Abstract
In two experiments, we systematically investigated the reasons why people retained certain autobiographical events in their memory, as well as the properties of those events and their predicted memorability. The first experiment used three methods (word-cued, free-recalled, and “memorable, interesting, and/or important”) to retrieve event memories, and examined memories from three different time-frames: very recent (within past 7 days), recent (past 2 weeks and 6 months), and older events (at least one year). In addition, data were also collected for an important transitional event recently experienced by all participants (“starting university”). The results revealed that people had access to three types of event memories: memories for life transitions, memories for older distinctive events, and memories for recent mundane events. Participants reported remembering events that were distinctive, first-time experiences, emotionally impactful, or simply because they were recent. They also predicted that older events would be more resistant to forgetting than very recent and recent events. The second experiment examined participants’ memorable and forgettable events, and found that memorable events tended to be older, while forgettable events were more likely to be recent. These findings suggested that many retrievable memorable autobiographical memories were neither important nor transitional in nature. The studies contribute to our understanding of people’s metamnemonic knowledge about their autobiographical memories.
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Supplementary data and materials (Online Supplementary Material, OSM) can be viewed at https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/FY4XQ.
Notes
Although researchers have not examined what people believe makes events memorable, other metamnenomic issues have been addressed. For example, the Metamemory in Adulthood Questionnaire (Dixon, 1989) assessed people’s beliefs about their own memory functioning and their knowledge of general memory processes. There has also been considerable research on the functions of autobiographical memory (Bluck et al., 2005; Hyman & Neisser, 1992; Sow et al., 2023; Webster, 1997). For example, Bluck et al. (2005) created a Thinking about Life Experiences (TALE) questionnaire to examine under what conditions people would reminisce about their past. The investigated conditions captured three widely accepted functions of autobiographical memory: directive function (e.g., “when I think about my future goals”), self function (e.g., “when I want to understand who I am now”), and social function (e.g., “when I want to develop a closer relationship with someone”). It is important to note that the present study was not concerned with the naïve beliefs about the functions of autobiographical memory. Rather, we were interested in understanding what people believe made an event memorable enough to be recalled.
The ten types were: older MII events, recent MII events, very recent MII events, older free-recalled events, recent free-recalled events, very recent free-recalled events, older word-cued events, recent word-cued events, very recent word-cued events, and “starting university.”
These two items also loaded on “enduring significance,” but for the current purpose, we selected the dimensions with relatively greater loadings.
Based on the factor analysis, “first-time” and “unique” loaded positively on Uniqueness, whereas “recency” loaded negatively on Uniqueness.
“Positive” and “negative” ratings were negatively correlated. Therefore, we computed the average using the difference instead of the sum.
To combine the data from the two scales, we first calculated the mean ratings on ten items of Reasons for Retention (excluding “I remember this event because it happened very recently”) and ten items of AMQ (excluding “my memory for this event is clear”) separately for the three retrieval methods and four timeframes. The rank order correlations indicated that the two questionnaires were highly consistent and could be used as two equivalent forms: For word-cued events, Spearman’s ρ = .98, n = 40, p < .001; for free-recalled events, Spearman’s ρ = .97, n = 40, p < .001; for MII events, Spearman’s ρ = .99, n = 40, p < .001.
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Shi, L., Brown, N.R. & Reimer, P.J.C. Exploring the metamnemonic and phenomenal differences between transitional and mundane events. Mem Cogn (2024). https://doi.org/10.3758/s13421-024-01534-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/s13421-024-01534-7