A Basic-Systems Approach to Autobiographical Memory

• What are autobiographical memories made of?
• spatial, temporal, emotional elements, but most importantly, they have personal significance.
• The basic systems are: components from senses, spatial system, narrative system, explicit memory system (which coordinates and binds information from the other systems, like explicit memory with Schacter).
• What does this perspective tell us about the self?
• The self is not a single entity, but parts linked together.
• So, what seems to be uniquely you, actually depends on what people in your culture emphasize.
• 2 main properties of autobiographical memory?
• sense of recollection
• belief that memories are accurate
• Measured by ratings on scales of vividness of visual imagery, and auditory imagery, and spatial context.
• What may be the basis of a person's sense of recollection?
• how vivid the imagery was - more = stronger sense of recollection (correlation)
• So these are somewhat separable.
• What about the belief that the memory is accurate?
• (somewhat visual), clarity of spatial context and narrative coherence (correlation)
• People with amnesia - can have loss of autobiographical memory, because the elements of the memory can't be bound together and retrieved later (like Schacter imaging studies of future and past).
• So, if you damage visual memory, is autobiographical memory damaged? Yes!
• so, visual components are key for autobiographical memory. 
• But, an interesting catch is that the old memories are damages, but the people studied could still make new autobiographical memories! It may be that visual is preferred, but it is possible to make new memories with other senses.
• But auditory loss or language loss doesn't effect the memories as much.
• Psychopathology- memories of worry and social phobia are rated lower on recollection.
• One major claim - PTSD memories are unorganized, but this article finds that that is not the case, there is no difference compared to others.
• The more a person makes the trauma a central part of who they are, the more PTSD they will show.
• To test this, he did a experiment where people take pictures of something, and then are shown pictures of something, and asked whether or not the picture they took that one.
• There seem to be certain areas that are activated more for biographical information.