Four experiments examined the decontextualization of memories, the stage of learning in which memories can be recalled in the absence of episodic memory cues. Face-name pairs were studied with video-recorded environmental contexts in the background, and after 5 practice trials, recall of names associated with faces was tested in the absence of the original video context cues. In Experiments 1, ...

Recalling positive autobiographical memories is a powerful emotion regulation strategy that can be used to repair low mood and alleviate negative affect. Unlike healthy individuals, those with current or past depression do not experience an improvement in mood as a consequence of recalling positive memories. We tested whether differences in processing mode might account for this impairment. Fol...

The effects of associative strength and gist relations on rates of children’s and adults’ true and false memories were examined in three experiments. Children aged 5 through 11 and universityaged adults participated in a standard Deese/Roediger-McDermott false memory task using DRM and category lists in two experiments and in the third, children memorized lists that differed in associative stre...

The creation of false memories within the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm has been shown to be sensitive to many factors such as task instructions, participant mood, or even presentation modality. However, do other simple perceptual differences also impact performance on the DRM and the creation of false memories? This study explores the potential impact of changes in perceptual disflue...

Following initial encoding, memories undergo a prolonged period of reorganization. While such reorganization may occur in many different memory systems, its purpose is not clear. Previously, we have shown that recall of recent contextual fear memories engages the dorsal hippocampus (dHPC). In contrast, recall of remote contextual fear memories engages a number of different cortical regions, inc...

The authors investigated age-related differences in phenomenal characteristics of autobiographical memories for positive, negative, and neutral events. Younger and older participants were asked to recall two specific memories of each type and then to rate their memories on several sensorial (e.g., visual, taste) and contextual (e.g., location, time) characteristics. The authors found that emoti...

The time-limited role of the medial temporal lobe (MTL) in human long-term memory is well known. However, there is still no direct neuroimaging evidence to confirm it. In this fMRI study, nine subjects were scanned while asked to recall the places they visited more than seven years ago (remote memories); and the places they visited recently (recent memories). We observed robust and dominant MTL...

It has been argued that memories that are inconsistent with one's self would differ from those that are consistent with the self. The present study addresses retrieval, phenomenology, rehearsal and narrative characteristics of autobiographical memories that are consistent versus discrepant with one's self. One hundred participants were asked to recall one self-consistent and one self-discrepant...

The effects of associative strength and gist relations on rates of children’s and adults’ true and false memories were examined in three experiments. Children aged 5–11 and university-aged adults participated in a standard Deese/Roediger–McDermott false memory task using DRM and category lists in two experiments and in the third, children memorized lists that differed in associative strength an...