Parent-child reminiscing fosters autobiographical memory, laying foundation for toddlers’ understanding of self and promoting long-term developmental outcomes, such as socioemotional skills and self-regulation (Salmon & Reese, 2016). Neurocognitive mechanisms of attention may explain how reminiscing supports these outcomes. Evidence from electrophysiological studies (Zangl & Mills, 2007) and parent-child reminiscing research (Waters et al., 2019) highlights its role in predicting language development.

This study examines relationship between reminiscing, attention, and autobiographical memory using midlatency negativity-central (Nc) component as a marker of attention. Data from 135 toddlers analyzed during a passive Flanker paradigm indicate parents’ elaborative questions (r = .39, p < .05) and confirmations (r = .44, p < .01) predict language outcomes. Children’s elaborations (r = .56, p < .001), evaluations (r = .37, p < .05), and memory repetitions (r = .41, p < .05) also correlate with language. Further analyses will explore links between Nc amplitude and language.

The family serves as a key context for the transmission of memories across generations. While previous research has explored the stories passed down from older to younger family members, no studies have directly examined the reasons for transmitting important memories to younger generations versus the reasons younger generations have for remembering these stories. In our study, we asked parents and grandparents to identify significant memories they had intentionally shared with their children or grandchildren, followed by completing a questionnaire about their motives for doing so. Similarly, the children and grandchildren were interviewed, asked to recall important memories they knew about their parent or grandparent, and then rated their reasons for remembering them. Our findings reveal a distinction between the motives for transmitting memories and those for remembering them. These results suggest that while memory transmission within families is a common practice, the generations involved engage in it for different reasons.

Juror decision-making involves complex interactions between individual cognitive abilities and group dynamics. This study examined how working memory capacity (WMC) and compliance influence memory performance and verdict decisions via a juror deliberation task. University students (N = 128, in groups of 5-8) listened to a fictional trial involving a robbery, recorded pre-deliberation verdicts, and participated in group deliberation before providing post-deliberation verdicts. Memory was assessed through free-recall tasks conducted both before and after deliberation, and via a recognition test (true/false) including source monitoring (information from the trial/deliberation/both). WMC, assessed using the Digit Span (Backward) task, predicted better overall free-recall performance but did not enhance recall after deliberation or predict source monitoring. Compliance, measured with the Gudjonsson Compliance Scale, was associated with poorer free-recall memory but did not influence verdict changes. These findings highlight the interplay of cognitive traits and deliberation dynamics, offering insights to improve jury processes and training.

Memory is not limited to the personally experienced events but also consists events experienced and told by others, termed Vicarious Memory. Through autobiographical reasoning, individuals not only construct life stories of themselves but also construct vicarious life stories. However, how the way individuals reason about others’ experiences to create vicarious life stories is related to their autobiographical reasoning in personal life stories was never investigated. The current study examined the low point, high point, and turning point memory narratives of 101 adolescents belonging to themselves and to their close friends. It was found that adolescents who narrated their personal life story more thematically coherent and richly elaborated interpretations tend to narrate their close friend’s life story in a similar vein, beyond the influence of age and gender. The study shed light on the personal and vicarious memory relation and the extension of personal narrative styles to stories of others.