Eye Movements Relate to Episodic Detail Retrieval during Recall of Autobiographical Memories
Year: 2018
Type: dissertation
Abstract: Eye movements have been shown to benefit the encoding and retrieval of memories in laboratory experiments. However, the ecological validity of laboratory memory is questionable, necessitating the use of naturalistic methods to assess episodic autobiographical memory (AM) – recollection of past events from people’s everyday lives. Several studies have related eye movements to AM, but with notable limitations, including a lack of eye movement monitoring (EMM) and the use of subjective methods. The goal of this dissertation was to examine whether eye movements benefitted recall of AMs using EMM in combination with an objective measure – the Autobiographical Interview – which quantifies the number of details recalled. I developed a novel EMM paradigm in which participants recalled AMs while viewing a blank screen according to (1) free viewing and (2) fixed viewing conditions. In Experiment 1, a working memory task was used to validate that free and fixed viewing were comparable in their demands on executive resources, as compared to a finger-tapping condition in which participants demonstrated reduced accuracy on the task. In Experiment 2, participants recalled self-selected AMs during free and fixed viewing. Fixation rate was predictive of the number of internal (episodic) but not external (non-episodic) details recalled across both viewing conditions. In Experiment 3, I tested recall of a staged event to see if individual differences in AM moderated the effect of fixations on internal details. High AM individuals demonstrated the positive effect of fixations on number of internal (not external) details observed in Experiment 2, whereas low AM individuals did not show a relationship between eye movements and recall. Overall, eye movements appear to relate to retrieval of episodic details during AM recall, possibly through exploration of recollected visual images. In anatomical studies, connectivity between oculomotor, memory, and posterior visual regions suggest neural network that could mediate the relationship of eye movements, memory retrieval, and possibly mental imagery. As a next step in this research, neuroimaging studies are needed to assess this hypothesized mechanism linking eye movements to AM.
Source: TSpace (University of Toronto)
Author: Michael J. Armson
Language: English
Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W3152841276