Why Older Adults Recall Autobiographical Memories From Their Youth

When older adults are asked to remember their lives, they recall disproportionally more events from their youth (e.g., Rubin, Rahhal, & Poon, 1998). This phenomenon, called the reminiscence bump, is one of the most robust findings in autobiographical memory research. Whereas most explanatory accounts have focused on differential encoding and retention of memories experienced during one’s youth (e.g., Rubin et al., 1998), recent research also puts emphasis on the retrieval of memories (e.g., Glück & Bluck, 2009; Rubin & Berntsen, 2003). In the present study, we take a functional perspective on the reminiscence bump and examine why older adults recall memories from their past. Participants (age 57-89; N = 112) reported memories in response to 30 emotionally neutral cue-words and self-rated each memory for serving directive, social-bonding, self-continuity, and mood-enhancing functions (Wolf & Demiray, 2019). The age distribution shows an early reminiscence bump located between the ages of 6 and 20 years. Compared to memories from later life periods, memories from the reminiscence bump more frequently serve self-continuity and less frequently directive and mood-enhancing functions. No differences were found regarding the use of memories for social-bonding. The results strengthen the assumption that experiences from one’s youth serve to maintain a sense of self-continuity throughout the lifespan (e.g., Rathbone et al., 2008). To cope with current problems or emotions, however, older adults are more likely to draw on experiences from their adult life – probably because these experiences are more similar to what they are experiencing now.

The Reminiscence Bump Effect in Autobiographies

The reminiscence bump effect refers to the tendency for older adults to recall more life events from their late teens through early thirties than from other periods of life. Participants in laboratory studies are often encouraged to recall events quickly and spontaneously, with the intention of eliciting those life events that come most easily to mind. The purpose of this study was to determine if a reminiscence bump effect is observed in accounts of life events that are carefully organized and narrated over prolonged periods of time; specifically, those presented in published autobiographies. 1911 life events were collected from the autobiographies of 16 authors. Four authors were female and 12 were male. The mean age of authors at the time of publication was 65.88 (SD = 13.94). 45.52% of life events reported in autobiographies occurred when authors were between 18 and 32 years of age, a value significantly higher than expected by chance [Chi-square (1, N = 1911) = 457.70, p < .001] and consistent with those found in laboratory studies supporting the reminiscence bump effect (e.g., Rubin, Wetzler, & Nebes, 1986). In addition, the 15-year reminiscence bump period represented an average of 22.77% of the authors’ lives at the time they published their autobiography; however, events from the reminiscence bump period took up an average of 42.52% of the pages in their autobiographies. These data provide evidence for a reminiscence bump effect in carefully considered life story narratives which required months or years to complete.

Memories on film: public archive images and participatory film‑making with people with dementia

This chapter explores the use of images from local history archives in the co-construction of short individual films with people with dementia. The study on which the chapter is based was carried out with two men and eight women living in a housing-with-care facility in the northern United Kingdom. The chapter finds that archive images quickly took on a central role in the film narratives of several of the participants. In the process, the archive materials themselves were also transformed, memorialising the everyday spaces and places in which the participants had lived. In this study, archive images were often used to elicit memories of people, or places that no longer look the same in the present day. The chapter reveals that such images were often more recognisable to the participants than were contemporary photographs. This corresponds with research into the ‘reminiscence bump’, which suggests that autobiographical memory for the period between about five and thirty years of age remains well preserved in people living with dementia.

A Cross-Sectional Study of Reminiscence Bumps for Music-Related Memories in Adulthood

Music is often intimately linked to identity, as evidenced by the high value many people place on musical activities and the way in which music can become seemingly effortlessly coupled to important memories from throughout one’s lifespan. Previous research has revealed a consistent reminiscence bump in autobiographical memory—the disproportionate recall of memories from between ages 10 to 30 years in comparison with other lifetime periods—which also appears to extend to music-related memories. The present study represents one of the largest explorations of the musical reminiscence bump across adulthood to date. Participants ( N = 470; ages 18 to 82 years) were shown the titles and artists of 111 popular songs that had featured in the charts between 1950 and 2015 and rated the degree to which they had autobiographical memories associated with each song, as well as the degree to which they were familiar with and liked the song. We found a reminiscence bump in adolescence (peaking around age 14) for both ratings of the autobiographical salience of songs featured in the charts during that period and the familiarity of these songs. Liking ratings showed more divergent results depending on a participant’s current age, including evidence for a cascading reminiscence bump, in which liking ratings from young adults increased for music from their parents’ adolescent years. We also revealed new evidence that music-related autobiographical memories appear to invoke similar retrieval processes to the common methodology of eliciting autobiographical memories via word cues. We contextualize these results in relation to general theoretical accounts of the reminiscence bump, and age-related differences in the bump are discussed in relation to various sociocultural and technological changes in music listening habits.