L.S.Vygotsky in his historical-cultural theory postulated that: "'the central fact about our psychology is the fact of mediation". Higher mental functions are, by definition, culturally mediated; they involve not a 'direct' action on the world, but an indirect action, one that takes a bit of material matter used previously and incorporates it as an aspect of action. In so far as that matter has itself been shaped by prior human practice (e.g., it is an artifact), current action benefits from the mental work that produced the particular form of that matter. In such a view artifacts clearly do not serve simply to facilitate mental processes that would otherwise exist. Instead, they fundamentally shape and transform them.In Vygotsky's point of view of the psychological tools that mediate our thoughts, feelings, memory and behaviours, language is the most important. In my work I turned my attention to non-verbal artifacts, namely to personal photographs.
The main purpose of my study was to investigate personal photographs as cultural tool for autobiographical recollection. In my point of view, side by side with external cues (words, dates etc.) providing access to autobiographical memories, subjective internal cues should be considered in empirical research. Individuals have internal set of personal photographs, which we regard as an internal cues determining accessibility to 1) certain episodes of personal past; 2) life periods and 3) body image at different ages. It is important to note that in my research we concentrate not on photographs themselves, but on memories about photographs.
Subjects were asked to recollect photographs where they were represented on and then evaluate photographs in respect to vividness of mental image, familiarity and similarity of image and frequency of rehearsal. Then subjects were asked to answer for list of general questions. Questions concerned to content of photographs, to context of taking picture, which was not reflected in image (dynamical episode of past), to total number of photographs in private archives and to personal attitudes towards photographs.
It is clear that image represented on photograph is not identical with reminiscence of episode. Memory about photograph appears to be artificial montage of body image, which addresses to "past self" of person and situational context of experienced event. Person has never seen episode reconstructed on photograph, because it fixes photographer s view. Therefore, memories about photographs can be understood as kind of cue only. I purpose that both components (body image and context) of photographic image are involved into the process of autobiographical memory retrieval. But they play different role in it.
In my point of view, it looks reasonable to introduce model of four-steps retrieval mechanisms mediating by internal personal photographs. At the fist step person recognizes himself on photograph and, hence, marks coinciding piece of information as referring to autobiographical memory store. Body image on photograph directs retrieval process to certain life period (i.e. me, when I was a student or me, when I was infant ). Through this process using information from situational context, subject gets access to concrete episode from his or her past (phenomenological record). It is widely discussed that self-reference serves as a trigger for AM system. Presence of own image on personal photographs facilitates addressing to AM store and makes the task obvious.
In accordance with my hypothesis, ability to recollect the photograph reflects accessibility of life period to which this photograph addresses. Therefore consideration of age represented on photographs may be used for more precise definition of "reminiscence bump effect". Obtained data were analyzed through three steps: 1) analyses of memories about photographs; 2) analyses of memories about photographs as cues for autobiographical episodes and life periods; 3) analyses of temporal configuration of photographs; 4) analyses of connection between characteristics of photographs and individual differences.