Memory [JOURNAL]
Sun
200 papers
Bilingualism and individual differences in short-term ordered serial recall.
Caissie-Gilbert A, Guitard D, Saint-Aubin J
Memory · 2026 Jul · PMID 41972492 · Publisher ↗
In two experiments, we examined whether individual differences in bilingual language proficiency predict immediate serial recall in a language-specific manner. A total of 96 French-English bilinguals completed an immedia...
In two experiments, we examined whether individual differences in bilingual language proficiency predict immediate serial recall in a language-specific manner. A total of 96 French-English bilinguals completed an immediate serial recall task involving 40 lists of 6 words, followed by the LexTALE lexical decision task in both French and English to index lexical knowledge continuously. Experiment 1 used visually presented word lists and included both pure-language lists and alternating-language lists; Experiment 2 replicated the same design with auditory presentation. Across experiments, LexTALE scores reliably predicted recall accuracy for words presented in the corresponding language, such that participants with stronger lexical knowledge in a given language recalled more items from that language. This language-specific proficiency-recall relation held across list contexts and generalised across visual and auditory modalities. The findings support accounts in which immediate serial recall is constrained by the strength of language-specific long-term lexical representations that support retrieval during short-term remembering.
Comparing children's and adults' accounts of childhood injuries: implications for the courtroom.
Taylor A, Ingram J, Garry M … +1 more , Zajac R
Memory · 2026 Apr · PMID 41968894 · Publisher ↗
Adults who allege childhood abuse often provide rich, detailed accounts, and many triers-of-fact treat those details as signs of reliability. Yet equating detail with reliability sits uneasily with what we know about mem...
Adults who allege childhood abuse often provide rich, detailed accounts, and many triers-of-fact treat those details as signs of reliability. Yet equating detail with reliability sits uneasily with what we know about memory. Adults' memories for unusual or traumatic events are typically sparse, detail fades with time, and when adults recall childhood, they draw on memories encoded with immature cognitive tools. Moreover, children themselves seldom report these specific details when interviewed soon after events. If adults later provide more detail about childhood events than children do at the time, the source of that detail becomes uncertain. Across two studies, we asked adults (Studies 1 and 2) and children (Study 2) to recall a childhood injury. During free recall, both groups recalled few legally-relevant details - though adults reported more than children, despite considerable retention intervals. Probing questions narrowed this gap, but adults were more likely than children to answer certain questions, provided more detail in many of their responses, and used verbal hedges and speculative language more frequently. These findings fit with the idea that highly detailed accounts of childhood events likely reflect later reconstruction rather than particularly durable memory - a crucial insight for both autobiographical memory theory and triers-of-fact in the courtroom.
Emotional closure in involuntary autobiographical memories: evidence from a laboratory paradigm.
Öner S, Dönerkayalı C, Nur Kurtoğlu Z … +2 more , Ilczuk E, Barzykowski K
Memory · 2026 Jul · PMID 41966069 · Publisher ↗
The present study investigates how the emotional closure status of autobiographical memories (open vs. closed) influences the frequency and phenomenology of involuntary autobiographical memories (IAMs), and how these pro...
The present study investigates how the emotional closure status of autobiographical memories (open vs. closed) influences the frequency and phenomenology of involuntary autobiographical memories (IAMs), and how these processes are further shaped by individual differences in the need for emotional closure. Participants ( = 226) completed a laboratory-based vigilance task designed to capture spontaneous thoughts, including IAMs, with probe questions assessing their occurrence and characteristics. Each reported memory was classified by participants as open or closed, and participants additionally completed the Need for Emotional Closure Scale (NECS). Results showed that closed memories were reported more frequently than open memories during spontaneous retrieval. In terms of phenomenology, open IAMs were rated as more emotionally intense and more important than closed IAMs, while no differences emerged in their valence. Notably, NECS interacted with closure status for valence, showing that individuals with higher emotional closure needs evaluated open IAMs more negatively than closed IAMs. We discuss the findings with a focus on the role of emotional closure in shaping spontaneous remembering, as well as the motivational and cognitive factors underlying the recurrence of autobiographical memories.
Arousal and valence differentially shape temporal memory for naturalistic events.
