Selective Retrieval Of Autobiographical Memories

The article I read was Induced forgetting and reduced confidence in our personal past? The consequences of selectively retrieving emotional autobiographical memories. In it, an experiment is performed, and the results of which are discussed are based on the question, does the content of autobiographical memories (a negative or positive association) determine the confidence in them when retrieved? What drove me to choose this article relates to what Professor Stone, whom I only realized when citing the article that he was a co-author of the article, talked to us in class about how retrieving and storing it again can actually change the memory. The example he gave was flashbulb memory and 9/11, as people would always say, “I remember the moment

Confidence is defined as, “…individuals’ belief that their memory is accurate,” (Stone et al., 2013) and it was the focus of the experiment. The exact experiment was said to be based on previous experiments based on the retrieval-induced forgetting (RIF) paradigm, which deals with how the retrieval of memories can cause memories to be forgotten, but not how selective retrieval factors in, which is what the experiment aims to determine. The experiment procedure itself was also similar to these previous RIF experiments, that is, asking participants to provide memories and associate them with cues, and then recall them later after further testing and studying. The twist with this experiment was that the participants were made to remember either positive memories first, as in the first half of the memories given which would then be followed by giving negative memories, or vice-versa, with negative memories first. This modification based on the previous RIF experiments aimed to answer whether or not positive or negative memories would produce less confident memories based on the order they were

The unsurprising part was that the results of the previous RIF experiments were proven true, that being that selective retrieval would cause one to forget related memories. However, the surprising finding was that recalling positive memories caused less confidence in related memories, and recalling negative memories caused greater confidence in related memories. While one may have thought that negative memories would influence participants to not want to remember other memories, it turns out that that negativity causes introspection, and more cues are thought of that relate to more memories. One can conclude that the positive memories actually clouded the selective retrieval process, making one think too much, or dwelling on, the specific memory being recalled rather than similar experiences. I believe this would then also conclude that specific positive memories are remembered and reminisced fondly on, while negative memories form more of a vague set of negativity that then also allows for greater confidence in remembering more unrelated memories than the specificity of the positive