The Role of the Self in Autobiographical Memory in Adults with Autism

Background: In typical adults, self-referential information receives privileged encoding, which facilitates subsequent memory retrieval. This is especially true of information relating to personal goals (Conway & Pleydell-Pearce, 2000). However, several studies have shown that the ‘self-reference effect' in memory is either attenuated (Lombardo, Barnes, Wheelwright & Baron-Cohen, 2007) or completely absent (Toichi, Kamio, Okada et al., 2002) in adults with autism. Accordingly, autobiographical memory (memory for personally experienced events and self-related information) has also been found to be impaired in this group (e.g. Crane & Goddard, 2008).
Objectives: The main aim of the current study was to assess whether the autobiographical memory difficulties in adults with autism were related to difficulties in using the self as an effective memory cue. A further aim of the study was to assess both specific autobiographical memories (memories of individual events, e.g. ‘my wedding day’) and general autobiographical memories (memories of repeated occurrences, e.g. ‘going on holidays’), to identify whether one or both of these aspects of memory was impaired in autism.
Methods: 28 adults with autism and 28 comparison participants (matched for age, gender and IQ) selected a series of life-goals that they were currently pursuing from a list of 50 commonly pursued goals (taken from Moberly & MacLeod, 2006). These goal items, and a selection of non-goal items, were then used as memory ‘cues’ on a task assessing specific autobiographical memory retrieval, and on two tasks focused on the retrieval of general autobiographical memories. 
Results: Overall, the adults with autism took significantly longer to access both specific and general autobiographical memories than the comparison group; this delay was particularly pronounced for specific memory retrieval. Regarding the hypotheses concerning the self and memory, it was found that, as predicted, goal cues facilitated both specific and general autobiographical memory retrieval in the comparison group. In the autism group, goal cues were only found to enhance the retrieval of general autobiographical memories; no relationship was found between goal self-relevance and specific autobiographical memory retrieval in the adults with autism.
Conclusions: In line with the results of previous studies (e.g. Crane & Goddard, 2008), the current results suggest an autobiographical memory deficit in adults with autism. This deficit was found to be particularly pronounced for specific autobiographical memory retrieval; in contrast, retrieval of general autobiographical memories was only slightly delayed in the autism group. Interestingly, the adults with autism were able to use the self to facilitate general, but not specific, autobiographical memories. This suggests that the failure to use the self as an organisational system may be one factor underlying the specific autobiographical memory difficulties in autism. Specific autobiographical memories (opposed to general autobiographical memories) serve several important social functions; aiding in social problem-solving (Goddard, Dritschel & Burton, 1996), in providing information for social communication (Cohen, 1989) and in the formation and maintenance of social bonds (Pillemer, 1992). The specific autobiographical memory impairments in autism may therefore contribute to some of the social deficits observed in this group.