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ABSTRACT
The authors investigated age-related differences in phenomenal characteristics of autobiographical memories for positive, negative, and neutral events. Younger and older participants were asked to recall two specific memories of each type and then to rate their memories on several sensorial (e.g., visual, taste) and contextual (e.g., location, time) characteristics. The authors found that emotional (both positive and negative) memories contained more sensorial and contextual details than neutral memories in both age groups, whereas positive and negative memories did not differ on most dimensions. In addition, negative memories were associated with a higher intensity of positive feelings and a reduced complexity of storyline in older as compared to younger adults. These results suggest that the effect of emotion on phenomenal characteristics of autobiographical memories is similar in younger and older adults, but that older adults tend to reappraise negative events in a more positive light than younger adults.
This work was supported by the Government of the French Community of Belgium (Direction de la Recherche Scientifique—Actions de Recherche Concerte´es, Convention 99/04-246). The authors wish to express their thanks to Caroline Paheau for her help in data collection.
Notes
1The power (1-beta) to detect a “medium” size difference (d = .50; Cohen, Citation1988) between younger and older adults was .72 with an alpha level of .05. When alpha was raised to .10, power was .83, which is satisfactory according to Cohen's suggestion to use beta = .20 (i.e., power of .80). Even in this case, there were no age differences (all pvalues > .11), suggesting that the absence of differences between younger and older adults was not due to a lack of power.