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Physiological reactivity (PR) describes the change in physiological functioning (e.g., heart rate, blood pressure, pulse pressure) that occurs after the induction of a stressful task. This study aims to understand the influence of mental health symptoms on patterns of PR during autobiographical narratives in an older adult sample.
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... For instance, the recall of a memory might evoke a specific pattern of physiological activation (e.g., Rainville et al., 2006) or might activate emotion-related brain regions (e.g., Bauer et al., 2017) such that emotions are re-activated in the subject (Hayes et al., 1991), which in turn is likely to activate AMs congruent in emotion. Indeed, AMs rich in emotional content are accompanied by a great sense of vivid reliving (Conway & Pleydell-Pearce, 2000) and a number of studies indicated that the recall of emotional AMs may elicit physiological arousal, such as changes in heart rate, electrodermal activity, blood pressure and breathing (Rainville et al., 2006;Robertson et al., 2015;Schaefer & Philippot, 2005;Talarico et al., 2004) as well as induce positive and negative mood states (e.g., Jallais & Gilet, 2010;Krauth-Gruber & Ric, 2000). Correspondingly, a number of studies indicated that mood state can serve as an effective retrieval cue by facilitating the access to information that matches the emotional valence of the current emotional state, a phenomenon also known as the mood congruency effect (see Barry et al., 2004 for a review). ...
Investigating the recall process of autobiographical memories (AMs) and, particularly, the order in which AMs are recalled has the potential to shed light on the organisation of autobiographical memory. However, research on order effects in the recall of AMs is relatively rare. Moreover, to date, no study addressed the question of where emotion fits into the organisation. The present study aimed to close this gap by examining whether emotional valence serves as one organising principle. Data come from 117 older adults (M = 74.11; SD = 7.06) who reported up to 39 AMs. The use of a multivariate multilevel model with autoregressive effects allows us to analyse the order effect within one person, as well as how the order effect differs between persons. The results replicated a temporal first-order effect that has been shown in previous studies and moreover, demonstrated a temporal second-order effect. Furthermore, our results indicated an emotional first-order effect that was even stronger than the temporal first-order effect and an emotional second-order effect. In addition, both first-order effects differed reliably between persons. Thus, the present study emphasises the need for considering emotion in current theoretical formulations of autobiographical memory and also of considering individual differences in the order of AMs recalled.
... Autobiographical memory refers to the recollection of past personal experiences (Conway, 2005;Rubin, 2005). At the physiological and behavioral level, autobiographical memory has been associated with particular neural substrates (Bauer, Pathman, Inman, Campanella, & Hamann, 2017;St Jacques, Carpenter, Szpunar, & Schacter, 2017;Svoboda, McKinnon, & Levine, 2006), particular cardiovascular and electrodermal activities (Labouvie-Vief, Lumley, Jain, & Heinze, 2003;Robertson, Swickert, Connelly, & Galizio, 2015;Schaefer & Philippot, 2005), and particular activities in facial expressions (El Haj, Antoine, & Nandrino, 2016El Haj, Daoudi, Gallouj, Moustafa, & Nandrino, 2018;Gandolphe et al., 2017). ...
There has been a surge in social cognition and social neurosciences research comparing laboratory and real eye movements. Eye movements during the retrieval of autobiographical memories (i.e., personal memories) in laboratory situations are also receiving more attention. We compared eye movements during the retrieval of autobiographical memories using a strict laboratory design versus a design mimicking social interactions. In the first design, eye movements were recorded during autobiographical memory retrieval while participants were looking at a blank screen; in the second design, participants wore eye-tracking glasses and communicated autobiographical memories to the experimenter. Compared with the “screen” design, the “glasses” design yielded more fixations ( p < .05), shorter duration of fixations ( p < .001), more saccades ( p < .01), and longer duration of saccades ( p < .001). These findings demonstrate how eye movements during autobiographical memory retrieval differ between strict laboratory design and face-to-face interactions.
... Results demonstrated that anger was the only emotion to show a significant increase in sympathetic activity and a significant decrease in heart rate variability. The influence of autobiographical retrieval on physiological activity was also evaluated by Robertson et al. (2015) who found variations on blood pressure during retrieval of negative memories. ...
Thanks to the current advances in the software analysis of facial expressions, there is a burgeoning interest in understanding emotional facial expressions observed during the retrieval of autobiographical memories. This review describes the research on facial expressions during autobiographical retrieval showing distinct emotional facial expressions according to the characteristics of retrieved memoires. More specifically, this research demonstrates that the retrieval of emotional memories can trigger corresponding emotional facial expressions (e.g. positive memories may trigger positive facial expressions). Also, this study demonstrates the variations of facial expressions according to specificity, self-relevance, or past versus future direction of memory construction. Besides linking research on facial expressions during autobiographical retrieval to cognitive and affective characteristics of autobiographical memory in general, this review positions this research within the broader context research on the physiologic characteristics of autobiographical retrieval. We also provide several perspectives for clinical studies to investigate facial expressions in populations with deficits in autobiographical memory (e.g. whether autobiographical overgenerality in neurologic and psychiatric populations may trigger few emotional facial expressions). In sum, this review paper demonstrates how the evaluation of facial expressions during autobiographical retrieval may help understand the functioning and dysfunctioning of autobiographical memory.
The experience of childhood trauma is known to predict health-relevant outcomes across the lifespan. Previous reviews summarize existing knowledge of the implications of childhood trauma for health in young adults and adults more generally. The current theoretical review aims to integrate the existing literature on the relationship between childhood trauma and health-relevant outcomes specifically in college students, consolidating findings across specific health domains. Further, the following theoretical review highlights the need for more research in this area and discusses how college campuses may use the knowledge in this area of work to develop targeted interventions aimed at improving the health of college students who experienced trauma in childhood.
Background
Pupil activity has been widely considered as a “summed index” of physiological activities during cognitive processing.
Methodology
We investigated pupil dilation during retrieval of autobiographical memory and compared pupil diameter with a control condition in which participants had to count aloud. We also measured pupil diameters retrieval of free (i.e., first memory that comes to mind), positive, and negative memories (memories associated, respectively, with the words “happy” and “sad”).
Results
Analyses demonstrated larger pupil diameters during the free, positive, and negative autobiographical memory retrieval than during the control task. Analyses also demonstrated no significant differences in pupil diameters across the three autobiographical memory conditions.
Conclusion
These outcomes demonstrate that, compared with counting, autobiographical retrieval results in a larger pupil size. However, the emotional valence of memories yields non-significant effect on pupil diameters. Our findings demonstrate how autobiographical memory retrieval yields pupil dilation.
