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The Self-Memory System encompasses the working self, autobiographical memory and episodic memory. Specific autobiographical memories are patterns of activation over knowledge structures in autobiographical and episodic memory brought about by the activating effect of cues. The working self can elaborate cues based on the knowledge they initially ac...
Contexts in source publication
Context 1
... autobiographical knowledge, e.g. personal factual knowledge and cultural knowledge, such as the history of our times. It also contains episodic memories, e.g. fragmentary knowledge derived from experience (Conway, 2009). As such it forms a major part of the self (Conway, 2005;Conway & Pleydell-Pearce, 2000;Conway, Singer, & Tagini, 2004). Fig. 1 depicts partonomic knowledge structures in AM in which episodic memories are part of general events which in turn are part of lifetime periods which may themselves be part of broader themes such as work or relationship themes and the life story (Bluck & Habermas, ...Context 2
... levels of the knowledge structures are accessed by cues and the lines in Fig. 1 connecting different levels depict the action of cues and should not be taken as some sort of direct connection. So for example, knowledge represented in a lifetime period such as 'Working at university X' could be used as a cue to access a the general event, 'Departmental talks', which in turn contains knowledge that can access ...Similar publications
The study of traumatic memories has generated a heated debate in recent years due to the implications it has for understanding of the emotional memory mechanisms and the implications it has on some legal cases. Several studies showed that traumatic memories are different from other types of memories, while others affirmed traumatic memories are sim...
The study of music-evoked autobiographical memories (MEAMs) has grown substantially in recent years. Prior work has used various methods to compare MEAMs to memories evoked by other cues (e.g., images, words). Here, we sought to identify which methods could distinguish between MEAMs and picture-evoked memories. Participants (N = 18) listened to pop...
In this demo, we illustrate the formation, retrieval, and playback of autobiographical memory in an online personal memory album named MyLife. The memory in MyLife consists of pictorial snapshots of one’s life together with the associated context, namely time, location, people, activity, imagery, and emotion. MyLife allows direct import of memories...
Citations
... Are the experiences sensorily re-activated as claimed in this approach? A challenge for such methods is the evidence that episodic memory recall involves construction (Conway, 2005;Conway & Loveday, 2015;Hassabis & Maguire, 2007). How can we hence judge whether these recalled/evoked experiences are accurate or not? ...
Objectives
Practitioners in contemplative traditions commonly report experiencing an awareness that is distinct from sensory objects, thoughts, and emotions (“awareness itself”). They also report experiences of a void or underlying silence that is closely associated with this awareness. Subjects who carry out the Headless Way exercises frequently report an experience of emptiness or void at the same time as other contents (void-like experiences). The goals of this study were to (1) assess the reliability of these methods in eliciting the recognition of awareness and void-like experiences in participants who had no prior exposure to these techniques, (2) investigate the prevalence of these experiences in these tasks, and (3) to differentiate these experiences from closely related and potential precursor experiences.
Method
Twenty adults participated in in-depth individual interviews in which they were guided through the Headless Way exercises. A thematic analysis was conducted on the interview transcripts.
Results
Twelve of the participants reported a void-like experience, and five participants reported an experience of awareness itself. These experiences were respectively categorized as subsets of the more general categories of perceptual absences and the sense of not being person-like. Another novel finding was the real-time reports of awareness and void-like experiences during the exercises.
Conclusions
Our findings provide preliminary evidence that the Headless Way exercises can effectively induce experiences of emptiness and awareness in participants without prior experience. The findings suggest that such experiences can be elicited outside of a traditional meditation context, including in non-meditators. Furthermore, the experience of not being person-like and of perceptual absences may be precursors and more general forms of recognizing awareness itself and the void-like nature of the mind.
Preregistration
This study is not preregistered.
... Widely replicated data has demonstrated that distortions can influence both initial encoding (e.g., Findley, 2012) and postencoding of memories (Mazzoni & Memon, 2003; for a discussion, see Mazzoni & Vannucci, 2007), leading to the presence of false memories. False memories are often said to be the product of the reconstructive nature of memory processes (Conway & Loveday, 2015) and are characterised by several "sins" (Schacter, 1999(Schacter, , 2021. Patihis et al. (2013) found a comparable frequency of false memories between HSAM individuals and controls, a finding that suggests that HSAM people may have an extraordinary strength of personal memories, supported by otherwise ordinary cognitive abilities. ...
