Linton, M. (1986). Ways of searching and the content of memory. In D. C. Rubin (ed.), Autobiographical memory (pp. 50-67). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Schacter, D. (1996). Of time and autobiography. Searching for Memory: The Brain, the Mind, and the Past. (pp. 72-98).
Rubin, D. C. & Schulkind, M.D. (1997). The distribution of autobiographical memories across the lifespan. Memory and Cognition, 25, 859-866.
Schrauf, R. W. & Rubin, D. C. (1998). Bilingual autobiographical memory in older adult immigrants: A test of cognitive explanations of the reminiscence bump and the linguistic encoding of memories. Journal of Memory and Language, 39, 1-21.
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Bilingual Autobiographical Memory
In Schrauf and Rubin’s study of whether or not autobiographical memories are language-specific, several questions are raised. One theory is in regard to the reminiscence bump. People have numerous memories between the ages of 10-30 because of reasons including social identity formation and rapid changes. Generally older years are more stable with less contrast between memories. The reasons for this bump are similar to a distinctive set of memories an immigrant might have as a result of immigration. More memories should be recalled because of changes in the society and geographical area. I’ve never had a drastic environmental change, but I know that moving from even one state to another influences the way I remember those years. I moved to a different state after kindergarten so perhaps this is why I can remember more about that one year of kindergarten than 1st through 3rd grades when I don’t have any cues to help me. Those grade school years began to mesh together as the environment around me didn’t change. Moving from one area to another is a dividing line that helps to distinguish between memories.
One of their predictions stated in the article was that by showing cue words to immigrants, the words shown in Spanish would bring up memories before they had moved from their original country and showing words in English would bring up memories after they had moved. When Spanish words were shown it wasn’t true that only older memories were recalled, but more came up than new. In fact when an English word was used as a cue, it was often the case that one of the subjects would internally think of a memory in Spanish. Memories could be recalled as happening in one language even if the other language cued the memory. After reading this article I spoke to my friend who is bilingual. She moved from China when she was eleven and had never learned English while in China. I looked up Chinese words in a translator and forced her to reveal some memories. There wasn’t really any pattern that I could find to her answers plus she is only eighteen, but what she did make me think of is that she thinks in different languages when thinking about different things. For example when I asked her to think of a memory involving the word “clock” but showed her the Chinese version, she thought of a clock someone gave her who was American so she thought of the whole experience as English. She firstly saw an image of the memory but when she thought more about it she’d think about it in English. Of course she’s only one person, but I’d be interested to know if many other people think in this way as well.
Recall cues and the structure of memory are just a small part of the way in which we navigate our autobiographical landscape. Linton and Schacter both discuss the hierarchical nature of memory organization, and the differences in methods used to retrieve varying types of memory information, from the most general to the specifically detailed. In examining the organization of such a system, the selection/recall of certain memories and the absence of others creates an interesting question: why do we remember what we do, and how does this shape our autobiographical self? Both Schrauf and Rubin, and Rubin and Schulkind examine the lifespan of memories in various subjects. More specifically, Schrauf and Rubin use language cues to determine if different memories are prompted (in certain bilingual subjects) by cues in different languages, and whether these memories pertain to language-specific periods in the subjects' lives. Although cues in different languages did not prompt memories from the expected time period (generally) the recall of the memories varied in the internal language used to express them, that is, the language used when the memory was encoded. One can combine the organization of Linton and Schacter, and the results from Schrauf and Rubin, and inquire as to the way in which we, individually, encode the memories that we use in the way we define ourselves, from the semantic to the episodic. Does the separate recollection of memories in Spanish and English yield a flat definition of one as bilingual? Or can it be a clue to a more comprehensive and complex, even divided, autobiographical memory system, with a multitude of hierarchies? Surely the complexities go beyond language, just as the absence of memories may define our 'self' as much as the memories that we recall, and the way in which we organize them.
I always find myself attracted to articles on bilingualism and found Schrauf and Rubin (1998) particularly distinctive. As a bilingual person myself, I was easily able to relate to many of the hypothesis and was surprised at the results. Raised in France until the 8th grade, I moved to the states and whilst trying to fit in, tended to consciously block out memories of France to relate more easily to my peers. I often think about this type of study, how many of my memories stem from what era of my lifetime and what sets them off. A favorite question seems to be "what language do you dream in?", I have never been able to answer this question. I'm never able to answer questions such as what language do you "feel", or "think" as I do not believe this is a conscious process. To slow it down and make a very deliberate attempt to unveil the instances in which one language is used over the other seems to manipulate the evidence. I think it is almost impossible to associate a mean or a normative stereotype to how a "similar" group of people encodes anything, memories included. Bilingualism occurs under such varying circumstances in such diverse environments that it would be ludicrous to try to generalize for the purpose of a broader study. I think Schraud and Rubin (1998) hit the nail on the head when they in passing proposed the theory that the reminiscence bump may occur between the ages of 10-30 partially due to the fitness of the organism at that point in life.
