[HN Gopher] Severely deficient autobiographical memory (SDAM) in...
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Severely deficient autobiographical memory (SDAM) in healthy adults
(2015)
Author : Tomte
Score : 76 points
Date : 2022-07-15 10:13 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.sciencedirect.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.sciencedirect.com)
| jasonhansel wrote:
| One annoyance: it looks like their p-values weren't adjusted for
| multiple comparisons, which seems like a problem given the number
| of different comparisons they made in e.g. the fMRI results.
|
| If I'm doing my math right: if they applied the Bonferroni or
| Sidak corrections to the fMRI results, then only one of those
| comparisons would still be significant.
| rvr_ wrote:
| Truth is, our lizard brains are always forgetting the good stuff
| that happened but remembering every detail of some random
| shameful event nobody, except you, cares about.
| can16358p wrote:
| Probably evolutionary: our brains have evolved into hardcoding
| those memories to avoid getting into that bad situation again.
| derefr wrote:
| Or, to put that another way: of what _practical use_ is a
| memory of being content? It has no informational content to
| feed to your predictive model of the world.
|
| Memories of _unexpectedly getting rewards_ are quite salient,
| of course, because those train you to get more rewards.
| tra3 wrote:
| Saved for later reading, this was interesting in the intro
| though:
|
| > For example, when given randomly selected dates or event cues
| from their past, HSAM individuals can effortlessly recall many
| details of what happened, even if trivial (e.g., what they had
| for dinner) without the use of mnemonic aids. They are neither
| savants nor calendar counters (although they possess extensive
| calendar knowledge from their own lifespan) and they are distinct
| from other types of superior memorizers who possess vast learning
| and retention of meaningless information
|
| This is the opposite group from the study, that is the group that
| has superior autobiographic memory. I find this incredible
| because I'd have to work hard to remember what I had for dinner 3
| days. I'd normally do it by unspooling my memory to identify what
| the day was about to try to find some context. This only works up
| to a couple of days. Maybe a week. But there's no way I'll
| remember anything from 2 weeks or more in the past. Anyway, I
| thought this was amazing.
| rapnie wrote:
| Makes me wonder. If you ever are interrogated by police or in a
| court room.. "Where were you on the night of 22 January 2020?"
| and "Can't you also remember that you went to ..?". Now if you
| were guilty the night may have left quite an impression in
| memory. Not guilty, and you likely answer to every question
| "Dunno, your honor", making you look really suspicious in the
| eyes of onlookers.
| lumost wrote:
| I suspect that one of the activities a lawyer does in this
| case is prepping you to answer these questions. Rather than
| "dunno" the answer could be "It was an unremarkable night, I
| ate dinner at home, watched netflix, and went to bed". Odds
| are the browser history/location history on your phone would
| provide corroboration for the above if needed.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| Along that, you would do your own investigation. Look over
| texts, emails, calls, credit card charges, and use
| discovery from the other side like location data,
| surveillance footage, and etc.
|
| This is ALSO why you don't ever talk to police. You talk to
| lawyers. If a cop were to ask you the same "where were you
| at" question, it's probably better to not answer at all.
| narag wrote:
| In those cases the assumption is you were made aware of the
| relevance of that day before, closer to what happened so you
| could recollect and fix the memories for later questioning.
|
| Otherwise that kind of question is ridiculous.
| jtbayly wrote:
| My son (not biological) is in the highly superior group. I'm in
| the severely deficient group.
|
| It's an odd experience having him talk in detail about a fairly
| normal day 11 years ago when he was two, including what we had
| for dinner. I can't remember what we had for dinner the day
| before yesterday.
| garmain wrote:
| I came to the conclusion that I compress my experiences and
| rather than "reading them". I process them to subconsciously
| extract relevant patterns. If I need to remember what I ate on
| a certain date, I struggle and basically have to unpack the
| whole shebang.
|
| There is a whole set of behavioural patterns I exhibit that all
| seem to tie into this. For example I have no sense for time on
| the scale of weeks or longer.
|
| On the other hand I seem to remember "narrative background"
| well. E.g. What someone likes or doesn't like, where they're
| from etc. I also seem much better than others in remembering
| whether a topic already came up or not.
|
| In terms of MBTI/Jungian Functions: I seem very much lead Ni.