Individuals possessing a Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory (HSAM) demonstrate an exceptional ability to recall their own past, excelling most when dates from their lifetime are used as retrieval cues. Fully understanding how neurocognitive mechanisms support exceptional memory could lead to benefits in areas of healthcare in which memory plays a central role and in legal fields reliant on witnesses’ memories. Predominantly due to the rareness of the phenomenon, existing HSAM literature is highly heterogenous in its methodologies used. Therefore, following Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines, we performed the first systematic review on this topic, to collate the existing behavioural, neuroanatomical, and functional HSAM data. Results from the 20 experimental selected studies revealed that HSAM is categorised by rapidly retrieved, detailed and accurate autobiographical memories, and appears to avoid the normal aging process. Functional neuroimaging studies showed HSAM retrieval seems characterised by an intense overactivation of the usual autobiographical memory network, including posterior visual areas (e.g., the precuneus). Structural neuroanatomical differences do not appear to characterise HSAM, but altered hippocampal resting-state connectivity was commonly observed. We discuss theories of HSAM in relation to autobiographical encoding, consolidation, and retrieval, and suggest future directions for this research.
... It is worth noting that no group effect on reaction time for event construction was found, contradicting the initial hypothesis. This could be attributed to the fact that the construction phase primarily involves accessing the upper layer of the self-memory system (Conway & Loveday, 2015;Conway & Pleydell-Pearce, 2000), leaving limited room for the influence of state anxiety (Eysenck et al., 2007). ...
Episodic future thinking (EFT) is a fundamental cognitive capacity that enables individuals to mentally simulate and prepare for possible future events. This capacity involves two distinct phases: construction and elaboration. How state anxiety affects the event construction and elaboration in EFT remains unclear. Therefore, the present study aims to address this issue by adopting a verbal cueing paradigm, taking into account familiarity and emotional valence. To induce state anxiety, our study employed a mental arithmetic task coupled with immediate feedback and the investigator’s supervision. Cue words were associated with either high-familiar or low-familiar future events, as well as different emotional valences (positive, neutral or negative). In the cueing task, each participant was required to construct a specific episodic event and then elaborate on it based on the provided cues. Subsequently, subjective ratings of the imagined event were collected after each imagination. The results revealed that individuals experiencing state anxiety took longer to elaborate events compared to the control group. Notably, there were asymmetric results in high- and low-familiarity conditions when considering cue words with different emotional valence. Overall, this study suggests that the influence of state anxiety on EFT is constrained to the elaboration phase and does not extend to the construction phase.
... Importantly, while the idea that IAMs and déjà vu may be similar phenomenon has been suggested in the literature (e.g. Bradley, Moulin, & Kvavilashvili, 2013;Conway & Loveday, 2015;Illman et al. 2012;Mazzoni & Hańczakowski, 2011), to our best knowledge, the present paper is the first that provides an account for the possible underlying mechanisms of both. Of note, in the only empirical work on the relationship, find that retrospective questionnaire reports of the frequency of déjà vu and IAMs in daily life is related, at least in older adults (mean age 71; r(44)=.723). ...
... It may also be true, especially when metacognitive abilities are impaired, that déjà vu is a result of the lack of access to already activated autobiographical memories that are below the awareness threshold (e.g. Conway & Loveday, 2015). ...
Involuntary autobiographical memories (IAMs) and déjà vu are phenomena that occur spontaneously in daily life. IAMs are recollections of the personal past, whereas déjà vu is defined as an experience in which the person feels familiarity at the same time as knowing that the familiarity is false. We present and discuss the idea that both IAMs and déjà vu can be explained as natural phenomena resulting from memory processing and, importantly, are both based on the same memory retrieval processes. Briefly, we hypothesise that both can be described as ‘involuntary’ or spontaneous cognitions, where IAMs deliver content and déjà vu delivers only the feeling of retrieval. We map out the similarities and differences between the two, making a theoretical and neuroscientific account for their integration into models of memory retrieval and how the autobiographical memory literature can explain these quirks of daily life and unusual but meaningful phenomena. We explain the emergence of the déjà vu phenomenon by relating it to well-known mechanisms of autobiographical memory retrieval, concluding that IAMs and déjà vu lie on a continuum.
... Ezen bizonyítékok alátámasztják azt, hogy az epizodikus jövőgondolkodás magasabb rendű önéletrajzi tudás struktúrákra támaszkodik, illetve azt, hogy a személyes célok nagyban befolyásolhatják a jövővel kapcsolatos mentális folyamatokat. Az idő múlásának megtapasztalása és az időben történő navigálás képessége, más néven mentális időutazás, hozzájárul az identitástudathoz és az önfolytonossághoz (Conway & Loveday, 2015). Úgy gondolják, hogy az epizodikus emlékezet és az EFT egyidejűleg érik a tipikus fejlődésben (Suddendorf, 2010), 4 éves kor körül alakul ki (Atance & O'Neill, 2005), és mindkét képesség csökken az idősebb felnőtteknél (Addis és mtsai., 2008). ...