I found it fascinating that these researchers theorized that different parts of the brain were involved in the development of language at different ages.However, I found it frustrating that they did not divulge this any further. Which parts of the brain are used under which circumstances? Why would different parts of the brain be activated given the same activity? What does the point of age have to do biologically with when fluencies are encoded?
In the Schacter piece, a few main points caught my attention. On page 77, Schacter cites the research of Elizabeth and Geoffrey Loftus who asked psychologists to chose between two different theories of remembering. The first was that everything that happens to an individual is permanently encoded and can be retrieved given the right cues at the right time. The second assumes that memories can be and are forgotten and no cue in the world can restore them. Of these two theories, a staggering 84% of psychologists chose the first. The example Schacter gives is that a study of people who were in a motor accident would recall it in a year given the right cues. This example provides a shock, but what about which brand of toothpaste which was used or what flavor gum was disliked in the early years of a man in his mid sixties? Would the monotony be recalled?
On page 94, Schacter summarizes the story of the novelist Reynolds Price who wishes more of his youth had been recorded so that he would not have to dive into the archives of his now fuzzy memory storage. I wonder, like in the cases of unintentional plagiarism (or ideas taken without any recollection that they were not originals), whether it truly "matters" how "true" one's facts are in their story and what that even means, so long as they are still the author's memories. Many memories seem to have an air of reconstruction or rekindlement for the purpose of the story being told (whether in a novel or in a social setting), why condemn some over others and why do we feel such deception when we find out others had a different take on the same story (i.e. accuse the storyteller of lying)?
While reading the Linton article, and the chapter in Shacter's book, about memory cues, and the brain's recording of events, I began to think about photographs as a type of memory cue. There are some memories I have which I remember only because they were documented through photos. I am convinced that without the help of certain photos I have, there is nothing else that would have been able to trigger my memory of something that has happened in the past. Once I've looked at a photo I haven’t seen in a long time, a memory, which I thought was "permanently" lost, is something I can begin to talk about as if it happened just yesterday. With this in mind, I began to think about the theories Elizabeth and Geoffrey Loftus asked psychologists to choose between, which were whether things that happen are permanently stored in the mind, so that details we cannot remember at a particular time could eventually be recovered with the right technique or whether experiences are permanently lost from memory and would never be able to be recovered by special techniques. Like the majority, I agreed with the first option, but prior to thinking about the way photos have helped me recall things I thought I never would have remembered, I did sway towards favoring the second theory. Further in the Schacter chapter, he mentions that it is also important to think about why we forget things. Although it is always nice to stumble upon a photograph that reminds me of a memory I thought was long lost, the memories that I have let myself completely forget weren't of much importance, which is why I forgot them in the first place.
Schrauf and Rubin explore the effects immigration and knowing two languages, one being learned after arrival in the new country, might have on the ways in which one would remember certain memories and how this might affect the reminiscence bump, a tendency for people to have more memories from the ages of 10-30. It was most interesting to see that memories before immigration were remembered in Spanish and memories after learning English tended to be in English. I previously thought that memories would be triggered in one’s first language, no matter how often one might use the second, i.e. if one thinks in English, one’s memories will occur in English, if one thinks in Spanish, even if one has now learned English, you will still think about the memory in Spanish.
Schacter discusses how after an incident has occurred, a person has more time to process and think about it and will therefore remember it more clearly. I wonder if this time would also give one the opportunity to have “false” memories, or embellish a memory with details that were previously not there. I think these are both true and that while the longer the period between the incident and the recollection of the memory, the more time you have had to process it and keep it locked in your brain, the more time you have also had to “change” the memory. This also got me thinking about the idea of pictures or film that could trigger a memory or a “false” memory. If one was to see a video of a particular day of one’s childhood and if it triggered the recollection of this event, would the memory of the event be a true recollection of the specific event or would it be a memory of the video?
