Jennifer Talarico | Lafayette College (original) (raw)

Papers by Jennifer Talarico

Journal of applied research in memory and cognition, Mar 1, 2024

Routledge eBooks, Nov 15, 2022

Zeitschrift Fur Psychologie-journal of Psychology, 2014

Most of us researchers are employed at institutions of higher education where we recruit our unde... more Most of us researchers are employed at institutions of higher education where we recruit our undergraduate students to serve as participants in our research. We are frequently criticized for using this convenience sample of ''people from Western, educated industrialized, rich and democratic (WEIRD) societies'' (Henrich, Heine, & Norenzayan, 2010, p. 61). Political adversaries attack our scholarship as not being a sound investment of federal funding (Kelly, 2011). I will argue that we can directly refute both of these criticisms by attending more thoughtfully to the nature of our students and of our institutions and utilizing these attributes to the benefit of all involved. 1

Memory, Apr 1, 2009

Students from the Lafayette Class of 2011 (N=100) described events that occurred during their tra... more Students from the Lafayette Class of 2011 (N=100) described events that occurred during their transition to college. Three were unique events (receiving their acceptance letter, being left alone on campus, and taking the class photograph) and three were first-time experiences (first seeing their dorm room, meeting their roommate, and attending their first college class). The definitional criteria for flashbulb memories (FBM) was met for all six events; memory reports included what participants were doing, where they were, who they were with, the emotions they experienced, and other idiosyncratic details. Therefore, transitional events are a productive analog for traditional FBM research. Unique events were rated as more emotional and significant than first-time events, yet both were recalled with similarly enhanced vividness and confidence and both included similar content. Extensions of this method to investigations of other open questions in FBM research are discussed.

Applied Cognitive Psychology, Jun 27, 2012

Berntsen's social identity model of flashbulb memory was applied to recall of the 2008 Lafayette-... more Berntsen's social identity model of flashbulb memory was applied to recall of the 2008 Lafayette-Lehigh ('The Rivalry') football game, which Lehigh won. Consistent with Berntsen's theory, Lehigh fans found the game to be more emotional and therefore rehearsed the event more frequently. They also remembered the factual details of the game more accurately than did Lafayette fans, particularly those facts that enhanced positive social group identity. Although students from both schools recalled the event equally vividly initially, the Lehigh fans maintained that vividness over time, whereas Lafayette fans' memories decreased in vividness. Surprisingly, both teams' fans were equally consistent in describing their personal circumstances during the event, were equally confident in the accuracy of those recollections, and felt an equally high degree of reliving the event while remembering it. The significant influence of emotional affect on vividness, reliving, and confidence was partially mediated by rehearsal, consistent with Berntsen's model.

Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, Jun 25, 2021

Life story chapters may be formed in relation to substantial and enduring changes in material cir... more Life story chapters may be formed in relation to substantial and enduring changes in material circumstances, and we explored this idea by capitalizing on naturally occurring variations in the change of material circumstances associated with marriage. In two studies, we asked participants to report whether they cohabitated before marriage and whether they relocated in connection with marriage, using these as proxies for material change. Participants described their wedding and rated it on memory characteristics along with scales measuring material change, psychological change, and centrality to identity. Next, they identified chapters within the romantic domain of their lives. Finally, they placed the wedding memory in a chapter and marked the temporal location of the memory on a timeline representing the chapter. In study 2, not cohabitating before marriage was associated with greater likelihood of locating the wedding memory as a starting point for a chapter. The results provide some support for the role of material change in shaping the formation of chapters.