Az utóbbi években egyre inkább előtérbe került a kérdés, hogy miként ragadhatjuk meg a jövőbeli események tervezésének képességét a múltra való személyes emlékek előhívásának fényében. Ha az epizodikus emlékezet felelős a jövőbeli események elképzeléséért, akkor átfedés mutatható ki az önéletrajzi emlékezet és a jövő elképzelése közt. Jelen narratív irodalmi áttekintésnek az a célja, hogy bemutassa a jelenlegi elméleteket, és ismertesse a kutatási eredményeket, ezáltal segítve elő egy olyan szervezeti keret kialakításának folya-matát, amely a jövőbeli gondolkodás egységes kutatásához szükséges. A cikk bemutatja az epizodikus jövőgondolkodás mögött meghúzódó idegrendszeri hálózati folyamatokat, különösen kitér a hippokampusz jelentőségére. Ismerteti a konstruktív epizodikus szimuláció hipotézist, miszerint az epizodikus emlékezés és az epizodikus jövőgondolkodás nagyrészt hasonló idegi szubsztrátokra támaszkodik, és feltételezi, hogy az epizodikus emlékezeti rendszer egyik fő funkciója, hogy az egyéni, kontextuális emlékek egységeit fl exibilisen újra szervezze, és ezek alapján szimulálja az egyén számára a lehetséges jövőbeli eseményeket. Bemutatja a memóriadefi citekkel kapcsolatos kutatási eredményeket, ugyanis feltételezhető, hogy az önéletrajzi memória károsodása pszichiátriai betegségekben az epizodikus jövő-gondolkodás károsodását is eredményezi. A jövőorientált gondolatok különböző funkciókat szolgálnak, mint például a döntéshozatal, a cselekvés tervezése és az érzelmi szabályozás. A cikk továbbá kitér a sémaelméletekre, mivel az epizodikus jövőbeli gondolatok generá-lásakor az emberek gyakran aktiválják a személyes jövőjükről szóló általános tudásukat mielőtt egy adott esemény megtörténne. A jövőbeli gondolkodás kulcsfontosságú a jólét, a célok elérése, az öregedés, az optimizmus és a klinikai állapotok megértése szempont-jából. Az, hogy az emberek hogyan gondolkodnak a jövőről, befolyásolhatják döntéseiket. Az érzelmi jövőorientált gondolatok, az önéletrajzi tudásszerkezetek, és az élettörténeti sémák ismertetése kulcsfontosságú szerepet játszik az epizodikus jövőbeli gondolatok felépítésében. A memória szerepének megértése a jövőbeli események szimulációiban fontos lehet az emlékezet konstruktív jellegének és általában az emlékezeti rendszereket érintő betegségek működésének megértéséhez, ezáltal e betegségek kezelésének specifi kus megválasztásához is hozzájárulhat.
... Autobiographical memories refer to memories related to people themselves, which contain autobiographical knowledge (such as personal factual knowledge) and episodic memories (Conway & Loveday, 2015;Conway & Pleydell-Pearce, 2000;Conway et al., 2004). ...
In this study, we explored the influence of presleep conscious thoughts on dreams. One hundred forty-eight participants reported any thoughts that came to their minds before falling asleep, and reported their dreams the next morning after they woke up. Then, two independent judges rated similar correspondences (characters, objects, locations, and actions) between each participant’s conscious thoughts and dreams of the same person. In addition, the judges used the same method to rate similar correspondences between each participant’s conscious thoughts and dreams of another participant (the randomized condition). The result showed that there were more correlations between each participant’s conscious thoughts and dreams of the same person than the randomized condition. Thus there was meaningful continuity between presleep conscious thoughts and dreams. In addition, dreams may be correlated with the activation of autobiographical memories primed by waking-life experiences.
... Ezen bizonyítékok alátámasztják azt, hogy az epizodikus jövőgondolkodás magasabb rendű önéletrajzi tudás struktúrákra támaszkodik, illetve azt, hogy a személyes célok nagyban befolyásolhatják a jövővel kapcsolatos mentális folyamatokat. Az idő múlásának megtapasztalása és az időben történő navigálás képessége, más néven mentális időutazás, hozzájárul az identitástudathoz és az önfolytonossághoz (Conway & Loveday, 2015). Úgy gondolják, hogy az epizodikus emlékezet és az EFT egyidejűleg érik a tipikus fejlődésben (Suddendorf, 2010), 4 éves kor körül alakul ki (Atance & O'Neill, 2005), és mindkét képesség csökken az idősebb felnőtteknél (Addis és mtsai., 2008). ...
