Remembering the romantic past: Autobiographical memory functions and romantic relationship quality.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Aydin C
PROVIDER: S-EPMC8092658 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description:Experiencing stress can have a disadvantageous effect on mental well-being. Additional to the relation between suffering from chronic stress and depression, both stress (acute and chronic) and depression are associated with cognitive alterations, including working memory. The breakup of a relationship is considered to be a stressful event that can lead to symptoms of depression in otherwise healthy people. Additional to elevated depression scores, stress-related cognitive alterations may occur in this population as well. Therefore, in the present fMRI study we investigated whether experiencing a relationship breakup is associated with working memory alterations and whether this is related to depressive symptom severity. A three workload version of the n-back task (0-back, 1-back, 2-back) was used to measure working memory in subjects who experienced a breakup in the preceding 6 months ("heartbreak group", n = 70) and subjects in a romantic relationship ("relationship group", n = 46). Behavioral task performance was compared between the two groups. Functional MRI scans were analyzed using General Linear Model (GLM) activation analyses. Workload conditions were contrasted to each other and to baseline and group differences were assessed. To investigate whether brain networks are associated with depressive symptom severity within the heartbreak group specifically, a post hoc feature-based Independent Component Analysis was performed on the 2-back > 0-back contrast images to identify brain regions that covaried across subjects. Behaviorally, the heartbreak group performed similar at high workload (i.e., 2-back) and better at moderate workload (i.e., 1-back) than the relationship group. GLM analysis revealed an interaction between group and 2-back > 0-back, 2-back > 1-back and 2-back > baseline; the heartbreak group showed less precuneus activation compared to the relationship group. Furthermore, within the heartbreak group, we found a negative association between depressive symptom severity and a brain network representing mostly the precuneus, anterior cingulate gyrus and supplementary motor cortex. Our findings suggest that the effect of a breakup is accompanied by workload-dependent working memory alterations. Therefore, we propose that this population can potentially be used to investigate the interplay between stress, cognitive functioning and depression.
| S-EPMC8062740 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Episodic memory refers to a complex and multifaceted process which enables the retrieval of richly detailed evocative memories from the past. In contrast, semantic memory is conceptualized as the retrieval of general conceptual knowledge divested of a specific spatiotemporal context. The neural substrates of the episodic and semantic memory systems have been dissociated in healthy individuals during functional imaging studies, and in clinical cohorts, leading to the prevailing view that episodic and semantic memory represent functionally distinct systems subtended by discrete neurobiological substrates. Importantly, however, converging evidence focusing on widespread neural networks now points to significant overlap between those regions essential for retrieval of autobiographical memories, episodic learning, and semantic processing. Here we review recent advances in episodic memory research focusing on neurodegenerative populations which has proved revelatory for our understanding of the complex interplay between episodic and semantic memory. Whereas episodic memory research has traditionally focused on retrieval of autobiographical events from the past, we also include evidence from the recent paradigm shift in which episodic memory is viewed as an adaptive and constructive process which facilitates the imagining of possible events in the future. We examine the available evidence which converges to highlight the pivotal role of semantic memory in providing schemas and meaning whether one is engaged in autobiographical retrieval for the past, or indeed, is endeavoring to construct a plausible scenario of an event in the future. It therefore seems plausible to contend that semantic processing may underlie most, if not all, forms of episodic memory, irrespective of temporal condition.
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Project description:Qualitative and quantitative reviews of the neuroimaging literature show that overlapping brain regions support theory of mind (ToM) and autobiographical memory (AM). This overlap has been taken to suggest that individuals draw on past personal experiences to infer others' mental states, but work with amnesic people shows that ToM does not always depend on AM. One variable that may determine the extent to which one relies on AM when inferring another's thoughts and feelings during ToM is whether that individual is personally known. To test this possibility, participants were scanned with fMRI as they remembered past experiences in response to personal photos ('AM' condition) and imagined others' experiences in response to photos of personally familiar ('pToM' condition) and unfamiliar ('ToM' condition) others. Spatiotemporal Partial Least Squares was used to identify the spatial and temporal characteristics of neural activation patterns associated with AM, pToM, and ToM. We found that the brain regions supporting pToM more closely resembled those supporting AM relative to ToM involving unfamiliar others, with the greatest degree of overlap within midline regions. A complementary finding was the observation of striking differences between pToM and ToM such that midline regions associated with AM predominated during pToM, whereas more lateral regions associated with social semantic memory predominated during ToM. Overall, this study demonstrates that ToM involves a dynamic interplay between AM and social semantic memory that is biased towards AM when a personally familiar other is the subject of the mental state inference.
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Project description:Although autobiographical memory and episodic simulations recruit similar core brain regions, episodic simulations engage additional neural recruitment in the frontoparietal control network due to greater demands on constructive processes. However, previous functional neuroimaging studies showing differences in remembering and episodic simulation have focused on veridical retrieval of past experiences, and thus have not fully considered how retrieving the past in different ways from how it was originally experienced may also place similar demands on constructive processes. Here we examined how alternative versions of the past are constructed when adopting different egocentric perspectives during autobiographical memory retrieval compared to simulating hypothetical events from the personal past that could have occurred, or episodic counterfactual thinking. Participants were asked to generate titles for specific autobiographical memories from the last five years, and then, during functional magnetic resonance (fMRI) scanning, were asked to repeatedly retrieve autobiographical memories or imagine counterfactual events cued by the titles. We used an fMRI adaptation paradigm in order to isolate neural regions that were sensitive to adopting alternative egocentric perspectives and counterfactual simulations of the personal past. The fMRI results revealed that voxels within left posterior inferior parietal and ventrolateral frontal cortices were sensitive to novel visual perspectives and counterfactual simulations. Our findings suggest that the neural regions supporting remembering become more similar to those underlying episodic simulation when we adopt alternative egocentric perspectives of the veridical past.
