Autobiographical memory of blind and sighted early teenagers: Memory accessibility, episodicity and phenomenology

Abstract

Visual system is crucial to autobiographical memory. Research tended to show that blind adults may compensate for the loss of visual information in retrieval of their autobiographical memories. Much less is known about how blind children's autobiographical memory develops in the absence of visual information. Using cue-word methodology, 36 sighted and 33 blind early teenagers were asked to recall memories and subsequently rated phenomenological qualities of their memories. Retrieval latency, the number of prompts provided, episodic and non-episodic details reported for each memory were coded. In terms of memory accessibility, the blind group recalled comparable number of memories with comparable latency to retrieve memories, but they needed more prompting. Blind participants recalled similar number of episodic details; however, they reported more extraneous details, decreasing specificity. Blind early teenagers reported higher auditory imagery, a propensity to remember events from the first-person perspective, and a tendency to remember events as coherent stories.