In recent years, the question of how we can grasp the ability to plan future events has come to the forefront in light of the retrieval of personal memories from the past. If episodic memory is responsible for envisioning future events, there appears to be an overlap between autobiographical memory and imagining the future. The aim of this current narrative literature review is to present existing theories and research findings, thereby facilitating the development of an organizational framework necessary for the unified investigation of future thinking. This article introduces the neural network processes underlying episodic future thinking, with particular emphasis on the significance of the hippocampus. It outlines the constructive episodic simulation hypothesis, suggesting that episodic memory and episodic future thinking largely rely on similar neural substrates and assumes that a primary function of the episodic memory system is to flexibly reorganize units of individual, contextual memories to simulate possible future events for the individual. The article presents research results related to memory deficits, as it can be presumed that impairment of autobiographical memory in psychiatric disorders also results in impaired episodic future thinking. Future-oriented thoughts serve various functions, such as decision-making, action planning, and emotional regulation. The article also delves into schema theories, as when generating episodic future thoughts, people often activate their general knowledge about their personal future before a specific event occurs. Future thinking is crucial for well-being, goal attainment, aging, optimism, and understanding clinical conditions. How people think about the future can influence their decisions. The elucidation of emotionally futureoriented thoughts, autobiographical knowledge structures, and life-history schemas plays a crucial role in the construction of episodic future thinking. Understanding the role of memory in simulating future events can be important in comprehending the constructive nature of memory and, in general, the functioning of memory systems in diseases, thereby contributing to the specific selection of treatments for these conditions.
... Therefore, they may not be too reliable. However, they affect the farmers' perception (Conway and Loveday 2015). Farmers' expectations are linked to the future of water crisis and how it is expected to occur (Damodar and Nibal 2020). ...
Understanding the perception of farmers is essential for successful water resources management especially during water crisis. Therefore, this paper examines farmers’ perception about the local water crisis in Gawshan dam basin, Iran. Qualitative phenomenological methodology was used to depict the lived experiences of farmers regarding water crisis. Using critical sampling, out of all water users of the Gawshan dam, the selected participants were farmers having lived experience of water crisis and interested to express and share their experiences. Sixty important statements and five themes were extracted from participants’ experiences (PE) in water crisis. Finding showed that farmers have perceived agricultural water crisis at the local level but different pattern of perception also is detected among them. The results also revealed that farmers’ perception is related to their direct experience, the way they define water crisis, their memories of water crisis and their expectation of what it holds for future water crisis. It is expected that this study will support decision makers at local level to address water crisis in the region.
... Así pues, algunos autores hacen referencia a la memoria autobiográfica, como el estudio de recuerdos de uno mismo (Brerwer, 1986), como una memoria de sucesos y de hechos autobiográficos en la medida en que recoge conocimiento, sucesos y hechos autobiográficos (Garzón 1993). La memoria autobiográfica es la historia psicológica del "uno mismo" e incluye declaraciones y creencias sobre el uno mismo, acompañado a menudo por imágenes genéricas o específicas de detalles de la experiencia anterior, por lo que constituye una encrucijada importante en la cognición humana en la que los significados personales y emocionales se entrecruzan (Conway, 2001;Conway y Jobson, 2012;Conway y Loveday, 2015;Conway y Pleydell-Pearce, 2000;Conway y Rubin, 1993;Köber, y Habermas, 2017;McAdams, 2001;Pallares y Villalobos, 2021). ...
... As memories are recalled (consciously or unconsciously), additional information is generated to fill in any missing areas to construct a narratively enjoyable memory. This can often occur due to cues in the present environment that colour the perception of the memory and the inferences generated [46]. This generated information can then become part of the memory when it is next recalled and then reiterated upon with further inferences until all that is left of the subjective past is imagination. ...
For consciousness to exist, an entity must have prerequisite characteristics and attributes to give rise to it. We explore these “building blocks” of consciousness in detail in this paper, which range from perceptive to computational to meta-representational characteristics of an entity’s cognitive architecture. We show how each cognitive attribute is strictly necessary for the emergence of consciousness, and how the building blocks may be used for any entity to be classified as being conscious. The list of building blocks is not limited to human or organic consciousness and may be used to classify artificial and organisational conscious entities. We further explore a list of attributes that seem intuitively necessary for consciousness, but on further investigation, are neither required nor sufficient. The building blocks do not represent a theory of consciousness but rather a meta-theory on the emergence and classification of consciousness.
