Memory最新文献

Researchers have recently demonstrated that people tend to experience spontaneous mental simulations of what might happen next - i.e., the approximal future - and that such simulations are especially likely to focus on possible negative outcomes in relation to sources of perceived threat in the surrounding environment. The purpose of the two studies (N = 318) reported in this manuscript was to better characterise the generalizability of simulations of the approximal future across the lifespan. Participants were asked to report memories of approximal simulations of the future and to indicate whether the events they reported were triggered by any relevant past experiences. Across both studies, we found consistent evidence that people, irrespective of age, remember simulations of the approximal future that are disproportionately characterised by negative as opposed to positive valence, and that these memories tend to be remembered as being triggered by some relevant personal, vicarious, or media event. These findings suggest that mental simulation and memory work flexibility to support threat detection.

This study examines the kinematic characteristics of mouse movements as a means to assess the truthfulness of reported autobiographical memories. Ninety participants answered double-choice questions about an autobiographical event using a computer mouse. To induce cognitive load in deceptive responses, complex questions were introduced. Participants were divided into three groups: truthful responders (n = 30), those instructed to fabricate an entirely fictional holiday (n = 30), and those asked to falsify specific details of a real holiday (n = 30). Temporal and spatial features of mouse trajectories were recorded and analysed. Findings indicate that deceptive responses were associated with slower and more erratic mouse movements compared to truthful ones. Furthermore, machine learning models classified deceptive versus truthful responses with an average accuracy of 75% (for liars reporting completely faked holidays) and 80% (for liars providing true holidays with false details). Notably, participants who fabricated an entire event exhibited different movement patterns than those who altered specific details, suggesting that fabricating an entirely false memory may be cognitively less demanding than modifying real details. These findings provide novel insights into cognitive processes underlying deception and highlight the potential of kinematic analysis in lie detection.

Research indicates that posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms relate to reckless and self-destructive behaviours (RSDBs). This study examined if positive autobiographical memory (AM) characteristics moderated the relationship between PTSD symptom severity and RSDB engagement among student military veterans. In a sample of 100 trauma-exposed student veterans (M_age = 38.93; 94.6% male), regression analyses revealed that greater PTSD severity was associated with higher engagement in RSDBs (p's < .01), while more accessibility to, greater vividness of, and closer time perspective of positive AMs was associated with less engagement in RSDBs. Moderation analyses revealed that the positive association between PTSD severity and RSDB engagement was stronger at (1) lower (b = 0.21, p < .001) than at higher (b = 0.09, p < .001) levels of positive AM accessibility, and (2) lower (b = 0.21, p < .001) than at higher (b = 0.10, p < .001) levels of positive AM sensory details. Other examined positive AM characteristics - emotional intensity, vividness, and distancing - did not moderate the relationship. Thus, being able to easily remember positive AMs with more sensory details may help attenuate the link between PTSD symptoms and risky behaviours, suggesting that positive memory-based interventions could be helpful. This study was exploratory, and we used a robust yet lenient correction for multiple comparisons, which indicates the need for replication in future research.

Unfamiliar face recognition is a critical ability that can have significant implications, such as in legal or security contexts. Despite this, little is known about the cognitive skills that support children's ability to accurately recognise and report unfamiliar faces and how these change with age. This research examined whether executive functioning (EF), including working memory, cognitive flexibility, response inhibition, and updating, predicts school-aged children's performance on two face recognition tasks: an old/new recognition task (Experiment 1; N = 113) and a lineup identification task (Experiment 2; N = 121). While EF was not strongly related to recognition accuracy in either task, it was associated with children's response bias, indicating that EF supports regulation of decision thresholds rather than memory strength. Age predicted modest improvements in discriminability, but these effects were not explained by EF, indicating that other developmental factors, such as metacognition or social understanding, may also play a role. Together, these findings suggest that EF contributes more to how children regulate and apply memory decisions than to how accurately they encode or retrieve unfamiliar faces.

Although previous research has extensively examined the characteristics of specific autobiographical memories, few tools have been available to assess how individuals recall their personal past in general. To address this gap, we adapted into Polish the Autobiographical Recollection Test (ART), a self-report instrument originally designed to capture general autobiographical remembering across seven components: vividness, narrative coherence, reliving, rehearsal, scene construction, visual imagery, and life story relevance. Confirmatory factor analysis supported the factorial validity of the Polish version, demonstrating adequate psychometric properties. The Polish adaptation also showed expected correlations with another self-report measure of autobiographical memory ability (Survey of Autobiographical Memory, SAM), supporting its convergent validity. Furthermore, both the full and brief versions of ART showed significant associations with scores on the Involuntary Autobiographical Memory Inventory (IAMI). These findings provide robust support for the Polish adaptation of ART as a reliable tool for assessing the subjective qualities of autobiographical memory, with potential applications in research on diverse populations.