Gregory DF, Chen Z, Spangler BC … +1 more , Murty VP
Memory · 2026 Jul · PMID 41965942 · Publisher ↗
While emotional arousal and negative valence both alter episodic memory, their contributions to different facets of temporal memory remain unclear. Here, we examined two components of temporal memory - relative order and...
While emotional arousal and negative valence both alter episodic memory, their contributions to different facets of temporal memory remain unclear. Here, we examined two components of temporal memory - relative order and distance estimations - from aversive and neutral movie clips, allowing us to query more naturalistic forms of emotional memory. Overall, relative order was enhanced, and distance estimations were modestly compressed for aversive versus neutral movie clips. However, these two forms of temporal memory were associated differentially with arousal and valence. Negative valence exclusively drove enhancements in relative order, while temporal compression was jointly shaped by arousal and negative valence. Finally, greater temporal distance expansion predicted enhanced relative order discrimination, suggesting participants relied on relative novelty rather than associative chaining to resolve temporal sequences. Together, these findings indicate that arousal and valence make dissociable and interacting contributions to temporal memory for naturalistic events.
People remember their past performance, and predict their future performance, more positively when learning easier ideas first.
Cate JA, Jordan K, Sanson M … +2 more , Taylor A, Garry M
Memory · 2026 Jul · PMID 41961486 · Publisher ↗
Beginners are often overconfident when judging their performance at a new skill. Why? One possibility is beginners draw on early experiences of fluency when recalling their past - and predicting their future - performanc...
Beginners are often overconfident when judging their performance at a new skill. Why? One possibility is beginners draw on early experiences of fluency when recalling their past - and predicting their future - performance. We addressed this possibility in two experiments comprising three phases. First, we gave people a key piece of information: that many kanji, the Japanese language characters, look like their translation. Second, everyone guessed the translations of a series of kanji, ordered either from easiest (looks like its meaning) to hardest (looks nothing like its meaning), or the opposite. Third, everyone rated how well they performed translating those kanji, and predicted how well they would do in future scenarios requiring skill in kanji. We found people who translated easy kanji first thought they performed better guessing the translations, and were more confident in their ability at hypothetical future scenarios requiring reading kanji, such as understanding a recipe. Our findings extend our understanding of beginners' overconfidence, and have implications for teaching.
Must we do this again? Evaluating JOL carryover effects in cued-recall.
Morehead AG, Huff MJ, Maxwell NP
Memory · 2026 Jul · PMID 41955526 · Publisher ↗
Providing Judgments of Learning (JOLs) for cue-target pairs at study often improves recall for related pairs versus a silent reading control task, a pattern termed JOL reactivity. While reactivity patterns have been foun...
Providing Judgments of Learning (JOLs) for cue-target pairs at study often improves recall for related pairs versus a silent reading control task, a pattern termed JOL reactivity. While reactivity patterns have been found consistently using a variety of stimuli and test types, they appear to only occur when participants are explicitly instructed to provide JOLs. Whether JOL reactivity can carry over to cue-target pairs when JOLs are not directly applied is unclear. We evaluated this possibility by comparing cued-recall between two study-test blocks. In two experiments, participants either provided JOLs on both blocks or only in the first block with instructions to provide covert JOLs on the second block. Although JOL reactivity was found with explicit JOLs in the first block, it did not carry over to covert JOLs in the second block (Experiment 1), nor did reactivity carry over when participants were frequently reminded to make covert JOLs (Experiment 2). Reactivity therefore appears to be a byproduct of overtly provided judgments.
National collective memories and their functions in Japan and the US.
Fukushima Y, Cate JA, Taylor A … +2 more , Umanath S, Garry M
Memory · 2026 May · PMID 41947573 · Publisher ↗
Collective memories are shared representations of a group's past. For nations, these memories serve important purposes: they shape national identity, promote social cohesion and guide future decisions. Although extensive...
Collective memories are shared representations of a group's past. For nations, these memories serve important purposes: they shape national identity, promote social cohesion and guide future decisions. Although extensive research has examined collective memory in Europe and the United States, less is known about countries outside these regions, such as Japan. Cultural tightness and other societal differences may influence the extent to which collective memories serve these functions. To address this issue, we first asked Japanese participants to nominate nationally important collective memories (Study 1), and then asked both Japanese and American participants to report the extent to which their country's collective memories serve directive, social and identity functions (Study 2). Surprisingly, Japanese participants showed agreement on relatively few collective memories and rated those memories as serving these functions to a lesser degree than did Americans. These findings raise questions about how cultural tightness, institutional influences and educational systems shape collective memory and its functions. We suggest that in Japan, national identity may rely more on structural and cultural continuity than on shared recollections of specific historical events.
