Abstract:

In the present research, features of autobiographical memory (content, point of view and time) were examined with respect to adolescent, early adult and elderly groups. 240 volunteers composed of 80 adolescents, 80 early adults and 80 elderly people participated in the research. An autobiographical memory test (4 positive and 4 negative adjectives) depending on cued-recall technique was applied to the subjects and the data were analysed descriptively. Consequently, the elderly recalled more memories related to positive words from social admiration category than the other groups. On the other hand, with respect to negative words, while adolescents recalled the most memories from friend controversy category, early adults recalled related to family and private relationships and the elderly people prefered remembering negative memories related to both family & private relationships and diseases categories. When the point of view of the memories was examined, for the positive words early adults used field point of view mostly, the elderly used observer point of view; for the negative words the elderly utilized field point of view, adolescents utilized observer point of view mostly. The given result can be explained by “wisdom tendency” in the elderly people. When the time of memories was examined, for both positive and negative words adolescents told their memories concerning the last five years mostly; the elderly told their memories relating to before the last five years mostly. Furthermore, when the words used in the research were considered in terms of semantics while the evaluations of all the groups for the positive words were higher than those for the negative words, the elderly evaluated the negative words more positive, so they showed a “positivity effect.”

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