| jaggederest wrote:
| I probably qualify for HSAM. I'm often reminding people of how
| we met, or a relevant conversation or interaction, and I can
| read them back what we talked about, what we ate, what the
| weather was like, those kinds of details. It's not as complete
| as a lot of the examples I've seen, where you can name a date
| and the person can recall everything, but I definitely haven't
| met anyone with a better memory, on average, than I have - with
| the possible exception of my mother, which suggests it's to
| some degree genetic.
| turns0ut wrote:
| What you had for dinner probably falls under the "meaningless
| information."
|
| The study seems to call out ability to accurately recite one's
| life story, vividly recalling subsets of childhood experiences
| in details, not knowing they had mac n cheez last Tuesday.
|
| I grew up rural and was way less distracted by trendy and/or
| random people all around energy. I can clearly recite events
| and back it up with pictures my camera obsessed father took
| through the 80-90s. My autobiographical awareness seems intact.
|
| Mainstream life then and now comes along with pressure to defer
| expressing ourselves and serve "higher purpose." It's not so
| shocking people do so and then remember nothing; there's
| probably not that much to recall if one's path was constrained
| to "set aside personal exploration to serve by getting busy
| work job, do job all week, sit on couch parasocially recharging
| through others emotional performances on TV."
|
| That's a pretty fractal cognitive existence. That's why I am
| not a fan of lifelong "career" culture. Adam Smith wrote years
| ago extreme division of labor would make humans incurious and
| stupider than animals; current political trends seem to back up
| the idea as everyone clings to keeping their tribal bubble
| intact rather than explore new models.
|
| Don't smash my cognitive fractal, bro!
| fortran77 wrote:
| I'm seeing big gaps in my memory now that I'm almost 60. For
| example, I had no recall of a vacation to London this past
| December; I believe I went because I was shown photos and I
| remember the trip I made right after to Belfast, but if I
| didn't have the reminder, I wouldn't have known that I went
| there.
|
| I'm still working every day writing C++/CUDA/VHDL code, so I
| suppose I'm a healthy adult.
| vijucat wrote:
| Love Fortran77, by the way. Learned it entirely from the
| manual that came with the floppy disk back in the day; and
| it's amazing to me that manuals were that good. There are
| some modern R packages such as library(randomForest) which
| are basically Fortran code written in the 70s and "why fix
| what isn't broken"!
| projektfu wrote:
| When I'm up against a person with a great long-term episodic
| memory I feel like they're gaslighting me. I can't remember
| yesterday.
|
| However I don't think I'm like these people. I don't take notes
| or review photos. I just accept that I'm going to make people
| unhappy that I don't remember events and people very well.
| mmcgaha wrote:
| I have memories from my early childhood that I will not share
| with others because the only logical conclusion they could draw
| is that I am full of shit. My youngest daughter appears to be the
| same and I caution her about how it looks to others. The weird
| part is that my memory is at best normal in all other regards.
| wjnc wrote:
| Can you explain without telling the memory? So you mean like
| age 1-2-3 year old memories? I've got a few of those that seem
| unrelated to family pictures or stories told on later dates. My
| dad had a few very early memories and one of my children has
| for sure. He once vividly described the car we had until he was
| less than 1 year old. I wouldn't discount the pre 6 year old
| memory, although I've read and noticed that at that age a large
| filter follows.
| lazide wrote:
| Are they backed up by any evidence or related memories from
| others?
|
| Sometimes some folks have near photographic memories of things
| others don't, other times they believe they do and their brain
| has filled in the gaps with what feels like extremely vivid
| detail - but when cross checked against evidence or others, it
| becomes clear those memories could not possibly be true.
| civilized wrote:
| Can they study the type where you only remember the most
| embarrassing and negative things?
|
| I've had a lot of positive experiences but I have no vivid
| recollection of anything except the few dozen most negative
| experiences of my life.
| colordrops wrote:
| What does "vividly recall" here? I remember different events from
| my past with differing levels of clarity. For almost none of them
| do I have a chronological memory of the event, but rather
| snapshots of bits and pieces, some clear and some not. I'm 47 and
| this has gotten worse with time. I've only been able to perfectly
| recall events up into my early 20s. Always thought this was
| normal.
| camtarn wrote:
| "Each case reported a lifetime inability to recollect events
| from a first-person perspective".