Memory, Mar 24, 2021

The durability of memories for personally experienced events and the effectiveness of naturalisti... more The durability of memories for personally experienced events and the effectiveness of naturalistically generated cues of those events were investigated via a case study using Timehop to represent information from Facebook, Twitter, and the iPhone photograph archive from the past six years to generate autobiographical memories. Replicating prior longitudinal self-studies of remembering, recency predicted successful recall of specific events. Prior research showing images to be more evocative of autobiographical remembering than text was also replicated here. Results also supported claims that direct retrieval is a common mode of remembering. Somewhat surprisingly, retrieval of autobiographical memories had little influence on ongoing affect, cognition, and behaviour. This is suggested as "proof of concept" that social media data allows for modern replication of diary-type studies and expansion beyond typical participant pools. The interrelated functions of social media for remembering and of autobiographical remembering to social media can also be explored with this method.

Flashbulb Memories, 2008

We all have memories of highly emotional personal and public events that may have happened some y... more We all have memories of highly emotional personal and public events that may have happened some years ago but which are felt as strongly as if they happened yesterday. We remember where they happened, the people who were with us, and seemingly irrelevant details such as the weather, particular sounds or specific clothes. Why do we remember these things? Is it because such events are so deeply emotional or so unexpected or because people talk about them so many times? Why are these "flashbulb memories" so vivid and lasting? Flashbulb Memories: New Issues and New Perspectives explores these questions in the first book on flashbulb memories (FBMs) for more than a decade. It considers the many developments over the last 10 years, including new models of FBM formation, advances in statistical methods and neuroscience, and two key public events, the death of Princess Diana and the September 11th attacks in the US, which can help test FBM. The book examines the status of FBMs as "special" or "ordinary" memory formations, and the expert contributors represent a balance between those that favour each approach. It also investigates controversial topics of research such as: Are emotional, cognitive, or social factors highly relevant for the formation of FBMs? How can sociological, historical, and cultural issues help us to understand the process of FBMs? What are the differences between FBMs, memories for traumatic experiences, and highly vivid personal memories? How can we provide a valid and reliable measure for FBMs? This book gathers together specialists in the field in order to make significant progress in this area of research which has remained divisive for the past 30 years. It will provide essential reading for researchers in FBM and also be of interest to those in related areas such as social psychology, cognitive psychology, cross-cultural psychology, sociology, political sciences and history as well as clinicians dealing with those who have strong FBMs after personal traumatic events.SCOPUS: bk.bSCOPUS: ch.bSCOPUS: ch.binfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Cognitive Science, Jul 17, 2022

The field of autobiographical memory can do more to be representative of global populations exper... more The field of autobiographical memory can do more to be representative of global populations experiencing and recollecting diverse events across the lifespan. To inspire such work, I present a general model for designing autobiographical memory studies. The tetrahedral model (based on Jenkins, 1979) has at its vertices context (e.g., the situated environment, activated schema, or functional goal), outcomes (e.g., the content and phenomenology of remembering), participants (e.g., the demographic characteristics and traits of the individual), and events (e.g., the lived experiences that comprise an individual's autobiography). Further, the area of the base of the pyramid can represent the time frame under investigation (e.g., the wider the distance, the greater the delay between an experience and its retrieval) and the height of the pyramid can represent the sample size (e.g., nearly flat for a case study, increasingly taller for larger groups) being studied. After applying the model to describe how typical autobiographical memory research is conducted (and briefly identifying the limitations therein), representative models of particularly promising areas of research are highlighted.This article is categorized under: Psychology > Memory

Memory Studies, Jun 23, 2017

Flashbulb memories are at the intersection of public and private event memory. We investigated wh... more Flashbulb memories are at the intersection of public and private event memory. We investigated whether the source of news (traditional media, social media, or another person) shaped how people remembered learning of an event. Individuals were asked how they learned of Osama bin Laden's assassination immediately after the event and 7, 42, 224, or 365 days later. Initial memory reports from those who learned from traditional media showed enhanced phenomenological features (i.e., a sense of recollection and vividness) relative to those who learned from social media or from another person. Both phenomenological and metacognitive (i.e., belief in the memory's accuracy) features of memory reports decreased over time; however, there were no differences as a function of source. Consistency of the memory reports did not differ as a function of time or source. Although sources differed as a function of social group salience, these differences did not seem to influence memory.