Effect of collaborative strategies on retrieval: the evidence from different task materials.
Hu J, Sun Y, Duan Y … +3 more , Ren M, Chen N, Liu W
Memory · 2026 May · PMID 41936412 · Publisher ↗
Collaborative memory refers to a process where two or more members encode information individually but collaborate during retrieval. While the collaborative process itself is widely studied in retrieval research, communi...
Collaborative memory refers to a process where two or more members encode information individually but collaborate during retrieval. While the collaborative process itself is widely studied in retrieval research, communication strategies - specifically, how collaboration is strategically conducted - have received little attention. Through three experiments, this study investigates the influence of the "free collaboration", "supporting others" and "focusing on differences" collaborative retrieval strategies and "nominal group" in four groups on collaborative memory and the collaborative retrieval effect across three types of memory materials: words, picture - names, and stories. Based on the results, the following conclusions can be drawn:(1) The influence of collaborative strategies on collaborative extraction exhibits a certain degree of task specificity. The difference-focused strategy demonstrated superior efficacy with verbal materials, whereas the partner-support strategy enhanced retrieval performance for narrative materials. (2) The influence of collaborative strategies on the collaborative memory effect also varies depending on the material. Distinct patterns of collaborative inhibition and error pruning emerged for verbal versus narrative materials in the two strategy groups. (3) For picture-name pairs - owing to their dual-coding characteristics - no performance differences emerged between strategy groups during collaborative retrieval, with both exhibiting collaborative advantages. In summary, the optimal collaboration approach varies according to material type, while collaboration strategies guide distinct interaction patterns. The differential alignment between these two dimensions - material-optimized approaches versus strategy-guided approaches - ultimately determines how collaboration strategies influence retrieval performance across materials.
Forgetting unrelated spatial memories through suppression-induced amnesia.
Li J, Chen Z, Zhao Y … +1 more , Wang J
Memory · 2026 May · PMID 41920167 · Publisher ↗
Active forgetting through retrieval suppression can impair memory for information encountered nearby in time ("amnesic shadow"). Whether this collateral effect extends to spatial memory is unclear. Across three experimen...
Active forgetting through retrieval suppression can impair memory for information encountered nearby in time ("amnesic shadow"). Whether this collateral effect extends to spatial memory is unclear. Across three experiments, we examined how suppression influences the encoding of new spatial memories. Experiment 1 used a modified hippocampal-modulation paradigm that paired the Think/No-Think task with a spatial location task. Spatial locations encoded between suppression trials were recalled less accurately than those encoded between retrieval trials or a baseline, evidencing an amnesic shadow for spatial memory. Experiment 2 introduced a 24-hour delay and showed that the deficit persisted, indicating durability beyond initial encoding. Experiment 3 manipulated control strategies: direct suppression produced the shadow, whereas thought substitution did not impair nearby spatial learning. Together, the results support systemic-suppression accounts in which prefrontal control transiently down-regulates hippocampal function, broadly weakening hippocampus-dependent processes. By extending the amnesic shadow to spatial memory and isolating it to direct suppression, this work provides a strategy-specific behavioural marker of memory control and clarifies how attempts to contain unwanted thoughts can unintentionally degrade concurrent spatial learning.
Judgments of learning improve multiple-choice recognition but not short-answer recall of educational text passages.
Maxwell NP, Adkins M
Memory · 2026 May · PMID 41866694 · Publisher ↗
Judgments of learning (JOLs) can improve memory for cue-target word pairs (i.e., JOL reactivity). Prior research suggests that this effect does not extend to text passage learning, especially when memory is assessed usin...
