Enhancing autobiographical memory fluency & specificity: effects of eye movements & eye closure

Parkin, Adam ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9796-5607 (2023) Enhancing autobiographical memory fluency & specificity: effects of eye movements & eye closure. Doctoral thesis (PhD), Manchester Metropolitan University.

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Abstract

Research has demonstrated that performing a sequence of saccadic horizontal eye movements (SEMs) prior to retrieval or closing one’s eyes during retrieval facilitates episodic memory. The research in this thesis is concerned with increasing the recall of episodic autobiographical memory in old (Experiment 1) and younger (Experiment 1-3) individuals with the use SEMs (Experiments 1-3) and eye-closure (Experiments 2-3). Experiment 1 extends previous research by examining the effects of SEMs in older and younger adults. Autobiographical episodic and semantic memory fluency was assessed in younger and older participants following saccadic (vs. fixation control) manipulations. Eye movements enhanced episodic fluency in both age groups. Semantic autobiographical memory showed a main effect of age (greater fluency in younger participants), whereas general semantic memory showed no effect of age or eye movement. Experiment 2 extended the first study by the inclusion of eye-closure. The experiment also changed how memories were elicited by use of the Galton Crovitz technique using concrete and abstract words. Recall was measured by the specificity of recall and its associated phenomenological qualities. The experiment found concrete cues to enhance both the specificity of recall and phenomenological qualities. Eye movements increased memory specificity but not phenomenological qualities. Eye closure effects were only found on the phenomenological qualities of ‘seeing’ and ‘hearing’. Experiment 3 made changes to both manipulations and measurements. Eye-closure was altered from between to within subjects and dynamic visual noise (DVN) was included to increase distraction with eyes open. As before, SEMs was manipulated between-subjects. Regarding measurements, participants indicated whether memories were recalled directly or after more effortful generation. A significant effect of eye-closure/distraction was found (except direct vs generative recall which only showed effects of DVN) showing an advantage in the eye closure condition. Cue-type produced similar findings to Experiment 2 but SEM effects produced only numerical differences. This is the first-time eye-closure and DVN effects have been shown in autobiographical memory using the cue-word technique.