The Relationgship Between Cognitive Style And Autobiographical Memory Specificity: The Role Of Executive Function And Memory Orientation

Autobiographical memory is the aspect of memory that is concerned with therecollection of personally experienced past events, which can be divided into specificmemory, extended memory and categorical memory according to its feature and form.Most of studies used the autobiographical memory test (AMT) in which individualsare required to recall a temporally specific memory to each cue word. Zhao (2010)had discussed the relationship between field dependence-independence (FDI)cognitive style and autobiographical memory specificity (AMS) for the first time,which indicated that the level of AMS of field independence (FI) was higher than thatof field dependence (FD), and the cognitive style could predict the level of AMS.According to this conclusion, the present study try to discuss the mechanism forpeople to retrieve AM who has different cognitive styles. Considering the cognitivecharacter and social activities of different cognitive styles and the mechanism ofreduced AMS, present study discussed the role of executive function and memoryorientation in the relationgship between cognitive style and autobiographical memoryspecificity.Embedded Figures Test and AMT were used to measure the cognitive style andlevel of AMS of participants. Classical missions were used to measure thesub-components of executive function, including inhibition of prepotent responses,memory updating and attention switching. Then, we could count the number ofspecific memory to different cue words, and assort and encode to the content andsocial engament of AM in order to reflect the objects’specific memory orientation.Results: 1. Cognitive style has a significant effect on inhibiton and AMS. Theperformance of the group of FI in inhibiton and AMT is better than the group of FD. 2.Inhibiton has a significant effect on AMS. The performance of the high group of inhibiton is better than the low group of inhibiton. 3. Inhibiton is a significantmediator between cognitive style and AMS. Cognitive style affects AMS via theinhibiting fuction.4. There is no distinct relationship among cognitive style, AMS,shifting and updating.5. The group of FI retrieved more specific memories to the positive and negativecue words than the group of FD, but not to the neutral cue words. The number ofspecific memory the group of FI retrieved to the three types of cue words are nodifferent, the group of FD retrieve more specific memories than that to the positiveand neutral cue words. This indicates that the the group of FD intend to retrievespecific memory to the neutral cue words in the AMT, and the group of FI don’t haveobvious tendency. 6. The specific ratio of personal memory and social memory in thegroup of FI is higher than that in the group of FD observably. But the specific ratio inthe social engament is no different in both of the two groups. The social eagamentmemory’s ratio in the specific memory in the group of FD is higher than that in thegroup of FI observably, the personal memory and social memory’s ratio in the specificmemory is no different in both groups. This indicates that the the group of FD intendto retrieve social engagement memory as specific memory In the AMT, and the groupof FI don’t have obvious tendency.