TY - JOUR
T1 - The role of working memory capacity in autobiographical retrieval
T2 - Individual differences in strategic search
AU - Unsworth, Nash
AU - Spillers, Gregory J.
AU - Brewer, Gene
PY - 2012/2
Y1 - 2012/2
N2 - Remembering previous experiences from one's personal past is a principal component of psychological well-being, personality, sense of self, decision making, and planning for the future. In the current study the ability to search for autobiographical information in memory was examined by having college students recall their Facebook friends. Individual differences in working memory capacity manifested itself in the search of autobiographical memory by way of the total number of friends remembered, the number of clusters of friends, size of clusters, and the speed with which participants could output their friends' names. Although working memory capacity was related to the ability to search autobiographical memory, participants did not differ in the manner in which they approached the search and used contextual cues to help query their memories. These results corroborate recent theorising, which suggests that working memory is a necessary component of self-generating contextual cues to strategically search memory for autobiographical information.
AB - Remembering previous experiences from one's personal past is a principal component of psychological well-being, personality, sense of self, decision making, and planning for the future. In the current study the ability to search for autobiographical information in memory was examined by having college students recall their Facebook friends. Individual differences in working memory capacity manifested itself in the search of autobiographical memory by way of the total number of friends remembered, the number of clusters of friends, size of clusters, and the speed with which participants could output their friends' names. Although working memory capacity was related to the ability to search autobiographical memory, participants did not differ in the manner in which they approached the search and used contextual cues to help query their memories. These results corroborate recent theorising, which suggests that working memory is a necessary component of self-generating contextual cues to strategically search memory for autobiographical information.
KW - Autobiographical memory
KW - Individual differences
KW - Working memory
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84856929984&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84856929984&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/09658211.2011.651087
DO - 10.1080/09658211.2011.651087
M3 - Article
C2 - 22273543
AN - SCOPUS:84856929984
SN - 0965-8211
VL - 20
SP - 167
EP - 176
JO - Memory
JF - Memory
IS - 2
ER -