Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rcrh6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-04T09:12:15.305Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Autobiographical memory. Sensitivity to age and education of a standardized enquiry*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 July 2009

Giuseppina Borrini ,
Paola Dall'Ora ,
Sergio Della Sala ,
Laura Marinelli  and
Hans Spinnler
Giuseppina Borrini
Affiliation:
Neuropathology and Psychopathology Section, Neuropsychology Laboratory of the ‘Clinica del Lavoro’ Foundation, Medical Centre of Veruno, Italy
Paola Dall'Ora
Affiliation:
Neuropathology and Psychopathology Section, Neuropsychology Laboratory of the ‘Clinica del Lavoro’ Foundation, Medical Centre of Veruno, Italy
Sergio Della Sala
Affiliation:
Neuropathology and Psychopathology Section, Neuropsychology Laboratory of the ‘Clinica del Lavoro’ Foundation, Medical Centre of Veruno, Italy
Laura Marinelli
Affiliation:
Neuropathology and Psychopathology Section, Neuropsychology Laboratory of the ‘Clinica del Lavoro’ Foundation, Medical Centre of Veruno, Italy
Hans Spinnler*
Affiliation:
Neuropathology and Psychopathology Section, Neuropsychology Laboratory of the ‘Clinica del Lavoro’ Foundation, Medical Centre of Veruno, Italy
*
1Address for correspondence: Dr Hans Spinnler, 1st Neurological Department of the University, Ospedale San Paolo alia Barona, Via di Rudini 8, 20142 Milano, Italy.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Synopsis

A structured enquiry for assessing autobiographical memory is proposed. It is made up of three standardized time-cued sets of questions focusing on three life periods: adolescence, early and late adulthood, with five questions for each life period. Standardized testing procedure, checking for veracity and scoring methods are described. Normative data from 157 healthy individuals aged over 55 are converted into ‘equivalent scores’ for use with the enquiry and for diagnostic purposes. Education and ageing, but not sex, appear to be significant factors in the efficiency of retrieval from the autobiographic repertoire.

Type
Preliminary Communication
Information
Psychological Medicine , Volume 19 , Issue 1 , February 1989 , pp. 215 - 224
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1989

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

Preliminary findings were presented at the 5th European Cognitive Neuropsychology Workshop, Brixen, Italy, in January 1987 and at the International Neuropsychological Symposium, Sintra, Portugal, in June 1987.

References

Baddeley, A. D. (1984). Neuropsychological evidence and the semantic/episodic distinction. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 7, 238–239.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baddeley, A. D. & Hilton, G. J. (1974). Working Memory. In Recent Advances in Learning and Motivation, Vol. VIII (ed. Bower, G.), pp. 47–90Academic Press: New York.Google Scholar
Baddeley, A. D. & Wilson, B. (1986). Amnesia, autobiographical memory, and confabulation In Autobiographical Memory (ed. Rubin, D. C.), pp. 225–252. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barigazzi, R., Delia Sala, S., Laiacona, M., Spinnler, H. & Valenti, V. (1987). Esplorazione testistica della Memoria di Prosa. Ricerche di Psicologia 1, 49–80.Google Scholar
Bartlett, F. C. (1932). Remembering: a Study in Experimental and Social Psychology. MacMillan: New York.Google Scholar
Brewer, W. F. (1986) What is autobiographical memory? In Autobiographical Memory (ed. Rubin, D. C.), pp. 25–49. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, R. & Kulik, J. (1977). Flashbulb memories. Cognition 5, 73–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Butters, N. & Cermak, L. S. (1986). A case study of the forgetting of autobiographical knowledge: implications for the study of retrograde amnesia In Autobiographical Memory (ed. Rubin, D. C.), pp. 253–272. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Capitani, E. & Laiacona, M. (1988). Aging and psychometric diagnosis of intellective impairment: some considerations on test scores and their use. Developmental Neuropsychology (in the press)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crovitz, H. R. & Schiffman, H. (1974). Frequency of episodic memories as a function of their age. Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society 4, 517–518.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dall'Ora, P., Della Salla, S. & Spinnler, H. (1989). Autobiographical memory: its impairment in amnesic syndromes. Cortex (in the press).Google Scholar
De Renzi, E., Liotti, M. & Nichelli, P. (1987). Semantic amnesia with preservation of autobiographic memory. A case repor. Cortex 23, 575–598.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fitzgerald, J. M. (1986). Autobiographical memory: a developmental perspective. In Autobiographical Memory (ed. Rubin, D. C.), pp. 122–133. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Galton, F. (1883). Inquiries into Human Faculty and its Development. Macmillan: London.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Linton, M. (1986). Ways of searching and contents of memory. In Autobiographical Memory (ed. Rubin, D. C.), pp. 50–67. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Luna, A. R (1973). The Working Brain. An Introduction to Neuropsychology (translated by Haigh, B.). Basic Books: New York.Google Scholar
Robinson, J. A. (1986). Autobiographical memory, a historical prologue. In Autobiographical Memory (ed. Rubin, D. C.), pp. 159–188. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rubin, D. C. (1986). Introduction. In Autobiographical Memory (ed. Rubin, D. C.), pp. 3–16. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Winograd, E. & Killinger, W. A. Jr., (1983). Relating age at encoding in early childhood to adult recall- development of flashbulb memories. Journal of Experimental Psychology General 112, 413–422.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zola-Morgan, S., Cohen, N. J. & Squire, L R. (1983). Recall of remote episodic memory in amnesia. Neuropsychologia 21,487–500.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed