Remembering our darkest moments: Reminiscence bumps for highly negative life events.

Prior research has shown that the lifetime age distribution of adults' personal memories peaks in late adolescence and early adulthood, and that this reminiscence bump is apparent primarily for positive rather than negative events. Inspired by sociological research on the crime-age curve, four new studies tested the idea that adults' negative memories of moral transgressions and behavioral missteps also would show a reminiscence bump. A secondary goal was to determine if the ages and content of actual memories recounted by older adults aligned closely with people's expectations for memories provided by an imaginary "typical" older adult. In Study 1, college students were asked to estimate the ages at which people are most likely to have committed crimes and minor moral transgressions; estimated ages peaked sharply during adolescence and early adulthood. Participants also listed emotions that they thought would accompany these misdeeds. In Study 2, college students were asked to describe memories that they expected a typical older adult to recall in response to distinctive emotion cues, including the negative emotions identified in Study 1. Study 3 was a replication of Study 2 using middle-aged participants. In Study 4, older adults provided their own personal memories in response to the emotion cues used in Study 2 and Study 3. The studies identified, for the first time, prominent reminiscence bumps for both expected and actual memories cued by negative emotions. Implications for new research on autobiographical memory functions and age-related memory declines are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Adults' memories of childhood cluster in the year of a residential move.

ABSTRACTWhen adults are asked to recall personal past events, transitional episodes occurring in late adolescence and early adulthood are especially likely to be remembered. In addition, recent research has shown that older adults' memories of middle adulthood tend to cluster around the transitional event of moving to a new residence. In the present research, adults recalled five memories of events that occurred between ages 7 and 13, and they subsequently identified family moves that occurred during the same age interval. As hypothesised, participants' event memories were over-represented in the year of their most important childhood move. Memory clustering was enhanced for moves that were linked retrospectively to other salient coinciding events (e.g., a parental divorce). The results provide additional support for the idea that prominent life transitions provide an organising structure for autobiographical memory.

A deeper dive into the reminiscence bump: further evidence for the life script hypothesis.

When older adults are asked to recall personal events that occurred at any point in their lives, memories from late adolescence and early adulthood are overrepresented, forming a reminiscence bump. Thematic analyses have indicated that the bump memories that emerge in response to such prompts frequently represent milestone events that are consistent with cultural life scripts. This study employed a novel method that explicitly targeted only memories of events occurring during late adolescence and early adulthood, allowing in-depth exploration of the contents and potential organising principles associated with these memories. Older adults (N = 197) completed an on-line survey in which they described 7 memories of personal events that had occurred at any time between the ages of 19 and 34. Content analyses indicated that memories frequently portrayed landmark events, consistent with cultural life script theory. After completing the memory task, participants who had been married or had their first child between ages 19 and 34 provided their age at the time of these events. Temporal distributions of memory ages centred on participants' ages at the time of their first marriage or childbirth also were consistent with the life script explanation for the reminiscence bump.

What do you remember about Captain Jon's visit?: Parent-child conversations and children's memory for a science lesson.

Previous research on parent-child conversations about personal and school events has consistently demonstrated positive relationships between parents' elaborative questioning and preschool/kindergarten children's event memory. This study examined whether similarly positive relationships would be evident in school-age children. Kindergarten, 2nd/3rd-grade, and 5th/6th-grade children participated in a classroom science lesson about flight. At home following the lesson, parents talked with their children about this event in any way that seemed natural to them. Children's memory was assessed both during the parent-child conversation and with a researcher at delays of 3 and 15 days. Expected positive associations between parents' use of elaborative questioning and children's memory for novel details during the parent-child conversation were apparent for kindergartners but not for older children. In addition, parents' use of elaborative questioning techniques, including asking open-ended memory questions, was negatively correlated with older children's longer-term memory performance. Predicted positive associations were observed between children's initial recall of novel details and their memory for the lesson after 3 days (all three age groups) and after 15 days (the two older age groups). We discuss possible reasons why relationships between parental conversational styles and children's event memory change as children advance to formal schooling.

What happened in kindergarten? Mother-child conversations about life story chapters.

Research indicates that adults form life story chapters, representations of extended time periods that include people, places and activities. Life chapter memories are distinct from episodic memories and have implications for behaviour, self and mental health, yet little is known about their development during childhood. Two exploratory studies examined parent-child conversations about life chapters. In Study 1, mothers recorded naturalistic conversations with their 5-6 year old children about two chapters in the child's life. In Study 2, mothers recorded conversations with their 6-7 year old children about a particular life chapter-the child's kindergarten year-and also about a specific episode of their choice. The results indicated that young children are able to recall and discuss information about life chapters and that parents actively scaffold children's discussion of general information in chapters as well as specific events. Mothers' conversational style when discussing chapters (e.g., elaborativeness) predicted children's memory contributions, and was also positively correlated with their style when discussing specific events. The results suggest new avenues for research on the ontogeny of life chapters, the factors that shape them, and their role in development.

Talking after school: Parents' conversational styles and children's memory for a science lesson.

A scientist taught 40 4- to 6-year-old children an interactive science lesson at school. The same day, children talked about the lesson at home with a parent who was naive to the details of what had transpired at school. Six days later, a researcher interviewed children about objects, activities, and concepts that were part of the lesson. Aspects of parents' conversational style (e.g., open-ended memory questions, descriptive language) predicted how much information children provided in talking with them, which in turn predicted children's memory performance 6days later. The findings suggest that elaborative parent-child conversations at home could boost children's retention of academic information acquired at school even when parents have no specific knowledge of what children have experienced there.

Mother-child memory conversations and self-construal in Eastern Turkey, Western Turkey and the USA.

Eighty-seven mothers and their four-year-old children from Eastern Turkey (N = 32 pairs), Western Turkey (N = 30 pairs) and the USA (N = 25 pairs) participated in a study of mother-child memory talk as a reflection of mothers' self construal, in view of differences in the function of memory talk across cultures. Mother-child pairs were audio-recorded while talking about shared past and anticipated future events. Mothers completed the Balanced Integration-Differentiation questionnaire measure of self-construal and were scored as high or low on individuation and relatedness orientations. Mothers' memory and future talk showed similar patterns of cultural differences: American mothers provided the most voluminous, descriptive and elaborative talk, while Eastern Turkish mothers showed the highest level of repetitiveness, and Western Turkish mothers' talk fell in between. Children's memory talk was similar across cultures. In all cultures, mothers who scored high on both individuation and relatedness (balanced self-construal subtype) engaged in more voluminous and contexted memory talk, and individuation was associated with more elaborative talk about future events. Results are discussed in light of literature on cultural differences in self-construal and memory function.