component process of autobiographical memory and studies of individuals with visual imagery deficits have shown that visual imagery is an important factor in autobiographical memory (Greenberg & Rubin, 2003).
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When reconstructive processes generate a memory from an observer perspective, that visual imagery associated with that memory is flawed, or inaccurate, in some manner. Although these analyses are exploratory, it seems possible that the observer perspective will be negatively correlated with performance on measures of visual memory (but not related to measures of verbal memory). Alternately, observer perspective could be associated with greater cognitive flexibility and increased ability to manipulate visual images which could therefore be associated with increased visual memory performance. However, this alternative seems less likely because previous research has failed to detect a relationship between the ability to manipulate images and visual perspective (Robinson & Swanson, 1993). To investigate the relationship between visual perspective and memory accuracy, several measures of objective episodic memory were administered and the relationship between visual perspective and episodic memory performance was examined. Importantly, two measures of visual memory were included—memory for abstract line drawings, and memory for faces.
then asking them to recall their experiences from either a field or observer perspective. Participants who recalled their experiences from a field perspective made more statements containing affective reactions, physical sensations, psychological states and associated ideas as compared to participants who recalled their experiences from an observer perspective. Those in the observer perspective condition made more statements referring to their personal appearance, actions they made and spatial locations of the objects used in the tasks. Thus, visual perspective had a large impact on the type of information recollected, especially in terms of emotional features. The link between visual perspective and emotional features of memories has therefore been substantiated with both correlational and experimental data. Because of the potential role emotion may play in influencing visual perspective, participants in the current study were asked to retrieve three positive, three negative and three neutral memories and both emotional valence and intensity were assessed. Based on the research reviewed above, it is hypothesised that both emotional intensity and emotional valence will be correlated with visual perspective.
ROLE OF EMOTION THE CURRENT STUDY Emotion has been linked to characteristics of autobiographical memories. For example, researchers have found that memories that are positive are more vivid than memories that are negative (e.g., Destun & Kuiper, 1999; Raspotnig, 1997). Emotion has also been shown to be related to visual perspective (D’Argembeau, Comblain, & Van der Linde, 2003; Nigro & Neisser, 1983; Strongman & Kemp, 1991; Talarico et al., 2004). For instance, D’Argembeau et al. (2003) found that emotional memories were more likely to be viewed from a field perspective, whereas neutral memories were more likely to be viewed from an observer perspective. Talarico et al. (2004) examined both emotional intensity and emotional valence in regard to visual perspective. They found that emotional intensity was a greater predictor of visual perspective than emotional valence and often accounted for more variance in visual perspective than did emotional valence. In an experimental setting, McIsaac and Eich (2002) examined the influence of visual perspective on aspects of recollection (including emotional features) by having participants complete a series of manual tasks (e.g., lifting small barbells) and
There were several goals of the current study: (1) examine the reliability of visual perspective (and other memory characteristics) across several memories, (2) examine whether the relations among visual perspective and other memory characteristics are consistent across memories, and (3) examine whether visual perspective is related to objective memory performance.
METHOD Participants Participants were 99 individuals (n = 32 were males) between the ages of 18–65 (M = 23.03, SD = 8.13) with a mean of 14.45 years of education (SD = 2.31). Participants were recruited through Fordham University’s participant pool and through flyers posted on campus and were compensated with a $10 gift card for participating. Seventeen per cent of the sample (n = 17) answered “yes” to the question “Are you Hispanic or Latino?”. One per cent of the sample (n = 1)
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identified as American Indian/Alaskan native, 10% (n = 10) identified as Asian, 4% (n = 4) identified as Black, 63% (n = 62) identified as White, 8% (n = 8) identified as “more than one race” and 11% (n =11) identified as “other”. Three participants did not answer the question.
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Design and materials The study consisted of two parts. In the first part, participants completed a questionnaire in which they answered questions about nine different memories, and in the second part participants completed a set of episodic memory tasks. As is customary in individual differences research, participants were presented with all the stimuli (including the word cues on the survey and the memory tasks) in the same order. Memory Questionnaire Participants were provided with nine cue words (three positive, three negative and three neutral) and asked to generate a memory for each. The positive cue words, taken from a list provided by Williams and Broadbent (1986), were “happy”, “successful” and “interested”, and the negative cue words were “lonely”, “sad” and “angry”. The neutral cue words included the words “city”, “book” (taken from a list provided by Rubin, Schrauf, & Greenberg, 2003) and the word “busy”. Participants were given detailed instructions and several examples as to what comprised an appropriate memory (i.e., a personal event that occurred only one time, at a particular place and date and lasted less than one day). Participants rated each memory on 18 different scales using a seven-point Likert scale. The questions were drawn primarily from Johnson, Foley, Suengas, and Raye’s (1988) Memory Characteristics Questionnaire, with the addition of two questions that were previously used by Crawley and French (2005). Participants received additional instruction regarding visual perspective: You will be asked many different questions about your memory. One question you will be asked that may be a little confusing is whether your memory is from a first person perspective, also called field perspective or a third person perspective, also called an observer perspective. In your memory, if you imagine the scene from your original point of view, that is considered a first person, or field perspective. If you imagine it as an observer might see it, and you can see yourself
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in the memory, then that is a third-person, or observer perspective. Does that make sense?