I moved to China when I was in eighth grade and lived there until my high school graduation (that is approximately five years total). Although I grew up with the Chinese language, my linguistic knowledge was very limited. After living there for five years, my Chinese definitely improved, although I cannot say that I am truly bilingual. Schrauf states that more memories are remembered right before the period of stability and that small, repeated incidents are more likely to be remembered. Schrauf gives the examples of mailing a letter etc. in the reading. I suppose I agree with his statements. I generally have very bad memory, and I do not remember all my first time experiences. Many of my first time experiences that I do remember happened within the first week after I moved to Shanghai and much later on after I entered my “stabilized” time period (about two years after I moved). My memories of living in Shanghai are weaker within the middle period that I was living there.
In the case of cue word retrievals, Schrauf presents several theories: 1) the word conjures up a memory in the same language because of association 2) the word conjures up a memory in the other language indiscriminately/in one language but told in another. I agree with all of these statements because sometimes I personally think of the last time that I used that particular word in conversation, which would lead to a memory in the same language, but I also remember memories across languages too.
The small segment on language in dreams intrigues me because I have heard before that the language that a person dreams in is their first language in the sense that it is their preferred language. Schrauf makes a small mention of this, although he does not state it outright.
At the beginning of the chapter, Daniel Schacter states that memories always refer to the past and often shape the future. I find this point very interesting because we learn from things that happened in the past and we live by what we learnt. However, we do not necessarily remember what happened that shaped us to who we are today. We act accordingly without being conscious of the history behind our actions.
However, in this chapter, it also states that the rate of forgetting is slowed down by the passage of time. Does that mean that after a long time, we remember things in detail? An example where people were shown a bunch of pictures and told to recall them was given. The percentage of correct answers increased on each test over time. If they were given the same test after a long period of time, say, 1 month, will they score better? In my opinion, it will be unrealistic for them to remember more accurately after a long period of time.
I also think that some memories do not fade easily because something out of the norm happened. For example, in this chapter, the author says that he cannot remember what he ate for breakfast the same day a year ago. This is because breakfast is a routine and there is nothing special to what he has been eating. However, in my opinion, if something happened during one of his breakfasts, for example, a car crashed into the cafe he was eating, he would remember that for a very long time as that incident is out of the norm.
We may forget some memories but they are permanently there. We need the right cue to elicit them. Majority of the scientists agree with the theory that everything that happens is permanently stored in the mind, so that details we cannot remember will be recovered with the right technique. However, what if we do not remember an incident at all and that nothing triggers the memory?
Schacter talks about how our memories for everyday experiences are influenced by the passage of time. They become gradually less attainable as time passes and this is because we are constantly encoding and storing new experiences that interfere with our ability to recall previous ones. I was intrigued by the thought that the reason why we can’t remember so many of our earlier memories is because over the years we accumulate more and more memories, and that only the most recent ones can stick in our minds. I can’t even imagine remembering absolutely everything that has ever happened to me or everything that I have ever done. However, as Schacter shows us, there are people who have this remarkable ability. He talks about Jorge Luis Borge’s story where the young fictional man remembers absolutely everything he has ever seen and every different time that he has seen these things. This condition is remarkable, but because his mind is so cluttered with so many memories, he has great difficulty thinking about abstract concepts. There are real life people who have similar conditions to this, and one my think how incredible it would be to remember everything from one’s life, however how could you ever relax or live your life when you are constantly overwhelmed with more memories and thoughts than your mind can handle? I think we all believe that it’s sad that we cannot remember many things from our childhood and that our memories are consistently slipping farther and farther away from us, however there is no way that our mind could handle keeping hold of and managing every experience that we’ve ever had.
Another concept from the reading that interested me was the idea of where do our memories go when they have faded or disappeared? We have experienced everything that has happened in our lives but why can’t we remember all of them? When looking back at home videos and seeing your two-year-old self, you recognize that person as you but not because you remember being in that particular place at that particular time, but because there is evidence that it was you through the video. I find it so baffling that our parents knew us as the person we were when we were that young, but we do not even know what we were like as our two-year-old self. Some believe that everything that has ever happened to us is permanently stored in the mind, and that even if we can’t remember those details at a particular time, with the right retrieval cue we would be able to recount that memory. Others believe that some of our experiences might just be permanently lost and will never be able to be recovered. What is incredible is that when asked which of these options they agreed with, eighty-four percent of psychologists believed that all our memories are permanently stored in the mind. With the right retrieval cue we can be able to suddenly and unexpectedly recover a forgotten memory that we hadn’t thought about in years, and with a home video, one might actually be able to remember being at their five-year-old birthday party. I do not think that any of our memories are lost or have faded, but it’s a crazy concept to think that all of our memories are stored away and that maybe in twenty years I could remember something that I had not thought about since I was fifteen years old.
