Questions to Baddeley, Eysenck, and Anderson’s (2015) Autobiographical Memory
What is the purpose of autobiographical memory?
Autobiographical memory serves as the means of retaining the essential information about one’s life. For instance, autobiographical memory provides a chance to remember the events that shaped one’s personality and defined the further course of one’s development. In other words, autobiographical memory contributes to the development of an individual’s identity, therefore, helping people to define their place and role in the social and family hierarchy, thus, cementing their relationships with others (Baddeley, Eysenck, & Anderson, 2015).
Furthermore, autobiographical memory is an integral part of one’s mental health. The loss of autobiographical memory is typically associated with health issues such as dementia, particularly, Alzheimer’s disease (Baddeley et al., 2015). Therefore, the acquisition and retention of autobiographic memory are essential to one’s cognitive and emotional development.
What is calendrical autobiographical memory?
The phenomenon of calendrical autobiographical memory is especially curious since it incorporates the description of several unprecedented cases. The subject matter is rendered as a rather rare occurrence and is, therefore, atypical in most people.
Although the presence of calendrical memory does not imply that one should be able to remember the events associated with specific episodes especially well, the subject matter implied an outstandingly good level of autobiographical memory progress (Baddeley et al., 2015). The level of detail that people with calendrical memory show when recalling specific autobiographical events is truly unbelievable. Further studies of the mechanics of calendrical memory are required to explore the issue deeper and, therefore, gain a better understanding of the properties of memory.
Questions to Kensinger and Schacter’s (2006) Article
What is the difference between the effects of positive and negative valence on the efficacy of memorizing specific events?
According to the study carried out by Baddeley et al. (2015), there is no tangible difference between the effects that positive and negative valence has on people’s abilities to remember particular events. To be more accurate, the number of details that the groups representing positive and negative valence-based memory processes recalled was similar in both groups. Both types of participants memorized roughly the same number of details concerning the events in which they took part.
This type of the information was different in each case; according to the outcomes of the measurement process, the negative-valence group showed the propensity toward developing the information associated with events, whereas the positive-valence group seemed to have a weaker grasp on the data associated with the events (Baddeley et al., 2015).
What is the connection between the type of valence and the quality of memory?
Apart from affecting the number of details that the participants were able to retain in their memory, the choice of the valence type also had a profound impact on the quality of the memories that the participants acquired. Particularly, the participants using the neutral memory type were capable of retaining the essential information more successfully than the groups that used negative and positive valence types (Kensinger & Schacter, 2006). The identified effect can be attributed to the fact that the specified outcome leads to “fewer reconstructive memory errors” (Kensinger & Schacter, 2006, p. 761). Therefore, the correlation between the outcomes of measurement in both groups can be explained from the current theoretical standpoint. That being said, a closer analysis of the specified issue is required.
References
Baddeley, A., Eysenck, M. W., & Anderson, M. C. (2015). Memory (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Psychology Press.
Kensinger, E. A., & Schacter, D. L. (2006). When the Red Sox shocked the Yankees: Comparing negative and positive memories. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 13(5), 757-763.