The following questions were presented in the same order for each memory cue: . (Years since memory) How many years have passed since the event? . (Visual detail) My memory for this event involves visual detail (1= a little; 7 = a lot). . (Sensory detail) My memory for this event involves other sensory details (sounds, smell, touch and taste; 1= a little; 7 = a lot). . (Vividness) The overall vividness of this memory is: (1= vague; 7 = very vivid). . (Detailed) My memory for this event is: (1= sketchy; 7 = very detailed). . (Tone) In my memory of this event the overall tone is: (1= negative; 7 = positive). . (Emotional valence) In my memory of this event my feelings at the time were: (1= negative; 7 = positive). . (Feelings intensity) In my memory of this event my feelings at the time were: (1 = not intense; 7 = very intense). . (Current intensity) As I am remembering now, my feelings are: (1 = not intense; 7 = very intense). . (Location clarity) In my memory of this event the clarity of the location of the memory is: (1= vague; 7 = clear and distinct). . (Time clarity) In my memory of this event the clarity of the time of the memory (year, season, day, time of day) is: (1= vague; 7 = clear and distinct). . (Amount emotion) In my memory of this event the amount of emotion accompanying the memory is: (1 = a little; 7 = a lot). . (Doubts) In my memory of this event I have doubts about the accuracy (1 = many doubts; 7 = no doubts at all). . (Frequency) My frequency of thinking or talking about this event since it occurred: (1 = not at all; 7 = many times). . (Implications) This event had serious implications: (1= none; 7= several). . (Records) How many records (photos, diaries, videos, etc.) exist of the event? (1= none at all; 7 = a great deal). . (Perspective) In my memory of this event my perspective (point of view) is: (1= exclusively third person [observer]; 7 = exclusively first person [field]). . (Similarity) How close do you feel to the “you” in the memory? That is, do you feel as
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if the person in the memory is very similar to your current self, or very different from your current self? (1= very similar to current self; 7 = very different from current self).
task comprising 16 old and 16 new faces. Corrected recognition was calculated by subtracting the false alarm rate from the hit rate.
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RESULTS Episodic memory tasks In the second part of the study participants completed four tests of episodic memory. Four diverse tasks (two verbal and two visual) were chosen in order to broadly assess episodic memory. These tasks include a standard word list recall task (the Wechsler Memory Scale-Third Edition (WMS-III; Wechsler, 1997) word recall subtest), a test of more meaningful verbal information (the WMS-III Logical memory subtest), a task involving memory for abstract line drawing (Siedlecki, 2007) and a test of more meaningful visual information (i.e., faces). In the WMS word recall subtest participants were presented with 12 unrelated words across four trials. After each presentation, the participant recalled as many words as possible. The total number of words remembered across four trials was used as the measure of word recall. In the WMS Logical memory subtest participants were read two stories (one story was read twice). After each story was read the participant recalled as much information as possible from the story. The number of idea units remembered across the three trials is the measure of logical memory. In the visual memory task, participants were presented with an abstract line drawing on a computer screen. The stimulus was presented for 3 s. After the stimulus presentation, the participant completed a visual-spatial distractor task for 8 s. Following completion of the distractor task, the participant drew the abstract line drawing in an answer booklet. Responses were scored on a three-point scale by two independent raters. Participants recalled a total of 10 line drawings. The mean of rater 1 across the 10 drawings and the mean of rater 2 across the 10 drawings were highly correlated (r = .91). Consequently, a mean score for each drawing was created by taking the mean of the rater 1 score and the rater 2 score. In the faces recognition task participants were presented with 16 faces, each for 1 s with an interstimulus interval of 1 s. After approximately 30 minutes during which the participants completed the above described memory tasks, participants were presented with a yes/no recognition
Reliability The first goal of the current study was to examine the reliability of visual perspective and other memory characteristics across memories. Generalizability theory can be used to guide the analysis of reliability. The current study design can be considered a single-facet fully crossed design. In this case, G coefficients are identical to intra-class correlations (ICC; Hoyt & Melby, 1999). Consequently, ICCs (two-way random consistency effects) were calculated for each memory characteristic (see Table 1). The magnitude of the ICCs can be interpreted similarly to Pearson correlation coefficients in which ICCs of .1, .3 and .5 are considered small-, medium- and large-sized effects, respectively. In general, the reliability estimates were small to moderate (see Table 1). The visual perspective characteristic had the highest ICC within the negative (.46) and neutral (.42) categories, as well as overall (.37), with values indicating a moderate-to-high level of reliability. Within the positive category visual perspective was not the most reliable characteristic, although the magnitude of the coefficient also indicated a moderate level of consistency (.31). The overall TABLE 1 Reliability (G coefficient) of each memory characteristic
Perspective Tone Emotional valence Feelings intensity Current intensity Amount emotion Detailed Visual detail Sensory detail Vividness Location clarity Time clarity Doubts Frequency Records Implications Similarity Years since memory
Positive
Negative
Neutral
Overall
0.31 0.24 0.13 0.33 0.47 0.33 0.30 0.25 0.20 0.30 0.09 0.11 0.32 0.40 0.17 0.35 0.17 0.22
0.46 0.23 0.20 0.28 0.29 0.32 0.21 0.31 0.26 0.29 0.23 0.26 0.26 0.21 0.18 0.19 0.19 0.29
0.42 0.03 0.03 0.24 0.24 0.19 0.22 0.20 0.24 0.23 0.09 0.12 0.27 0.20 0.09 0.26 0.12 0.31
0.37 0.06 0.05 0.15 0.27 0.24 0.22 0.23 0.24 0.24 0.11 0.16 0.31 0.24 0.15 0.22 0.13 0.25
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reliabilities for the items asking about emotional valence and tone were low, as would be expected, since the cue words differed on valence (positive, negative and neutral).
