The role of working memory capacity in the temporal compression of episodic memories: An individual differences approach.

Leroy, Nathan; Majerus, Steve; D'Argembeau, Arnaud

doi:10.1037/xlm0001350

Article (Scientific journals)

The role of working memory capacity in the temporal compression of episodic memories: An individual differences approach.

Leroy, Nathan; Majerus, Steve; D'Argembeau, Arnaud

2024 • In Journal of Experimental Psychology. Learning, Memory and Cognition

Peer Reviewed verified by ORBi Dataset

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https://hdl.handle.net/2268/320190

DOI
10.1037/xlm0001350

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38913729

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Abstract :

[en] Remembering past events usually takes less time than their actual duration-their unfolding is temporally compressed in episodic memory. The rate of temporal compression (i.e., the ratio of the actual duration of an event to the duration of its remembering) is not constant but varies between individuals and as a function of the structure of events (e.g., how they can be divided into shorter subevents). However, the cognitive mechanisms underlying these variations remain poorly understood. Given its role in the encoding and retrieval of information in episodic memory, working memory (WM) capacity could be an important determinant of temporal compression rates. We tested this hypothesis in two experiments in which we asked participants to watch and then mentally replay short videos showing people engaged in daily life activities. We showed that temporal compression rates depend on an interplay between WM and the structure of the remembered events: participants' WM capacity (assessed using complex span tasks) was negatively associated with temporal compression rates, but only when the remembered events contained few event boundaries (i.e., few subevents). This suggests that the temporal compression of events in episodic memory emerges when some of the subevents to be retained are too long to be fully represented in WM. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Disciplines :

Theoretical & cognitive psychology

Author, co-author :

Leroy, Nathan ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Département de Psychologie

Majerus, Steve ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Psychologie et Neuroscience Cognitives (PsyNCog)

D'Argembeau, Arnaud ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Département de Psychologie

Language :

English

Title :

The role of working memory capacity in the temporal compression of episodic memories: An individual differences approach.

Publication date :

24 June 2024

Journal title :

Journal of Experimental Psychology. Learning, Memory and Cognition

ISSN :

0278-7393

eISSN :

1939-1285

Publisher :

American Psychological Association (APA), United States

Peer reviewed :

Peer Reviewed verified by ORBi

Additional URL :

https://psycnet.apa.org/psycarticles/2024-96360-001.pdf

Funders :

F.R.S.-FNRS - Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique
ULiège - University of Liège

Funding number :

Crédit Facultaire 2021

Data Set :

https://osf.io/5xeha/

Available on ORBi :

since 01 July 2024

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