I always tease my husband that his memory is trash. Specifcially I tell him that his semantic memory is great, but his episodic memory is terrible. Which isn’t true in all cases, but mainly in recent long-term memory instances. He also tends to have good autobiographical memory – which is defined as memory for specific experiences from our life, which can include both episodic and semantic components. He tends to have stronger semantic components in his autobiographical memory and weaker episodic components.
My husband is the kind of person who knows all of the random facts at a trivia party or all the answers on Jeopardy, his semantic memory is amazing. He also plays the piano and is fluent in French. His semantic memory has proven to be quite good. Bu when he tries to recall different events that have happened or trying to remember if he had done something that he meant to do is where is memory falls short. I also have to mention that he has never had any brain injuries or damages.
When prompted with a script, which is defined as our understanding of the particular sequence of events that occur during an event, he is somewhat able to recall pieces of the event just based on context, but when asked to recall details of said events, he is unable to produce answers.
Though he has weak episodic memory, he seems to gain strength in that component when they are tied to certain emotions. “Emotions and memory are intertwined. Emotions are often associated with “special” events, such as beginning or ending relationships or events experienced by many people.” I believe this holds true in my husband’s case. When prompted with questions that contained emotion during the event, he was able to recall more descriptive details and instances from the specific events.
Goldstein, E. B. (2014). Cognitive psychology: Connecting mind, research and everyday experience. Cengage Learning.
When I read your blog I instantly thought of my mom because her episodic memory is not very good and her semantic is excellent. Her autobiographical memory is pretty good, she can usually tell you the general idea of events that happened in life but not the exact details. Semantic which is defined as memory for facts (Goldstein 2015) meaning the general knowledge about the world including facts, concepts and ideas. Episodic memory is defined as memory for experiences (Goldstein 2015), meaning being able to recall particular life events. My mom also always questions herself if she already did something that she meant to do or she will ask me questions about specific things in my life that I most likely told her the day before. We were in California for about two weeks this past summer and my mom could probably tell you the main events that we did, however she probably could not tell you or have a hard time recalling without some help the details of the main events. I also very much agree with your last statement when you say how when prompted with questions then your husband can recall the details of the events. My mom is very similar in that if my sister or myself ask about specific events then she is able to retrieve those memories but we just ask a vague question about an event she should give general details.
Goldstein, E. B. (2015). Cognitive psychology: Connecting mind, research and everyday experience. Cengage Learning.
Interestingly, you related your real-life experience to what you learned. I think you have well-described some important points of autobiographical memory such as semantic memory, periodic memory, and the importance of emotion in the memory. According to Psychologist World, “It appears that emotionally charged situations can lead us to create long-lasting memories of the event (Waude, 2016).” You have mentioned that “he seems to gain strength in that component when they are tried to certain emotions” in the article, which makes me recall the methods our textbook mentioned before. Making connections is an effective way for us to remember. However, just like you said if there is some different meaning on what you have experienced, you might remember it more impressively. It is very interesting to hear your story and experience.
Waude, A. (2016, February 23). Emotion and memory: How do your emotions affect your ability to remember information and recall past memories? Psychologist World. Retrieved December 5, 2021, from https://www.psychologistworld.com/emotion/emotion-memory-psychology.
Goldstein, E. B. (2014). Cognitive psychology: Connecting mind, research, and everyday experience. Cengage Learning.
Hi Darianna,
I found your blog post particularly entertaining as, I too, have a partner who has a widely terrible memory in some regards yet impressive in others. While I’m not the biggest fan of experiments being so driven to find gender based results, I do think there is something about our social conditioning that may answer why we focus, prioritize and therefore excel in some areas of our memories rather than others. Since women (and those socialized as women) tend to be encouraged (or at least allowed) to be more emotional than men, there is evidence that women have an easier time accessing autobiographical memory faster and more precisely because they association more emotional cues with memories in general. This same study suggested that “females tend to outperform males in episodic memory function” which would certainly point to the difference that you feel when considering your husband’s episodic memory abilities compared to your own. Females also have better performance in facial recognition tasks. As you experienced, with your partner, men have the “advantage for spatial-based memory tasks” and might be the reason why many of the Jeopardy winners are more likely men.
Resources:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6028920/