Spatial context scaffolds long-term episodic richness of weaker real-world autobiographical memories in both older and younger adults

ABSTRACT

Remembering life experiences involves recalling not only what occurred (episodic details), but also where an event took place (spatial context), both of which decline with age. Although spatial context can cue episodic detail recollection, it is unknown whether initially recalling an event alongside greater reinstatement of spatial context protects memory for episodic details in the long term, and whether this is affected by age. Here, we analysed 1079 personally-experienced, real-world events from 29 older adults and 12 younger adults. Events were recalled first on average 6 weeks after they occurred and then again on average 24 weeks after they occurred. We developed a novel scoring protocol to quantify spatial contextual details and used the established Autobiographical Interview to quantify episodic details. We found improved recall of episodic details after a delay if those details had initially been recalled situated in greater spatial context. Notably, for both older and younger adults, this preservation was observed for memories initially recalled with low, but not high, numbers of episodic details, suggesting that spatial context aided episodic retrieval for memories that required more support. This work supports the notion that spatial context scaffolds detail-rich event recollection and inspires memory interventions that leverage this spatial scaffold.

KEYWORDS:

• Spatial context
• autobiographical episodic memory
• hippocampus
• aging

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Katherine Duncan for assistance and feedback with statistical analyses, data visualisations, and interpretation of results. We thank Rachel N. Newsome for her contributions to project conceptualisation and data collection for the studies that the current project analysed.

Authors’ contributions

M.C. and M.D.B. were involved in project conceptualisation, methodology, and development of the spatial contextual scoring protocol. B.H., K.S., M.E.M., and C.B.M. contributed to project conceptualisation, development of the spatial contextual scoring protocol, and data collection, transcription, and scoring of episodic details for the memory interviews that the current study analysed. M.C. performed interview scoring of spatial contextual and episodic details and statistical analyses for the current study. M.C., B.H., and M.D.B. discussed statistical analyses and interpretation of results. J.D. contributed to inter-rater reliability scoring and analysis. M.C. wrote the initial draft of the manuscript, with input from M.D.B, and both M.C. and M.D.B. revised and wrote the final manuscript. All authors provided feedback on the manuscript and approved the final version of the manuscript for submission.

Disclosure of interest

B.H., C.B.M, and M.D.B. own shares in Dynamic Memory Solutions Inc., a company focused on developing digital tools to improve memory. The University of Toronto holds the ownership rights to the HippoCamera technology used to collect the event cues for memory interviews the current project re-analysed but has given Dynamic Memory Solutions the rights to commercialise. No person, nor organisation received any financial remuneration for the use of the HippoCamera application in these studies. At the time of publication, this is a research-dedicated application that we will make available to other memory scientists at no charge.

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are openly available on OSF [https://osf.io/u38q2/] at https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/U38Q2.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Project Grants from the Canadian Institutes for Health Research to M.D.B. [grant number PJT-173336 and PJT-126003], a Scholar Award from the James S. McDonnell Foundation to M.D.B., a Connaught Innovation Award to M.D.B., and a Centre for Aging & Brain Health Innovation (CABHI) Researcher Clinician Partnership Program Grant to M.D.B. M.D.B. is supported by a Canada Research Chair and a Max and Gianna Glassman Chair in Neuropsychology. M.C. was also supported by an Undergraduate Student Research Award from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC USRA).