Bringing positive and negative events to mind: Effects of age on emotional memory retrieval

项目总结 我们记忆中关于过去积极和消极事件的细节可能会对 我们的精神健康，影响我们如何看待自己和维持与他人的关系。我们是不是很生动 还记得与朋友的争吵，还是随之而来的由衷的道歉？我们是否还记得 是演讲后的成就，还是我们难以回答听众的问题？我们的细节是 记住也会影响我们的决策，对我们的社交网络和职业生涯产生影响 Success：我们会再给那个朋友打电话吗？我们会同意在即将到来的会议上发表演讲吗？ 有许多引人入胜的例子表明，我们从过去的事件中记住了什么情感细节 在一定程度上，可能会随着一个人的年龄而变化。年龄越大，积极的用法越多(与消极相比) 描述过去事件的词语(Pennebaker&Stone，2003；Ford等人，2016)，并具有更大的 报告将重点放在其他具有挑战性的情况的积极方面(Ford等人，2018a，b)。然而，我们 对这种差异产生的原因知之甚少，而答案可能会对 了解认知与情感的联系在成年人的一生中有何不同，以及不同年龄的成年人之间有何不同 获得精神上的健康。本研究的首要目的是在最初阶段了解这些差异 检索，重点是记忆现象学(目标1)和神经表征(目标2)。使用多体素 模式分析(MVPA)，我们检查两种类型的概括：试验特定(绑定到每个特定编码 事件)和价泛化(在特定价类别的刺激之间共享)。我们假设， 随着年龄的增长，记忆表征将有更多的价概括而不是试验特有的概括，并且 这种与年龄相关的差异在对积极内容的记忆中最为明显。我们预计这将是 反映在积极的记忆中，对老年人来说主观上是生动的，但缺乏具体细节。 情节记忆的一个关键特征是它不是一种静态的表征。我们现在记住的细节是 不一定是我们稍后会记住的细节，尽管我们现在表示记忆的方式可能会提示 比例，使得一些细节更有可能在以后出现在脑海中，而其他细节更有可能被省略。为 情绪记忆，我们最近的研究和初步数据表明，在某个时间点提取可能 用积极的细节触发一个俗称为“良性记忆循环”的开始 强调的和消极的细节不会强调，或者相反，这是一个“恶性循环”。关键的是，我们 假设年龄越大，“良性记忆循环”的可能性就越大。我们认为，与年龄相关的 记忆表征的不同使得老年人最初对积极记忆的提取尤其可能 内容削弱了他们后来记忆相关的负面内容的能力(目标3)，并导致更广泛的年龄- 在连续检索期间访问的详细信息中的相关差异，使得在重复检索期间，较旧的 年龄与变得更加积极的记忆有关(目标4)。

PROJECT SUMMARY The details we bring to mind about past positive and negative events can have important implications for our mental wellbeing, affecting how we see ourselves and maintain relationships with others. Do we vividly remember an argument with a friend, or the heartfelt apology that followed? Do we remember the feeling of accomplishment after giving a talk, or our struggle to answer an audience member’s question? The details we bring to mind also can affect our decision-making, with consequences for our social networks and career success: Will we call that friend again? Will we agree to give a talk at an upcoming meeting? There are fascinating examples that suggest that what emotional details we remember from past events may vary, in part, with a person’s age. Older age is associated with a greater use of positive (vs. negative) words in descriptions of past events (Pennebaker & Stone, 2003; Ford et al., 2016), and with a greater reported focus on positive aspects of otherwise challenging situations (Ford et al., 2018a, b). Yet we understand little about why such differences arise, and the answer is likely to have implications for understanding how cognition-emotion links differ across the adult lifespan and how adults of various ages achieve mental wellbeing. The first aims of this research are to understand these differences upon initial retrieval, focusing on memory phenomenology (Aim 1) and neural representations (Aim 2). Using multivoxel pattern analysis (MVPA), we examine two types of recapitulation: trial-specific (tied to each specific encoded event) and valence-generalized (shared across stimuli of a particular valence category). We hypothesize that, with older age, memory representations will have more valence-generalized vs. trial-specific recapitulation, and this age-related difference will be most pronounced for memories of positive content. We anticipate this will be reflected in positive memories feeling subjectively vivid to older adults, while lacking in specific detail. A key feature of episodic memory is that it is not a static representation. The details we remember now are not necessarily the details we will remember later, though the way we represent a memory now can tip the scales, making some details more likely to come to mind later and others more likely to be omitted. For emotional memories, our recent research and preliminary data suggest that retrieval at one time-point may trigger the start of what could colloquially be thought of as a “virtuous-memory-cycle”, with positive details emphasized and negative details de-emphasized, or the opposite, a “vicious-memory-cycle.” Critically, we hypothesize that older age increases the likelihood of a “virtuous-memory-cycle.” We propose that age-related differences in memory representations make it particularly likely that older adults’ initial retrieval of positive content impairs their ability to later remember related, negative content (Aim 3) and leads to broader age- related differences in the details accessed over successive retrievals such that, over repeated retrievals, older age is associated with memories that become more positive (Aim 4).