Cognitive mechanisms of involuntary autobiographical memories

The overriding subject of the present project was experimental inquiry in the field of autobiographical memories which arise spontaneously, unintentionally and relate to the events from personal past in a non-clinical group. The main goal of the project was to investigate the cognitive mechanisms of the formation of autobiographical memories (IAM's). The project consist of five studies, which address four main research problems: (a) methodological issues in involuntary autobiographical memory research, (b) similarities and differences between involuntary and voluntary (VAM's) memories, (c) the role of cognitive load and inhibition in formation of IAM's, (d) the role of spreading activation and cognitive inhibition in generating the content of IAM's. All conducted experiments employed modified experimental procedure originally developed by Schlagman and Kvavilashvili (2008). In all experiments purposefulness of recorded memories was under additional systematic control. So far there have been no systematic experimental studies relating directly to the issue of the influence of cognitive processes on the occurrence of involuntary memories. The present research project is the first experimental attempt to challenge the question: how do these memories come to mind? As it was expected, in study 1 instructing participants to record only involuntary memories (contrary to record any spontaneous thoughts) effects in greater: (a) total number of all recollected memories, (b) total number of voluntary memories (VAM), (c) participants' means of proportion of VAM. Study 2 investigates the similarities between IAM's and VAM's. As expected IAM's comparing to VAM's were rated as more positive and related to current life situation. The aim of study 3 was verify the alternative hypothesis: cognitive inhibition vs. the cognitive resources dependency hypothesis. The results support cognitive inhibition hypothesis. The weaker inhibition processes the more IAM's popped in mind. Study 4.1 and 4.2 were conducted in order to define the role and function of associative processes (priming autobiographical knowledge base) in the process of generating the memories of a certain content. Results of study 4.2 support the main role of spreading activation in retrieving IAM's.