|
| "The SDAM cases reported here have a lifetime of practice in
| compensating for their lack of first-person, autonoetic
| connection to their own past with non-episodic processes
| (supported by, for example, rehearsing events and reviewing
| photographs)"
|
| They tested this by asking participants to recall and describe
| past events in as much detail as they could, then scored the
| transcribed recollections based on whether they were internal
| experiences (things they could sense, emotions they felt, etc)
| or external ('semantic facts (factual information or extended
| events that did not require recollection of a specific time and
| place), autobiographical events tangential or unrelated to the
| main event, repetitions, or other metacognitive statements ("I
| can't remember") or editorializing ("It was the best of
| times").') They also scored the recollections on how detailed
| they were.
|
| So, as a somewhat speculative example, presumably somebody with
| SDAM would be able to tell you that they went to the fairground
| with two friends, and it was sunny, and it was fun - because
| they have a photo with those two friends at the fairground in
| the sun, and one of the friends later told them it was fun. But
| they couldn't tell you what other bits of the fairground looked
| like, that it smelled of cotton candy and hot trash, what it
| felt like to go down the hill on the roller-coaster, how hot
| and thirsty they got waiting in line.
|
| I have somewhat deficient autobiographical memory - I have zero
| recollection of a lot of things from my past, and for others I
| just have a snapshot of them, like a photo with some vague
| feelings attached. But I'm still capable of experiencing at
| least some of my memories in first person, so I wouldn't
| qualify as having SDAM.
| techwiz137 wrote:
| Ok, this is me. My experiences start to merge with those of
| others, I cannot be 100% certain that something I am remembering
| now really happened or if it happened to someone else who shared
| it with me.
|
| There are certain elements I cannot remember from say 10 years
| ago or 5. I forgot the names of some of my classmates, I
| sometimes forget words I shouldn't. My memory is a mess.
| sudden_dystopia wrote:
| I can remember a lot of things from my childhood but there are
| things I simply have no recollection of from a time when I should
| have been old enough to remember them. Things that my younger
| sister remembers but I do not. This was rather distressing but I
| am happy to see I am not alone.
| can16358p wrote:
| While I have many memories from my childhood, there's a hard
| limit around 7 years old. Just like the very early universe is
| hidden behind an opaque plasma to electromagnetic radiation for
| observing, I can't, and have never (including at my childhood
| ages like 8-9) remembered anything before 7 years old.
|
| It's just not there. Many people around me have no trouble
| remembering like their 3 years old, don't know if it counts.
| fallingfrog wrote:
| I have vivid memories of places I've been and things I've done,
| but I have absolutely no idea _when_ any of those events
| occurred. I don't remember what order I lived in what house,
| although I could draw you a picture of each of them. Same with my
| job history, I keep it written down in case I have to fill it out
| on a job app, and if I lost that piece of paper, I wouldn't be
| able to tell you when I had any past job more accurately than
| +\\- 5 years. I don't know when my car's registration is due - I
| remember registering it lots of times, but other than visual cues
| (I remember it being sunny so it was between may and August) I
| have no idea which memory is the most recent or when that was.
|
| I don't remember appointments or due dates; I tend to just work
| on a project till it's done. I start at the beginning, keep going
| till I get to the end, then, stop. People ask me for time
| estimates on how long programming tasks will take and honestly
| it's kind of hilarious that they expect any kind of accurate
| answer considering that without writing down the dates I worked
| on it I wouldn't have any idea if my estimate was accurate _even
| after doing the work_. So what basis do I have to even guess?
|
| But I remember the wind in my hair and the color of the sea from
| when I sailed a boat on the ocean by myself once decades ago. I
| just sort of live in an endless perpetual now with no distinct
| future or past.
|
| I don't know where that puts me in this spectrum.
| _moof wrote:
| Sort of related, just curious: Does anyone else mostly remember
| things from a third-person perspective? When I recall past events
| the mental images are almost always from outside myself. Thought
| I read somewhere that this is common but I can't remember where
| (har har).
| joecool1029 wrote:
| No, but I can visualize it that way. When recalling spaces and
| events I can usually replay it as I saw it (first person)
|
| I assumed 3rd person visualization after the fact is
| reinterpreting the original memory and more subject to
| corruption/influence.
| RandomWorker wrote:
| I feel like I have this. Can't remember anything from the past,
| but my spouse remembers exactly every tiny detail from years ago.
| layer8 wrote:
| This may be related to how much you have communicated with
| others about your experiences and events vs. how much your wife
| has. And not only communication, but how much time spent with
| inner reflection about recent events. This should play an
| important role in solidifying memories and making them
| persistent.