Judgments of learning (JOLs) can improve memory for cue-target word pairs (i.e., JOL reactivity). Prior research suggests that this effect does not extend to text passage learning, especially when memory is assessed using short-answer tests (e.g., Ariel, R., Karpicke, J. D., Witherby, A. E., & Tauber, S. K. (2021). Do judgments of learning directly enhance learning of educational materials? , (2), 693-712. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-020-09556-8). However, JOL reactivity is often moderated by test format and JOL phrasing, and recent findings suggest that reactivity effects are greater when recognition tests are used. We tested whether global and term-specific JOLs would improve text passage learning when memory was assessed using short-answer (Experiment 1) and multiple-choice tests (Experiments 2 and 3). Across test formats, global JOLs were non-reactive. However, term-specific JOLs produced negative reactivity on short-answer tests (Experiment 1) but positive reactivity on multiple-choice tests (Experiments 2 and 3). This positive reactivity effect was greater in Experiment 3 when term-specific JOLs used a target-present phrasing. Importantly, this effect was also observed relative to a restudy group, suggesting that positive JOL reactivity was not solely driven by increased exposure to the target information. Taken together, JOLs can improve text passage learning, but their effectiveness is linked to test format and JOL phrasing.
Imagery Rescripting induced transient forgetting of negative autobiographical memories.
Du Z, Cheng C, Liu M … +1 more , Niu J
Memory · 2026 May · PMID 41863482 · Publisher ↗
Imagery Rescripting (ImRs) is a promising intervention for treating emotional disorders associated with distressing autobiographical memories, but its impact on memory recall requires further investigation. This study, b...
Imagery Rescripting (ImRs) is a promising intervention for treating emotional disorders associated with distressing autobiographical memories, but its impact on memory recall requires further investigation. This study, based on the retrieval competition hypothesis, proposes a previously overlooked theoretical mechanism, that the process of creating and rehearsing therapeutic imagery in ImRs may require the inhibition of original negative memory representations, thereby reducing their availability. We therefore adapted the retrieval-practice paradigm and conducted two laboratory intervention studies. Experiment 1 ( = 60) examined the effects of ImRs and Imaginal Exposure (ImE) on the recall of original memories, while Experiment 2 ( = 32) explored the temporal boundary conditions of forgetting induced by ImRs intervention. Both experiments used negative autobiographical memories from healthy participants, collected phenomenological ratings (valence, vividness, arousal) before and after the intervention, and employed an extralist cuing strategy for recall testing to avoid the covert cuing strategy. Results indicated that in non-clinical samples, ImRs induced transient forgetting of intervened negative memories, but the recollection of these memories recovered after a 24-hour delay. Consequently, caution is warranted when extending this forgetting effect to clinical treatment protocols or forensic testimony settings.
Correction.
Memory · 2026 May · PMID 41822992 · Publisher ↗
Abstract loading — click title to view on PubMed.
Who wants to remember COVID-19? Social identification and collective remembering-imagining system predict support for pandemic commemorations.
Bikmen N, Le T
Memory · 2026 May · PMID 41802191 · Publisher ↗
Like most natural disasters, pandemics are rarely memorialised by societies and poorly remembered by individuals. Using an online survey, we examined two samples (total = 350) of US young adults' support for commemorati...
Like most natural disasters, pandemics are rarely memorialised by societies and poorly remembered by individuals. Using an online survey, we examined two samples (total = 350) of US young adults' support for commemorating COVID-19. Participants completed measures of identification with all humanity (IWAH), listed significant world events that happened since 1918 and events they anticipate happening by 2128, and indicated their support for investing public funds to commemorate COVID-19. IWAH was a significant predictor of support for commemorating COVID-19. Further, remembering natural disasters predicted anticipating future ones, which in turn predicted support for commemoration. However, the two predictors, IWAH and collective remembering-imagining system, were independent of each other. Findings confirm that people's anticipations for the future are informed by their knowledge of the past and suggest that efforts to prepare for future disasters could benefit from focusing on history education and public commemorations.
Personal future events of immigrants: what is the role of remembering the distant or recent past?
Kara D, Bohn A
Memory · 2026 May · PMID 41793089 · Publisher ↗
The present study investigated whether remembering the distant versus the recent personal past influences self-continuity levels and expected future event characteristics in a sample of immigrants. Seventy-three Turkish...
