Aging alters the details recollected from emotional narratives.

Although it is known that aging impairs episodic memory, the precise effect of aging on emotional memory is not fully understood. In this study, younger and older adults listened to narratives that contained general and emotional (positive, negative, or neutral) details as they viewed related images. When participants later recalled the narratives, both age groups remembered more emotional details from the negative than the positive or neutral narratives. Interestingly, the enhanced recall for the negative narratives came with a reduced ability to remember the associated images for both younger and older adults. For all narrative types, older adults recalled a similar number of general but fewer emotional details than younger adults. Although there were no age-specific emotional effects, memory functioning of the older adults related to better recall of the positive narratives and associated images. These results provide insight into the similarities and differences in how younger and older adults encode and retrieve complex emotional memories.

Evidence for a visual bias when recalling complex narratives.

Although it is understood that episodic memories of everyday events involve encoding a wide array of perceptual and non-perceptual information, it is unclear how these distinct types of information are recalled. To address this knowledge gap, we examine how perceptual (visual versus auditory) and non-perceptual details described within a narrative, a proxy for everyday event memories, were retrieved. Based on previous work indicating a bias for visual content, we hypothesized that participants would be most accurate at recalling visually described details and would tend to falsely recall non-visual details with visual descriptors. In Study 1, participants watched videos of a protagonist telling narratives of everyday events under three conditions: with visual, auditory, or audiovisual details. All narratives contained the same non-perceptual content. Participants' free recall of these narratives under each condition were scored for the type of details recalled (perceptual, non-perceptual) and whether the detail was recalled with gist or verbatim memory. We found that participants were more accurate at gist and verbatim recall for visual perceptual details. This visual bias was also evident when we examined the errors made during recall such that participants tended to incorrectly recall details with visual information, but not with auditory information. Study 2 tested for this pattern of results when the narratives were presented in auditory only format. Results conceptually replicated Study 1 in that there was still a persistent visual bias in what was recollected from the complex narratives. Together, these findings indicate a bias for recruiting visualizable content to construct complex multi-detail memories.

The link between detail generation and eye movements when encoding and retrieving complex images.

Examining eye movement patterns when encoding and retrieving visually complex memories is useful to understand the link between visuo-perceptual processes and how associated details are represented within these memories. Here, we used images of real-world scenes (e.g., a couple grocery shopping) to examine how encoding and retrieval eye movements are linked to the details used to describe complex images during these two phases of memory. Given that memories are often elaborated upon during retrieval, we also examined whether eye-movements at retrieval related to details that were the same as those described when encoding the image (reinstated details) as well as details about the image event that were not initially described at encoding (newly generated details). Testing young healthy participants, we found that retrieval eye movements, specifically eye fixation rate, predicted reinstated details, but not newly generated details. This suggests that visuo-perceptual processes are preferentially engaged at retrieval to reactivate perceived information. At encoding, we found a relationship between eye movements and detail generation that changed over time. This relationship was positive early on in the encoding phase but changed to a negative relationship later in the phase, indicating that a unique relationship exists between activating visuo-perceptual processes during early encoding versus late encoding. Overall, our results provide new insights into how visuo-perceptual processes contribute to different components of complex memory.