Retrieval-induced forgetting for autobiographical memories beyond recall rates: A developmental study.

We investigated whether selective discussion of autobiographical memory narratives would impact the quality of young people's recall of their nondiscussed memory narratives. Children (ages 8-9 years, n = 65) and adolescents (ages 13-15 years, n = 58) completed an adapted version of the retrieval-induced forgetting (RIF) paradigm for self-generated positively and negatively valenced autobiographical memories. Overall, 54.5% of the sample were female and 63.4% were of European ethnicity (11.4% Pacific Peoples, 8.1% Middle Eastern/Latin American/African, 7.3% Maori, 7.3% Asian, 2.4% Other). We defined narrative qualities as narrative coherence (Reese et al., 2011) and episodic and nonepisodic information (Addis et al., 2008). In light of developmental findings in other domains of autobiographical memory research (e.g., Reese et al., 2011; Willoughby et al., 2012), we hypothesized that selective discussion would result in RIF for children's, but not adolescents', narrative coherence and episodic detail, and that RIF would not occur for nonepisodic details for either children or adolescents. Findings for narrative coherence and nonepisodic detail indicated support for our hypotheses. Findings for episodic detail were in partial support of our hypothesis; RIF for episodic detail was found for both children and adolescents. Our findings not only demonstrate the importance of investigating the wider effects of RIF but also uncovered developmental differences previously overlooked in the field. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Delving into the detail: Greater episodic detail in narratives of a critical life event predicts an increase in adolescent depressive symptoms across one year.

Depressed people have reduced ability to recall specific autobiographical memories, yet the role of reduced memory specificity in the development of adolescent depression is unclear. Two reasons are the limited longitudinal studies with this age group and the dominant use of just one measure of memory specificity, the Autobiographical Memory Test (AMT; Williams & Broadbent, 1986). In the current one-year longitudinal study, community adolescents (N = 132, M = 16.13 years at Time 1) wrote about a life turning point, and their narratives were coded with respect to the amount of episodic and semantic detail. Participants also completed an adapted version of the Minimal Instructions AMT. Greater episodic detail in young people's turning point narrative was positively associated with depressive symptoms separately at Times 1 and 2, and uniquely predicted increases in depressive symptoms across the year. A non-positive valence of the turning point resolution also positively predicted Time 2 depressive symptoms. In contrast, specificity as assessed by the AMT did not predict such an increase. The results suggest that episodic detail in highly self-relevant narratives may be a sensitive predictor of increases in adolescent depressive symptoms across time. We consider excessive self focus and retrieval style as potential explanations of our findings.

Short- and longer-term effects of selective discussion of adolescents' autobiographical memories.

We investigated whether selective discussion leads to retrieval-induced forgetting (RIF) for early to mid-adolescents' positive and negative autobiographical memories after delays of 5 min and 1 day. Adolescents (13-15 years of age; N = 58) completed an adapted version of the RIF paradigm for adults' emotionally valenced autobiographical memories. Following findings that RIF occurs for children's positive and negative memories and adults' negative autobiographical memories only, we posed three research questions. First, would RIF occur for adolescents' autobiographical memories after a short delay? Second, would adolescents demonstrate an RIF valence effect? Third, would any RIF findings be replicated after a longer delay? We found RIF for negative memories after both a short and longer delay. We also found RIF for positive memories, but only after the longer delay. The potential mechanisms underpinning these findings are discussed.

It's in the details: The role of selective discussion in forgetting of children's autobiographical memories.

This experiment investigated whether retrieval-induced forgetting (RIF) would be found in children's self-generated autobiographical memory recall. An adapted version of the RIF paradigm for adults' autobiographical memories was administered to 8- and 9-year-old children (N = 65). We hypothesized that RIF would be found in terms of both number of memories recalled and amount of memory detail reported. The relationship between memory detail at the retrieval practice phase and RIF magnitude was also investigated. Consistent with hypotheses, RIF was found for both the number of memories recalled and the amount of memory detail reported. In addition, memory detail at retrieval practice was associated with increased RIF magnitude. Findings extend the current literature in three ways. First, they indicate that selective discussion of autobiographical events with children can cause forgetting of similar non-discussed events. Second, even when these non-discussed events are recalled, they contain sparser memory detail. Finally, when events are selectively discussed in greater detail, forgetting of similar non-discussed events occurs to a greater extent.

The influence of reporting mode on children's cued personal memories.

The Autobiographical Memory Test (AMT) is widely used in research contexts to measure the extent to which participants (children or adults) report specific or general memories in response to cue words. Recalling fewer specific and more general memories (overgeneral memory) has been shown to be linked to depression in adults, but findings for youth, in particular, are mixed. Different versions of the AMT may be one contributing factor, yet this issue has received little research attention. The current study investigated the influence of reporting mode (written vs. spoken) on the specificity, length, and content of memories provided by 8- to 10-year-old children (N = 48). No significant differences were found in the number of specific responses given in the written and spoken modes. On the other hand, the spoken mode elicited longer and more detailed memories, although most content differences were eliminated when memory length was controlled. These findings suggest that different reporting modes can influence the nature of the memories reported, but the absolute differences are relatively small.