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EXAMINING POINT OF VIEW IN PERSONAL MEMORIES

Abstract

Autobiographical memories may be experienced from different visual perspectives. In some instances, individuals recall past events from a first-person or “field” perspective, in which the event is re-experienced as it was originally perceived. In other cases, memories are recalled from a third-person or “observer” perspective, whereby individuals view themselves within the remembered scene as an external observer might. Nigro and Neisser systematically examined these field (F) and observer (O) perspectives and reported that, although individuals varied in the proportion of F and O memories they described, field memories predominated overall. Their original investigation sampled 20 undergraduate students at Cornell University. Subsequent research employing a different population yielded divergent findings. In the present study, 20 participants were recruited, including 10 introductory psychology students aged 20–35 years (M = 23.5) and 10 members of a church-based senior citizens group aged 64–81 years (M = 70). Participants were asked to classify 20 specific autobiographical events as either field or observer memories and to rate each event in terms of remoteness, emotional intensity, self-awareness, and frequency of recurrence. The results indicate that memory perspective is systematically related to temporal distance, such that more remote memories are more likely to be experienced from an observer perspective for both the college students (t = 2.574, p < .025) and the senior citizens (t = 3.155, p < .01). In contrast, factors such as emotionality, self-awareness, and recurrence appear to exert only limited influence on memory perspective under specific conditions.

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