Autobiographical memory and the self on the psychosis continuum: investigating their relationship with positive- and negative-like symptoms

ABSTRACT

Autobiographical memory is severely impaired in schizophrenia, but previous work has largely treated both as unitary concepts. Here, we examined how various dimensions of autobiographical memory relate to different aspects of psychosis. Participants were recruited from the general population (Study 1, N = 264) and a university subject pool (Study 2, N = 305). We examined different measures of autobiographical memory and self (i.e., involuntary memory, autobiographical recollection, self-knowledge and self-awareness), at the trait level in Study 1 and both trait and state levels in Study 2, as a function of positive-and negative-like symptoms of psychosis. Across both studies, positive and negative dimensions of psychosis were found to be related to an increase in involuntary memories (i.e., the spontaneous recall of personal memories), and to lower self-concept clarity and insight. Positive and negative dimensions of psychosis correlated differently with autobiographical recollection characteristics, measured at both trait (Studies 1 and 2) and state levels (Study 2). Positive-like symptoms (in particular hallucination-proneness) showed a stronger and more consistent pattern of correlations than negative-like symptoms. These findings call for a dimensional approach to the relationship between autobiographical memory and psychosis symptoms in clinical and non-clinical individuals, to better understand the breakdown of autobiographical memory in the psychopathology of psychosis.

KEYWORDS:

• Psychosis continuum
• autobiographical memory
• self
• positive symptoms
• negative symptoms

Disclosure statement

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

Data availability statement

Data are available on request.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported in part by a grant from the Independent Research Fund, Denmark [9037-00015B9], and the Danish Council for Independent Research National Research Foundation [DNRF93]. The funding sources had no role in the study design, data collection, analysis or interpretation of the data, writing of the manuscript, or the decision to submit the paper for publication.Danmarks Grundforskningsfond.