The present study investigated whether remembering the distant versus the recent personal past influences self-continuity levels and expected future event characteristics in a sample of immigrants. Seventy-three Turkish immigrants living in Denmark participated in three sessions involving questionnaires and life story interviews. In the first session, participants completed baseline measures of self-continuity, psychological wellbeing, acculturation, and demographics. In the second and third sessions, they recalled significant events and narrated life stories from pre-migration (distant past) and post-migration (recent past), followed by measures of self-continuity and wellbeing. After each memory recall, participants described three expected future events and rated them on phenomenological characteristics such as vividness and emotional valence. We analyzed differences in self-continuity and future event characteristics between the pre- and post-migration conditions, as well as the relationships among the variables, thematic content of future events, and their resemblance to cultural life scripts. Results revealed no significant differences in future event characteristics between the conditions. However, a small difference emerged in self-continuity levels: contrary to expectations, participants reported slightly higher self-continuity in the pre-migration condition than in the post-migration condition. These findings contribute to understanding of how autobiographical memory relate to future thinking and self in the context of migration.
Mnemonic mechanisms of emotion regulation: the role of retrieval perspective in managing anger and shame.
Öner S, Çağlar EŞ, Dönerkayalı C … +2 more , Nur Kurtoğlu Z, Sarıçiçek FÇ
Memory · 2026 Apr · PMID 41790005 · Publisher ↗
Autobiographical remembering plays a crucial role in regulating emotions, yet how the retrieval perspective modulates this function across discrete negative emotions remains unclear. Building on research showing that fie...
Autobiographical remembering plays a crucial role in regulating emotions, yet how the retrieval perspective modulates this function across discrete negative emotions remains unclear. Building on research showing that field and observer perspectives influence memory phenomenology, the present study examined how visual perspective and retrieval goals regulate anger and shame. In two experiments, participants recalled anger- or shame-related autobiographical events from either a field or observer perspective. In Study 1, they engaged in spontaneous subsequent recall, whereas in Study 2, they were instructed to recall a positive memory. Across both studies, participants tended to recall more positive memories after negative ones, supporting mood-incongruent recall and the automatic activation of mnemonic emotion regulation. Instructed recall further enhanced this positivity bias, increasing the vividness and emotional intensity of retrieved memories. The observer perspective was more effective at dampening the emotional impact of anger, whereas the field perspective amplified reliving across both emotions. Overall, findings suggest that memory-based emotion regulation operates through both automatic (Study 1) and goal-directed (Study 2) mechanisms, shaped by the emotional content of memories and the phenomenological characteristics of recall.
Does priming lead to earlier memories, or just earlier dating of memories?
Peterson C, Murphy A, Hallett D … +1 more , Roberts PD
Memory · 2026 Apr · PMID 41712671 · Publisher ↗
Several studies have reported that it is relatively easy to manipulate the age of people's earliest memory through providing priming information or warm-up questions prior to recall. When given primes that differ (e.g. a...
Several studies have reported that it is relatively easy to manipulate the age of people's earliest memory through providing priming information or warm-up questions prior to recall. When given primes that differ (e.g. ages 2/3 versus 6), the memories participants retrieved were dated earlier when given early primes and later when given late primes. One proposed explanation is that differential primes foster memory retrieval from different ages. Here we explored whether the memories themselves were from earlier versus later in a person's life chronology, or whether all that was manipulated is the dating information attached to those memories. To do this, 200 young adults were informed that earliest memories typically date from either age 2 or 4, and given example vignettes. Participants then recalled and dated their earliest memory. Independent verification and dating was provided by 117 parents and data for the remaining 83 were imputed. Results showed that participants given earlier primes dated their first memory to younger ages than did participants given later primes, consistent with prior research. However, the ages of the memories did not differ between groups according to parental information. Thus, what is manipulated may only be the attached time-tags for the memories.
Beyond event valence in mental time travel? The influence of contemplating alternative outcomes on phenomenological characteristics.
Shao Y, Bautista RK, Green AR
Memory · 2026 Apr · PMID 41712468 · Publisher ↗
Multiple possibilities can be constructed in mental time travel into the past or future. This study examined how considering alternative outcomes ("be better/worse") influences the phenomenological characteristics of rem...