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Project description:Do people know how their romantic partner (i.e., the perceiver) views the self's (i.e., the metaperceiver's) emotions, displaying emotion meta-accuracy? Is it relevant to relationship quality? Using a sample of romantic couples (Ncouples = 189), we found evidence for two types of emotion meta-accuracy across three different interactions: (a) normative emotion meta-accuracy, knowing perceivers' impressions of metaperceivers' emotions that are in line with how the average person may feel, and (b) distinctive emotion meta-accuracy, knowing perceivers' unique impression of metaperceivers' emotions. Furthermore, across interactions, normative emotion meta-accuracy was positively related to momentary relationship quality for metaperceivers and perceivers and this link was especially strong in the conflict interaction. Distinctive emotion meta-accuracy was negatively related to momentary relationship quality across interactions for perceivers and in the conflict interaction for metaperceivers. Overall, it may be adaptive for metaperceivers to accurately infer perceivers' normative impressions and to remain blissfully unaware of their unique impressions.
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Project description:As the population of older adults grows, their economic choices will have increasing impact on society. Research on the effects of aging on intertemporal decisions shows inconsistent, often opposing results, indicating that yet unexplored factors might play an essential role in guiding one's choices. Recent studies suggest that episodic future thinking, which is based on the same neural network involved in episodic memory functions, leads to reductions in discounting of future rewards. As episodic memory functioning declines with normal aging, but to greatly variable degrees, individual differences in delay discounting might be due to individual differences in the vitality of this memory system in older adults. We investigated this hypothesis, using a sample of healthy older adults who completed an intertemporal choice task as well as two episodic memory tasks. We found no clear evidence for a relationship between episodic memory performance and delay discounting in older adults. However, when additionally considering gender differences, we found an interaction effect of gender and autobiographical memory on delay discounting: while men with higher memory scores showed less delay discounting, women with higher memory scores tended to discount the future more. We speculate that this gender effect might stem from the gender-specific use of different modal representation formats (i.e. temporal or visual) during assessment of intertemporal choice options.
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Project description:ObjectivesPast research has established a link between romantic relationships and depressive symptoms among adults, including those in later life. There is, however, still a lack of evidence regarding whether romantic relationship status or relationship quality is a better predictor of psychological well-being among middle-aged and older Black adult women.MethodsThe present study draws on data from the Family and Community Health Study, a multisite, longitudinal survey of health and psychosocial experiences of Black families, to examine how relationship status and quality relate to depressive symptoms among middle-aged and older Black adult women (N = 571). A series of negative binomial regression models, with 95% confidence intervals and internal moderators, were used to assess the research questions.ResultsMiddle-aged and older Black women in married, cohabiting, and dating relationships who reported higher levels of relationship quality had a lower likelihood of depressive symptoms than those who reported lower levels of relationship quality or who did not report being in any romantic relationship when controlling for baseline depressive symptoms. The findings from our study indicate that relationship quality is a better predictor of depressive symptoms than relationship status.DiscussionOur findings extend the body of literature on the impact of romantic relationships on individual well-being and provide compelling evidence that such relationships, particularly those of high quality, are significantly associated with lower depressive symptoms among middle-aged and older Black women.
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Project description:The impact of anger on autobiographical recall was examined in two studies. In Experiment 1, 76 participants differing in trait anger completed an autobiographical memory task (AMT). In Experiment 2, 50 participants with elevated trait anger were either provoked or not provoked and subsequently completed an AMT. Across both studies, participants with high dispositional anger reported more anger-related memories, describing themselves as the primary agent of anger. In Experiment 2, provoked participants reported more memories describing themselves as the target of anger. These findings highlight the distinct patterns of memory recall associated with trait versus state anger. Findings are discussed in terms of retrieval biases operating in angry individuals and proposals stemming from self-memory system models of autobiographical memory.
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Project description:Autobiographical memory (AM), subjective recollection of past experiences, is fundamental in everyday life. Nevertheless, characterization of the spontaneous occurrence of AM, as well as of the number and types of recollected details, remains limited. The CRAM (Cue-Recalled Autobiographical Memory) test (http://cramtest.info) adapts and combines the cue-word method with an assessment that collects counts of details recalled from different life periods. The SPAM (Spontaneous Probability of Autobiographical Memories) protocol samples introspection during everyday activity, recording memory duration and frequency. These measures provide detailed, naturalistic accounts of AM content and frequency, quantifying essential dimensions of recollection. AM content (?20 details/recollection) decreased with the age of the episode, but less drastically than the probability of reporting remote compared to recent memories. AM retrieval was frequent (?20/hour), each memory lasting ?30 seconds. Testable hypotheses of the specific content retrieved in a fixed time from given life periods are presented.
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