Is the Road Still Bumpy Without the Most Frequent Life Events?

Abstract

Two studies were conducted to explore the effect of the most frequent life events on the reminiscence bump. Thefirststudy examined the life scripts and autobiographical memories of 44 adults [Mage= 62.8, standard deviation (SD) = 2.8] byremoving the most frequent 10 life events. The regular reminiscence bump disappeared in the distribution of both event types.The second study explored whether results of thefirst study would be extended to autobiographical memories evoked by differentmethods. Cue word and important memories reported by 64 adults (Mage= 66.6, SD = 2.8) were examined. Important memorieshad later bump than cue word memories, but removing the top 10 life events affected the bumps of both memory types with astronger impact on important memories. Different retrieval strategies activated by these two methods may lead to differenttemporal peaks, which further influence the sensitivity of distributions to the most frequent life event categories.