Background: Dissociative identity disorder remains contested. The debate hinges on whether memories carry over between identity states and whether those states are truly distinct, but most evidence rests on self report rather than direct memory tests. Neuroimaging has been advanced as an indirect, non self-report approach by scanning individuals with DID in different identity states and comparing them with simulators or other groups. Objective: To evaluate how studies that scan people with DID in more than one identity state inform the core memory claims of DID, by assessing their methodological quality. Methods: Systematically reviewing studies from the past 40 years, quality was assessed using GRADE criteria and the Newcastle-Ottawa scale. Results: Of the nine studies reviewed, many lacked specific aims and only one stated clear hypotheses throughout. The results further indicated several concerns related to diagnostic comorbidity, and absence of clinical comparisons, reverse inference, and post hoc reasoning. Conclusions: On current evidence, functional imaging across identity states does not support firm claims about identity fragmentation or inter identity amnesia, nor does it decide between trauma based and sociocognitive accounts. Methodological refinement and direct tests of memory transfer are needed for progress.

In sexual abuse cases, the witness statement plays a fundamental role. This brings about the complex task for judges to evaluate the statement on its credibility. In Study 1, we polled 79 Dutch legal professionals about the criteria they rely on to evaluate the credibility of a statement. Most criteria mentioned pertained to the content of the statement, specifically consistency (66%), accuracy (66%), and detailedness (53%). Twenty-eight percent mentioned all three criteria. The way the statement is presented was also mentioned (non-verbal behaviour: 14%, emotion; 13%; authentic impression: 11%). In Study 2, we analyzed 518 Dutch court rulings on sexual assault on the criteria used in credibility assessment. The most often used criteria were again consistency (80.1%), detailedness (65%), and accuracy (31%), with 13% relying on all three criteria. Authentic impression (21%), emotionality during the statement (13%), and signs of trauma (9.5%) were also regularly used. In conclusion, legal professionals rely heavily on content criteria (Consistency, Accuracy, and Detailedness) - but not in a systematic way. Highly contested criteria (i.e., emotion, trauma, nonverbal behaviour, authentic impression) are also regularly used. Judicial decision-making may benefit from relying exclusively on validated indicators and doing so in a more systematic manner.

We investigated age-related differences and commonalities in earliest memories, focusing on retrieval speed, recollection type (remember vs. know), retrieval type (direct vs. generative), age at the time of the event, and phenomenological characteristics. The sample consisted of 131 adults: 68 young adults (48.5% males; M_age = 20.29, Sa_ge = 1.53) and 63 older adults (47.6% males; M_age = 68.43, SD_age = 4.11). They reported their earliest memories, estimated their age at the time, indicated recollection and retrieval types, and rated event characteristics (e.g., importance, vividness). Results showed that older adults were significantly more likely to classify their memories as remembered and directly retrieved, whereas young adults had a more balanced distribution of the classifications. Directly retrieved memories were accessed more rapidly than generatively retrieved ones, and young adults demonstrated shorter retrieval latencies than older adults. Additionally, older adults dated their earliest memories to later age and rated them as significantly more vivid, emotionally intense, and personally meaningful. Recollection type was not associated with retrieval latency but linked to higher vividness and confidence. Overall, our findings demonstrate potential age-related shifts in the retrieval and subjective evaluation of earliest autobiographical memories.

False autobiographical memories can have serious implications in legal settings, where the case outcomes may hinge entirely on memory-based eyewitness testimony. This study investigated whether a sensitisation memory training could reduce false autobiographical memory reports. We employed a blind implantation method in which participants (N = 294) indicated whether various childhood events had happened to them. Participants were then told they had confirmed five events - one of which was false - and were asked to rate their memory and belief. In session two, 15% (44/294) of participants reported a false belief and an additional 3.4% (10/294) a false memory, meaning that a total of 18.4% made a false report. Before session three, participants were randomly assigned to receive either the memory training or a distractor task, then repeated the false memory procedure. Contrary to our expectations, the training did not reduce false reports. Instead, false beliefs (SMT: 20.4%, 28/137, Control: 22.3%, 31/139) and false memories (SMT: 5.1%, 7/137, Control: 2.9% 4/139) increased in session three. The findings suggest false memories elicited in the blind implantation paradigm might be particularly resistant to correction.

Public belief in repressed memories remains widespread, yet little is known about the demographic predictors of this belief. We examined beliefs about the repression, permanence, and reliability of memory in a nationally representative sample of U.S. adults (N = 1,545). Nearly all participants (94%) expressed belief in unconscious repressed memory. Belief in repression was high across all groups, with the highest rates among women without a college education. Age patterns varied by construct: Generation Z reported the strongest endorsement of repression, permanence beliefs increased steadily with age, and reliability beliefs followed a nonlinear trajectory with dips among younger adults and rebounds in midlife. These findings confirm that memory misconceptions remain pervasive and are structured by gender, age, and education. Because nearly all demographic subgroups still show very high endorsement, these misconceptions pose serious challenges for legal, clinical, and public education contexts.