Multiple possibilities can be constructed in mental time travel into the past or future. This study examined how considering alternative outcomes ("be better/worse") influences the phenomenological characteristics of remembering and imagining, assessed through participant ratings and content analysis. College students ( = 136) reported positive and negative personal events and possible future events. Prior to reporting their selected events, participants were randomly assigned to imagine events to be better, worse, or a control condition. Contemplating any alternative outcome reduced phenomenological ratings relative to the control condition. Event valence and temporal directions continued to play important roles in phenomenological characteristics. These findings provide insights into the adaptive function of mental time travel.
Spatial boundaries affect subjective time and order memory: the combined roles of contextual instability and unpredictability.
Cheng Z, Brzozowski N, Moscovitch M
Memory · 2026 Apr · PMID 41709717 · Publisher ↗
People form structured memories from continuous experiences through event segmentation, a process often triggered by contextual changes that demarcate the boundaries between events. Event boundaries have been linked with...
People form structured memories from continuous experiences through event segmentation, a process often triggered by contextual changes that demarcate the boundaries between events. Event boundaries have been linked with changes in subjective time perception and memory. To expand this finding to spatial navigation, we explored the effects of spatial boundaries on time perception and memory using a virtual "doorway effect". Participants were asked to find and pick up objects in three virtual environments: (only one room), (multiple identical rooms), and (multiple unique rooms). This design allowed us to test whether the mere instability of moving between rooms (i.e., ) was enough to alter subjective time, or if unpredictable contextual changes (i.e., ) were necessary. We found that subjective time intervals between items and across the entire route were perceived as shorter, and the temporal order between sequential items was remembered better in the absence of boundaries. Additionally, the findings suggest that unpredictability alone does not significantly affect memory, at least when contextual changes are incidental. Instead, contextual instability and unpredictability typically work together to account for the effects of spatial boundaries on memory. We consider how these results may be applied to time estimation during COVID-19 confinement.
Grief-related mental images and their association with prolonged grief symptoms and grief cognitions: a mixed-methods study.
Lechner-Meichsner F, Hagenaars MA, Boelen PA
Memory · 2026 Apr · PMID 41700564 · Publisher ↗
Aversive mental images occur across psychological disorders. Images related to the deceased and the loss can also develop after the death of a close person and seem related to prolonged grief. The present study investiga...
Aversive mental images occur across psychological disorders. Images related to the deceased and the loss can also develop after the death of a close person and seem related to prolonged grief. The present study investigated the content and characteristics of grief-related mental images and tested hypotheses regarding their associations with prolonged grief symptoms (PGS) and negative grief cognitions. Bereaved participants ( = 261) completed an online mental images questionnaire and measures of PGS and negative grief cognitions. Data were analyzed using hierarchical regression analyses and group comparisons, alongside a thematic analysis of image descriptions. More frequent and more uncontrollable mental images were associated with higher levels of PGS and higher endorsement of different domains of negative grief cognitions. Image specificity was unrelated to PGS levels. The qualitative analysis resulted in 12 distinct image themes that differed in frequency, uncontrollability, fantasy content, and emotional responses. Associations with PGS and endorsement of negative grief cognitions related to life and the future also differed for the distinct themes. Because the design precludes conclusions about causality, longitudinal studies need to clarify how such images relate to PGS development and maintenance. Imagery-focused interventions may be a promising treatment approach for PGS.
Interpersonal memory monitoring judgments and social attitude towards narrators as a function of the recollective qualities of their memories.
Bastin C, Geurten M
Memory · 2026 Apr · PMID 41697892 · Publisher ↗
In everyday conversations, other people tell us memories about events they experienced, and this can support vicarious learning and decision making. However, memories are not always true or faithful to what really happen...
In everyday conversations, other people tell us memories about events they experienced, and this can support vicarious learning and decision making. However, memories are not always true or faithful to what really happened. We assessed whether the richness of perceptual and contextual details in episodic autobiographical memories influenced how individuals rated the degree of veracity and fidelity of others' memory and whether these interpersonal memory monitoring ratings were associated with social attitude towards the narrator. The results showed that raters judged narrators as having more accurate and faithful memories of past events when their recollections were richly detailed than when their memories lacked detail. Moreover, higher interpersonal memory monitoring judgments were associated with more trust and empathy felt towards the narrator and more willingness to interact with them, suggesting a role for interpersonal memory monitoring in social bonding.
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