Between the four reading assignments this week, I found the discussion of autobiographical memories in bilingual older adult immigrants particularly interesting. Schrauf and Rubin hypothesize that autobiographical memories are language-oriented, that using cues in the native language would generate more memory retrieval from experiences taking place in that country and vice-versa, and that due to the period of stability that follows immigration, events taking place during this time would be more readily accessible. Although the language of each cue did not result in greater recall of memories from the native or adopted culture, the vivid and intricate details of events come forth more so when describing the event in the language in which it took place. However, I would expect that the fluency of each participant in English would drastically affect his or her ability to convey each memory better in their native language, as well as the environment in which English was learned (i.e.: in an institution or in natural social upbringing). My father recently married a woman whom he met in France and has lived in France her whole life. Some time after meeting my father, she moved to New York to live with him, they married and she began taking English classes at a local university. Although she has not become fluent in English and thus there is a serious communication gap between her and my father, who does not speak French, I could not help but wonder if the one or two words in a whole sentence that my father does understand and on which he can continue the conversation, act like cue words in recalling memories. In twenty words of either my father or his wife, Marie, the other can understand maybe six words and then partially decipher the meaning of the whole sentence. Much like the way in which cue words can trigger the recall of memories we hadn’t retrieved in a week, a month, a year, or those we thought we had forgotten entirely, the understanding of a mere six out of twenty words can alleviate what is an often frustrating language barrier and reveal a deeper meaning than the six words alone.
More so, I found Schrauf and Rubin’s discussion of the most suitable time for remembering events notable. The authors write, “Periods of stability exhibit opposite effects from periods of rapid change. Events occurring during such periods are less distinctive and are met with less effort after meaning and less release from proactive interference” (Schrauf and Rubin 438). Events taking place at a time when one is experiencing drastic and constant change, such as the preteen to adolescent years, however, are more difficult to recall because the encoding in which the brain initially processes the event may not bare resemblance to that when one tries to retrieve the event later. On the contrary, events occurring at a solid time in ones life, although they are processed with less effort and distinction, benefit from the brain’s ability to carefully and assuredly establish cues at the time of encoding that will operate fully at later recall, as well as the potential of each event to establish a pattern for alike events in the future. Having grown up with an active alcoholic mother, I cannot surely distinguish between the periods of change and that of stability in my childhood. When I think back to my younger years, probably between the ages of six and twelve, I can recall far greater memories of the times my mother was drinking than the times she was not. My common sense tells me that the years in which my mother had lost herself was certainly not a stable time in my life, but it was what I was used to, what had been an established constant from as early in my life as I can remember, and what I could rely on.
According to Marigold Linton, negative memories are “lost” and “do not...remain active features of memory contents” (Linton 60); however, despite my memories of my mother being stable, only in the regard that her drinking was constant, they were nonetheless negative. If the earliest years in my life are marked by a stable period most would consider unstable, does that permanently affect or even warp what my brain considers stable or unstable, positive or negative? If what we retrieve from our pasts are memories that Linton claims are “robust, coherent, forward-looking” and revealing of a “cheerful view of life” (Linton 60), is my better recollection of negative events indicative of a more pessimistic perspective of life that I possess? And if the stability I was accustomed to as a child was far from anything solid and reliable, yet it was what I could depend on, has the meaning of stable unconsciously become the very opposite in my own personal dictionary? Reflecting on my life before college, it is clear to me now how very much my mother’s disease affected me, still affects me, but I am confident in that my view of life is far from pessimistic.
Where do our memories go? When they fade away are there any that disappear? Some memories can be recalled with the aid of stimulation by a random occurrence like a song, a dog barking, a car crash, a home video, a family member’s retelling… These memories can also be provoked. What can we say about memories even when looking at an image of the brain of a patient? We can’t actually prove that a memory has been completely erased. But, we can see if there is brain damage to a particular portion of the brain that is considered to have memory activity in it or connected to it. I believe that many of our memories are lost. We have to make room for new ones. There is a hierarchy of memories so it’s not as if you will easily forget your first pet, love, family death etc. Even thinking about this concept I am trying to retrieve old memories. I can’t remember who my first kiss was with or when it was. I can remember riding a bike for the first time in my elementary school basketball court. I don’t know why one memory takes precedence over another in each person’s mind. I feel that it is crucial not to over-rehearse one’s memories. Some parents like to frame their children’s memories and repeat them over and over again. “Remember when…” etc. It’s patronizing even for a small child. And they DO remember. They remember at that time. They may not later. But, they haven’t been alive that long. Each person should be able to naturally/organically maybe even unconsciously frame their own memories. They are his or her own memories. No one should tamper with that intimate relationship we have with time.
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