Wiley-Blackwell eBooks, Aug 21, 2010

Applied Cognitive Psychology, May 16, 2014

The study of flashbulb memories has typically been confined to negative events such as the terror... more The study of flashbulb memories has typically been confined to negative events such as the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001. Previous studies that investigated the role of affect on memory formation have produced conflicting results, making it difficult to ascertain the properties of positive flashbulb memories. In the current study, we employ previously established methods to investigate flashbulb memory formation for the assassination of Osama bin Laden. This resonated as a highly positive event for many Americans evidenced by the thousands of people flooding the streets of Washington, D.C., and New York City to celebrate. Results confirm the fading of memory details over time and further suggest that positive events do not result in the heightened vividness and confidence seen in negatively valenced flashbulb memories. We argue that these findings are additional evidence against a special memory mechanism in flashbulb memory formation.

Memory & Cognition, Jan 7, 2019

Theories of reconstructive memory have long been influenced by investigations of false recognitio... more Theories of reconstructive memory have long been influenced by investigations of false recognition errors, in which old/new judgements are compromised by spontaneous activation of associated but nonpresented concepts. Recent evidence similarly suggests that reconstructive memory processes (so-called memory integration) also support positive learning behaviors, such as inferential reasoning. Despite prevailing hypotheses, the question of whether a common integration process underlies these seemingly disparate mnemonic outcomes is not well understood. To address this question, young adults, recruited from two institutions, completed the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (Deese,

Cognition, Mar 1, 2015

Two studies examined whether belief in the occurrence of events, recollecting events, and belief ... more Two studies examined whether belief in the occurrence of events, recollecting events, and belief in the accuracy of recollections are distinct aspects of autobiographical remembering. In Study 1, 299 student participants received a cue to recall five childhood events, after which they rated each event on these constructs and other characteristics associated with remembering. Structural equation modelling revealed that variance in ratings was best explained by the three anticipated latent variables. In Study 2, an online sample of 1026 adults recalled and rated a childhood event and an event about which they were somehow uncertain. Confirmatory modelling replicated the three latent variables. The relationship of key predictors (perceptual detail, spatial detail, re-experiencing, and event plausibility) to the latent variables confirmed the distinction. These studies demonstrate that belief in occurrence and belief in accuracy appraisals are distinct, the former indexing the truth status of the event and the latter the degree to which the event representation accurately reflects prior experience. Further, they suggest that belief in accuracy indexes the monitoring of the quality of recollections.

Memory & Cognition, Oct 1, 2004

College students generated autobiographical memories from distinct emotional categories that vari... more College students generated autobiographical memories from distinct emotional categories that varied in valence (positive vs. negative) and intensity (high vs. low). They then rated various perceptual, cognitive, and emotional properties for each memory. The distribution of these emotional memories favored a vector model over a circumplex model. For memories of all specific emotions, intensity accounted for significantly more variance in autobiographical memory characteristics than did valence or age of the memory. In two additional experiments, we examined multiple memories of emotions of high intensity and positive or negative valence and of positive valence and high or low intensity. Intensity was a more consistent predictor of autobiographical memory properties than was valence or the age of the memory in these experiments as well. The general effects of emotion on autobiographical memory properties are due primarily to intensity differences in emotional experience, not to benefits or detriments associated with a specific valence.

Brown and Kulik (1977) observed a phenomenon that had captured the public&amp;amp;amp;amp... more Brown and Kulik (1977) observed a phenomenon that had captured the public&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;#x27;s attention—seemingly indelible memory for important, emotional events. They dubbed it “ﬂashbulb memory”(FBM) and conducted the ﬁrst modern empirical study on the topic (for an earlier study, see Colegrove, 1899). The concept was equally eﬀective in capturing the attention of memory researchers, and in the 30 years following that seminal publication the topic has been investigated almost as often as the events that lead to such memories allow. During ...