成年女性情景自传体记忆的现象学体验:年龄与时间的作用

Phenomenal experiencing characteristics of female adults' autobiographical memory: Impact of age and time

目的:考察成年女性情景自传体记忆(EAM)的现象学体验是否受年龄和事件发生时间的影响。方法:95名老、中、青年女性被试详细回述童年及近一年的自传体事件各一件,并完成自传体记忆问卷。结果:所有被试在近期记忆的大多数体验得分上显著高于童年期记忆,年龄主效应及交互作用不显著。在近期记忆中,中、老年女性比青年女性提取出更多的积极事件,对事件的主观评价也更积极。结论:成年女性EAM的现象学体验受年龄影响不大,受时间影响明显,表现为对近期记忆的体验更强;近期记忆中,中、老年女性相比年轻女性而言表现出一定的积极情绪偏向。

Objective ： Age - related differences in the quantity and objective features of episodic autobiographical memory （EAM） have been investigated in previous studies. Cumulative researchers point out that the subjective phenomenal experiencing should be an essential core quality of EAM. However, the age -related differences in the characteristics of phenomenal experiencing have been hard- ly addressed.. To fill the gap, ,the present study intended to explore whether the phenomenal experiencing characteristics of female adults＇ EAM could be influenced by the age （of participants）, the time （the time -point in terms of life period at which the autobio- graphical event happens）, and the interaction effect of age and time. Additionally, based on the Socioemotional Selectivity Theory （SST） , a significant and intriguing aspect of the phenomenal experiencing, i.e. emotional feeling, was especially emphasized and con- sidered in the present study to figure out if positivity bias exists during the older females＇ retrieval of EAM. Methods ： There were 95 par- ticipants in total, ineluding 33 younger （18 -33 years old）, 30 middle- aged （38 -55 years old） and 32 older （60 -76 years old） females. Each of the participants was instructed to recollect one recent （during the last year, but not within the last week） and one re- mote （in childhood） episodic event in a semi -structured interview, and was required to complete the Autobiographical Memory Ques- tionnaire （AMQ） following the recollection of each event. In the AMQ, each participant was required to rate for 18 kinds of phenomenal experiencing characteristics on the 7 - point Likert scales. A two - way repeated measures ANOVA was conducted for each characteristic rating to explore the effects of age and time. Results： The scores of most phenomenal experiencing characteristics of recent memories were 0bviously higher than those of the remote memories, while age effect and age ~ time interaction showed no significance on most features. As to the emotional feelings, in terms of quantity of retrieved events, middle - aged and older females retrieved a higher pro- portion of positive events compared with younger females in recent EAM, while no difference was found in remote EAM. On the other hand, middle - aged and older females experienced more positive emotion, and less negative emotion than younger females in recent EAM, while, again, no significant difference was found in remote EAM among the three groups of participants. Conclusions ： Compared to the younger, the middle- aged and the olderparticipants showed no obvious disadvantages in autobiographical memories when focu- sing on phenomenal experiencing. Time -point （or say life period）, rather than age, appears to evidently affect phenomenal experien- cing characteristics of EAM, registering as stronger phenomenal feeling of recent EAM than that of childhood EAM. Both the middle - aged and the older females showed positive emotion bias compared with the younger, but only in recent memories. It suggests that posi- tivity bias could be affected by the age ~ time interaction. It also suggests that positivity bias could appear as early as middleage during one＇s life period..