| Foobar8568 wrote:
| Basically the same, maybe with a twist, I feel that my brain is
| optimizing my memory for my current "activities". I can
| recollect anything related to my current jobs, up to 15years
| ago might be still recallable, but anything else will be just
| bribe of information.
|
| And no need to ask me the name of my best friends/girl friends
| etc during my teenagehood -earlier, just blank.
| [deleted]
| wruza wrote:
| _my spouse remembers exactly every tiny detail from years ago_
|
| "Cause you don't care!"
| claytongulick wrote:
| I'm in the same boat.
|
| I can remember old Win32 C APIs and details like DDX that I
| haven't used in 20 years, but I frequently make gaffes with my
| wife, not remembering things that are important to her.
|
| I can remember the paper, pages and formatting of old Sam's and
| Wrox technical manuals, I can visually recall the exact shade
| of blue of the old DOS Borland C compiler, and the look and
| feeling of the pages in favorite books I read as a teenager.
|
| But my wedding is just a series of fragmented images all mixed
| up with outher things.
|
| I remember the night my wife and I met only in "narrative
| form".
|
| She, on the other hand, can remember events like that in
| crystal detail, she can describe everyone that was there, what
| they were wearing, etc...
|
| I read this study with a sense of comfort, nice to know it's
| not just me.
|
| Based on some of the comments here, I think it would be
| interesting to see if this sort of thing is a trend with
| different sexes.
| JaimeThompson wrote:
| Are you able to form mental images in your head? I'm wondering
| if people who can't have more trouble with such things.
| pitaj wrote:
| As a counterexample: I have good mental image capabilities,
| but have a terrible episodic memory.
| warp wrote:
| There is a study here which looks at that:
| https://t.co/xYJvPJRUCj ( "Memories with a blind mind:
| Remembering the past and imagining the future with
| aphantasia").
|
| I assume I have aphantasia, and I have bad episodic memory --
| so to me linking the two makes sense. However, I don't
| remember (hah!) if the study linked above was able to
| establish that link as well.
| InvaderFizz wrote:
| Not GP, but I experience the same thing. Wife remembers
| everything, I only remember extremely significant events, and
| not that much about the fine details.
|
| My capability for creating visual scenes is great, I really
| enjoy books because of the vivid scenes they paint in my
| mind.
|
| My visual memory of events is often literally fuzzy and in
| the third person(out of body, spectating myself in the
| scene).
| germinalphrase wrote:
| I have a very vivid imagination (and utilize it
| professionally), but my time/date/name recollection is quite
| poor. I also score quite high on imagistic/spatial thinking,
| fwiw.
| driggs wrote:
| I believe that deficiencies in Episodic Memory can be related
| to Aphantasia.
|
| My hypothesis is that when people with high mental image
| visualization recall an event, they are re-experiencing it in
| a sense, and therefore reinforcing its details (or details as
| remembered, at least!). A person with aphantasia recalling
| that event does not re-experience it in a way that triggers
| this feedback loop, not as efficiently or completely at
| least.
|
| I have very detailed memory about facts, places that I've
| been and seen, including spatial models; but how many times
| I've visited a place, who I was with on which trip, which
| events occurred on which visit, these details quickly become
| obscured and lost.
| towaway15463 wrote:
| From personal experience, I don't think aphantasia and lack
| of episodic memory are related. I have a poor memory for
| personal experiences as far as what was said or how I felt
| and often don't remember things from a first person view
| but I have very strong visual mental imagery and spatial
| reasoning. This results in most of my memories of
| experiences being 3rd person or "fly through" where I can
| clearly picture the environment I was in, the people who
| were there, and myself but seen from other perspectives as
| if observing a scene. I realize that my memory of all the
| details isn't perfect and that they are largely filled in
| by my prior knowledge or even imagination but it is still
| accurate enough for the important things. It's not very
| useful though and I often wish I could remember what people
| say or even what I said.
| driggs wrote:
| If you have "very strong visual mental imagery", then by
| definition you have no personal experience with
| aphantasia.
| haswell wrote:
| I am aphantasic, and have virtually zero memory of my past
| beyond a few fragments here and there.
|
| I've often wondered if the two are connected.
