Applied Memory Research Laboratory, Faculty of Philosophy, Institute of Psychology, Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland.
Arts Studies, Aarhus University, Denmark.
Br J Psychol. 2021 Nov;112(4):1080-1102. doi: 10.1111/bjop.12498. Epub 2021 Mar 17.
Theories of autobiographical memory distinguish between involuntary and voluntary memories. While involuntary memories are retrieved with no conscious intention and are therefore unexpected, voluntary memories are both intended and expected. Recent research has shown that participants sometimes classify their memories as either involuntary or voluntary based on retrieval effort instead of intention. These findings question whether intention really is the defining difference between these two types of retrieval or whether retrieval effort is also an important determinant. In two experimental studies, we investigated the extent to which participants rely on retrieval effort while classifying their memories as involuntary or voluntary. We created experimental conditions that maximize the probability of one type of retrieval while minimizing the probability of another type. Participants reported autobiographical memories in each condition while the programme registered their retrieval time. They then classified their memories as either voluntary or involuntary and rated all memories on perceived retrieval effort. This gave us four categories of memories: experimentally defined voluntary and involuntary memories with an objective measure of effort (retrieval time) and subjectively classified involuntary and voluntary memories with a subjective measure of effort. This allowed us to investigate the relative contribution of intention and effort to involuntary and voluntary memories. We replicated and extended previous findings by showing that the majority of memories were classified as involuntary independently of whether they were retrieved in the experimentally defined voluntary or involuntary condition. This could indicate that subjective effort is more important than intention for the involuntary-voluntary distinction in contrast with existing theories. We discuss theoretical and methodological implications of this finding.
自传体记忆理论区分了自动记忆和有意记忆。自动记忆是在没有意识意图的情况下被检索出来的，因此是意料之外的；而有意记忆则是有意图和预期的。最近的研究表明，参与者有时会根据检索努力而不是意图将记忆分类为自动或有意。这些发现质疑了意图是否真的是这两种检索类型的区别，或者检索努力是否也是一个重要的决定因素。在两项实验研究中，我们调查了参与者在将记忆分类为自动或有意时，在多大程度上依赖于检索努力。我们创造了实验条件，最大限度地提高了一种检索类型的概率，同时最小化了另一种检索类型的概率。在每种条件下，参与者都报告了自传体记忆，而程序记录了他们的检索时间。然后，他们将记忆分类为自动或有意，并根据感知的检索努力对所有记忆进行评分。这为我们提供了四种记忆类型：实验定义的自动和有意记忆，以及客观测量的努力（检索时间）和主观分类的自动和有意记忆，主观测量的努力。这使我们能够调查意图和努力对自动和有意记忆的相对贡献。我们通过显示大多数记忆无论在实验定义的自动或有意条件下被检索，都被独立地分类为自动，复制并扩展了之前的发现。这可能表明，与现有理论相比，主观努力对于自动-有意区分比意图更为重要。我们讨论了这一发现的理论和方法学意义。