memories as measured both by tone and by emotional valence of the memory. Negative memories were associated with significantly more intense feelings than positive or neutral memories, and positive memories were associated with more intense feelings than neutral memories. Positive and negative memories were associated with greater amounts of emotion at the time of recollection, and greater amount of emotion at the time of the event as compared to neutral memories. Positive memories were rated as more vivid than neutral memories, and emotional memories (positive and negative) were associated with more location clarity and frequency of thinking or talking about the event than neutral memories. Across the 9 memories, the mean per cent of memories with an exclusive field perspective (scale score = 7) was 44.5% and the mean per cent of memories with an exclusive observer perspective (scale score = 1) was 9.74%. Further, when field perspective was defined as a 5, 6 or 7 on the scale, the mean per cent of memories with a field perspective was 60.02%, and when observer perspective was defined as a score of 1, 2 or 3 on the scale the mean per cent of memories with an observer perspective was 25.18%. The mean per cent of memories with a score of 4 (perspective equally field and observer) was 8.93%. This
Memory characteristics
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The means and standard deviations for each memory variable are reported in Table 2. Since different types of memories were elicited (positive, negative and neutral), the memories were separated into three categories based on emotional valence. For these analyses, scores were collapsed across memories for each respective memory type (positive, negative and neutral) to create mean scores for each characteristic. For example, an individual’s visual perspective rating for the three positively cued memories was averaged. Subsequently, these scores were collapsed across individuals to compare difference in characteristics across memory type. One-way repeated measures analysis of variances with pair-wise comparisons were conducted. As expected, positive memories were rated as being significantly more positive than negative and neutral memories, and neutral memories were rated as more positive than negative
TABLE 2 Means and standard deviations for the 18 memory characteristics as a function of memory type (positive, negative and neutral) and F and p values for the main effect of memory type Overall
Positive
Negative
Neutral
Memory characteristic
M
SD
M
SD
M
SD
M
SD
F (2,196)
p
ηρ2
Perspective Tone Emotional valence Feelings intensity Current intensity Amount of emotion Detailed Visual detail Sensory detail Vividness Location clarity Time clarity Doubts Frequency Records Implications Similarity Years since memory
5.15 4.49 4.27 5.31 4.00 4.41 4.86 5.22 3.88 5.16 6.03 5.55 5.41 3.37 2.04 3.23 2.89 3.17
1.40 0.54 0.56 0.76 1.07 1.08 0.95 1.07 1.26 0.92 0.68 0.90 0.97 1.02 0.73 1.22 0.93 2.94
5.32 6.39a 6.20a 5.39a 4.37a 4.65a 5.00 5.39 4.05 5.30a 6.37a 5.71 5.50 3.66a 2.51a 3.36a 2.56a 2.85
1.51 0.64 0.75 1.13 1.40 1.35 1.23 1.25 1.52 1.18 0.79 1.06 1.15 1.40 1.19 1.60 1.24 2.96
4.98 2.04b 1.73b 6.03b 4.18a 4.97a 4.88 5.00 3.73 5.17ab 6.31a 5.53 5.41 3.55a 1.64b 3.76b 3.36b 3.24
1.76 0.90 0.83 0.91 1.38 1.43 1.16 1.37 1.53 1.67 0.96 1.25 1.12 1.31 0.89 1.51 1.40 3.76
5.17 5.04c 4.88c 4.50c 3.44b 3.62b 4.70 5.27 3.81 4.99b 6.04b 5.42 5.31 2.91b 1.96c 2.57c 2.77a 3.41
1.64 0.89 0.99 1.25 1.24 1.29 1.22 1.31 1.49 1.17 1.00 1.15 1.16 1.16 0.91 1.29 1.27 4.16
2.59 847.32 819.58 60.83 24.09 48.88 2.70 4.47 2.33 3.51 5.58 2.75 1.51 16.99 26.36 35.25 13.27 1.16
0.077
