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Properties of autobiographical memories are reliable and stable individual differences.

Publication ,  Journal Article
Rubin, DC
Published in: Cognition
May 2021

Autobiographical memory research typically focuses on individual memories with variability in individual participants' responses serving as error variance. Integrating individual-difference and experimental approaches demonstrated that properties of autobiographical memories are stable individual differences with stable patterns of correlations. In two sessions approximately one week apart, different cues were used to prompt seven autobiographical memories. Each memory was rated on 12 properties including visual imagery, emotional intensity, narrative coherence, reliving, and past rehearsals. In two studies with samples from different populations (Ns of 200 and 160), each property had a high reliability in both sessions (median α = .90), and the mean of each property averaged over seven memories correlated highly with itself over sessions (median r = .72). Multiple regressions predicting three properties from Session 1 with the remaining nine properties of Session 2 and exploratory factor analyses yielded solutions consistent with expectations from studies of individual memories. Moreover, the correlation matrices of the 12 properties across studies and sessions were extremely similar. Thus, separate sessions, cues, samples, and properties provided generalizable data about individual differences in autobiographical memory. Practical, theoretical, and methodological implications include that individual differences in memory affect: life stories and narrative structure internal to events, stable clinical syndromes and symptoms, experimental results previously attributed to the properties of individual memories, and the confidence people have in the accuracy of their autobiographical and episodic memories.

Duke Scholars

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Published In

Cognition

DOI

EISSN

1873-7838

ISSN

0010-0277

Publication Date

May 2021

Volume

210

Start / End Page

104583

Related Subject Headings

  • Reproducibility of Results
  • Mental Recall
  • Memory, Episodic
  • Individuality
  • Humans
  • Experimental Psychology
  • Cues
  • 20 Language, Communication and Culture
  • 17 Psychology and Cognitive Sciences
  • 08 Information and Computing Sciences
 

Citation

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ICMJE
MLA
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Rubin, D. C. (2021). Properties of autobiographical memories are reliable and stable individual differences. Cognition, 210, 104583. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2021.104583
Rubin, David C. “Properties of autobiographical memories are reliable and stable individual differences.Cognition 210 (May 2021): 104583. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2021.104583.
Rubin, David C. “Properties of autobiographical memories are reliable and stable individual differences.Cognition, vol. 210, May 2021, p. 104583. Epmc, doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2021.104583.
Journal cover image

Published In

Cognition

DOI

EISSN

1873-7838

ISSN

0010-0277

Publication Date

May 2021

Volume

210

Start / End Page

104583

Related Subject Headings

  • Reproducibility of Results
  • Mental Recall
  • Memory, Episodic
  • Individuality
  • Humans
  • Experimental Psychology
  • Cues
  • 20 Language, Communication and Culture
  • 17 Psychology and Cognitive Sciences
  • 08 Information and Computing Sciences