Recurrent involuntary autobiographical memories: characteristics and links to mental health status

ABSTRACT

Memories of events from one’s personal past that come to mind unintentionally and effortlessly are termed involuntary autobiographical memories (IAMs). Recurrent IAMs are known as relevant to many disorders within clinical literature. However, less is known about their links with mental health status in the general population. In the current study, 2184 undergraduate students completed surveys assessing occurrence of any recurrent IAMs. Participants also wrote a description of their most frequently recurring IAM and rated it on phenomenological characteristics, such as frequency, valence, vividness, and centrality. Results showed that the majority of our sample experienced recurrent IAMs, replicating previous findings, but most of these memories were emotionally negative, unlike past work. Importantly, negative recurrent IAMs were associated with significantly more mental health concerns, including symptoms of depression, anxiety, and posttraumatic stress. We also found that frequency of IAM recurrence was predicted by the memory’s age, level of completeness/detail, emotional intensity, and centrality to one’s life story. Further, descriptions of positive recurrent IAMs contained significantly more episodic detail compared to negative or neutral ones, suggesting that emotional regulation may play a role in how recurrent IAMs are recounted. Recurrent IAMs, and their characteristics, serve as a window into mental health status.

KEYWORDS:

• Involuntary autobiographical memory
• intrusive memory
• mental health
• emotion

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data Availability Statement

The data that support the findings of this study are openly available on the Open Science Framework at https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/FG6CP

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) through an Alexander Graham Bell Canada Graduate Scholarship (CGSD3-535024-2019) awarded to author RCY, and an NSERC Discovery Grant (2020-03917) awarded to author MAF.