Phenomenological qualities of self-reported negative and positive memories

What is it about?

The study was conducted in the Gaza Strip, Palestine, and a total of 134 autobiographical memories about negative and positive events were analyzed using a version of the Phenomenological Questionnaire for Autobiographical Memory (Manzanero & López, 2007). Participants were university students, 80 percent were women and 20 percent were men. Results showed that negative memories are more confused, more complex, and decay more over time than positive ones. In contrast, no differences were found between positive and negative memories on sensory information, spatial location, vividness, definition, accessibility, fragmentation, recall perspective, doubts about the accuracy of the memory, and how much participants recovered and talked about the event. High Dimensional Visualization (HDV) graph revealed that there were individual differences between negative and positive memories but no consistent differences across participants.

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Photo by Denny Müller on Unsplash

Photo by Denny Müller on Unsplash

Why is it important?

When the characteristic global patterns of the two different types of memory are considered, then we can see a clear difference between negative and positive memories. This difference can be seen in the HDV graph and cluster analysis, which takes into account the full set of features simultaneously. Also these clear differences are observed if we consider each participant separately. As shown in the HDV graph, the problem to establish patterns characteristic of each type of memory is that even in a virtual hyperspace positive memories are located at the top and the others at the bottom; these patterns vary in other directions even if there is substantial distance between them. Individual and cultural differences in temperament, resilience, or other variables could be responsible for these results, this is, resulting in an individual way of coding emotional experiences in memory.