| v64 wrote:
| To offer a counterexample, I have aphantasia, but have very
| detailed memories of my childhood. I have no problem
| recalling details like the full names of all my elementary
| school teachers, when I met most of my friends in school,
| and details about field trips we took.
|
| That being said, I only have visual aphantasia, so it may
| be that remembering these peoples' voices or what places
| smelled and sounded like may be helping those memories.
|
| I dated someone without aphantasia who was amazed at my
| childhood recall compared to her own. It turned out she
| later discovered she had SDAM.
| swayvil wrote:
| Same here. She remembers all this stuff over decades. I can
| barely remember last week. Sometimes I wonder if there's
| something up with my brain.
|
| Yes, I am actually pretty good at other brain stuff. Software
| and design and such. Good at concentration.
|
| And there's that "absent minded professor" archetype to
| consider.
|
| On the third hand, working outside in this heat can bake the
| brains right out of your head.
| dQw4w9WgXcQ wrote:
| > Sometimes I wonder if there's something up with my brain.
|
| Yea it's called being a man. Biologically speaking men
| statistically have far fewer connections between the two
| halves of their brain. Your wife basically has a gigabit link
| between her two halves while you're on 56k, which contributes
| to the intensity of her integrated story-telling experience.
| On one hand this often gives women better recall, but it also
| generally enables men to ignore intense experiences better
| (i.e. easier to block out the cross-chatter) and soldier
| forward.
|
| > Yes, I am actually pretty good at other brain stuff.
|
| _The results establish that male brains are optimized for
| intrahemispheric and female brains for interhemispheric
| communication._ --
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3896179/
| lazide wrote:
| Personally, I've noticed I'll cycle between something like
| this (absent minded professor) and very aware with a good
| memory of events, times, and sequences. For me, it's largely
| based on type of mental load, anxiety, and degree of rest and
| exercise.
|
| Low stress, mental load low and mostly oriented towards
| people, and good diet and exercise and I'll be able to
| remember almost every moment and recall and integrate it into
| a coherent narrative quite easily.
|
| Mental load high and focused on abstract deep concepts?
| Higher anxiety? Less exercise and not as good nutrition?
|
| Where am I, and who are you?
| DontchaKnowit wrote:
| Honestly I had a really solid memory for the most part until I
| started doing drugs and drinking. College is a giant blur. I
| remember many many insignificant events in fine detail but
| putting together a timezone of events I impossible. E.g. which
| classes and when. Etc
|
| Now that I've layed of the drugs and reduced my alcoholism to
| socially normal levels my memory is a lot better.
| dboreham wrote:
| Not to be confused with:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Atomic_Demolition_Muni...
| [deleted]
| antisthenes wrote:
| I've lost this ability after a traumatic brain injury (TBI).
| wrs wrote:
| If this "deficiency" is a new discovery, how was "normal" defined
| in the first place?
| swayvil wrote:
| Maybe it's an attention thing.
|
| Attention is like a flashlight in a dark room full of furniture.
| One of those focusable flaslights that you can twist from spot to
| flood.
|
| When the flashlight is spot you illuminate that chair brightly.
| Every detail in high contrast. But you don't see the couch or the
| coffeetable.
|
| When the flashlight is flood you see everything in the room, but
| dimly.
|
| Longterm memory is like the coffeetable. If you're focussed on
| the couch then you aren't gonna see the coffeetable.
|
| Women seem to prefer the flood. Men the spot.
| joecool1029 wrote:
| I dunno, I have excellent autobiographical memory with the
| exception I can't tie the events to specific times, I just know
| how/what happened. Like I can tell someone it happened and if I
| have a log of it digitally I know exactly where to search, like
| minute conversations from 15 years ago.
|
| I'm a man who's also ambidextrous and ADHD'd. I don't file, I
| collect and search.
| rapjr9 wrote:
| It may have to do with rehearsal of memories. Some people go
| over and over their past, recount it often in stories told to
| others, discuss it with people who were there at the time.
| Others don't dwell on the past, don't often review it, and
| focus on now. It may require some repetition to engrain
| memories long term and keep them fresh. Although other research
| suggests that every revisit of a memory alters it somewhat, is
| a rethinking of it, and the rethinking is remembered instead of
| the original. Eyewitness testimony in court is notoriously
| unreliable. Everyone has their own contexts and remembers
| events in light of those contexts, rather than what actually
| happened. One person remembers it was a fun party, another that
| it was a dreadful party.
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