2.46 Autobiographical Memory -

2.46 Autobiographical MemoryM. A. Conway and H. L. Williams, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK

ª 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

2.46.1 Introduction
893
2.46.2 A Brief Biography of Autobiographical Memory Research
893
2.46.3 The Representation of Autobiographical Knowledge in Long-Term Memory
895
2.46.4 Episodic Memory
899
2.46.5 Self-Defining Memories
901
2.46.6 Self-Images
902
2.46.7 The Life Span Distribution of Autobiographical Memories
903
2.46.8 Closing Section: Why Do We Have Autobiographical Memory?
906
References
906
2.46.1 Introduction

The term autobiographical memory refers to ourmemory for specific episodes, episodic memory, andto our conceptual, generic, and schematic knowledgeof our lives, autobiographical knowledge. Typicallythese two types of long-term memory representationare brought together in an act of remembering wherethey form a specific memory. Consider the followingexample:

My earliest memories relate to a time in my child-

hood when we were living in Malta. I was about four

years old. We lived in the most glorious Italian

house on the sea which had a great big flagstone

hall and shutters looking out to the sea and a sweep-

ing staircase that led up to the first floor and, I think

this is true, but it seems wrong somehow because my

parents were very kind to me. I remember having to

stand looking at the wall halfway up the stairs

because I couldn’t remember the days of the week

and I was taught them with reference to the gods,

you know, Thor’s day, Woden’s day and so forth,

and that I remember very vividly. One lunchtime I

was asked to repeat them and I couldn’t remember

them and my father told me to go and stand halfway

up this great big sweeping staircase and just look at

the wall. (Taken from the BBC Radio 4 Memory

Survey, July 2006, which collected 11,000 memories

from the general public.)

There are various segments of autobiographicalknowledge in this memory, e.g., when we lived inMalta, my parents were kind to me, some genericvisual imagery, e.g., how various features of the houselooked, and some highly specific knowledge of time,

locations, and actions. Autobiographical memories veryfrequently come to mind as these compilations ofdifferent types of knowledge are configured into amemory in a specific act of remembering. As suchthey clearly illustrate the highly constructive natureof autobiographical remembering. We will return tomemory construction in a later section, but now thatwe have some idea of what is meant by the termautobiographical memory, we might ask about how ithas been studied. After all, autobiographical memoriesare personally important memory representations.They are the content of the self and define who weare, who we have been, and, importantly, who we canyet become. They enable us to have a past, present, andfuture in which we exist as individuals. They are,therefore, one of our most important bodies of knowl-edge and because of that would have been, it might bethought, the focus of memory research for manydecades.

2.46.2 A Brief Biography ofAutobiographical Memory Research

Remarkably, however, the study of autobiographicalmemory has mainly taken place over the last 2 dec-ades, whereas as the formal scientific study ofmemory itself is at least over a century old, dating,arguably, to the seminal work of Herman Ebbinghaus(1885). Ebbinghaus famously studied memory forrelatively meaningless items, such as short lists ofconstant-vowel-constant (CVC) letter strings. Lesswell known is that he also studied memory for mean-ingful materials such as passages of prose, poetry, etc.Ebbinghaus concluded that memory for these latter

893

894 Autobiographical Memory

materials was influenced by too many factors beyondthe experimenter’s control and because of this thescientific or experimental study of memory would bemore surely advanced using materials that theexperimenter had powerful control over, such asCVC strings. Ebbinghaus’s view held sway and theexperimental study of memory in the laboratoryhas generally used to-be-remembered materials gen-erated and controlled by the experimenter. Almostby definition this excludes autobiographical mem-ories, as these are formed outside the laboratory inour everyday lives in response to complicated mean-ingful experiences – experiences over which theexperimenter has no control.

Given the dominance of experimental studies ofmemory, it is perhaps not so surprising that it is onlyin relatively recent times that autobiographical mem-ory has received any attention at all. According toone view, science moves from the simple to thecomplex and perhaps it was the case that someunderstanding of memory, deriving from experimen-tal studies, had to be attained before the field couldgrapple with the complexities of autobiographicalmemory and the inevitable role in memory of mys-terious entities such as the self, goals, and emotion.There is no doubt some truth in this but, as with allhistory including personal history, the story is morecomplicated. So, for instance, at the time Ebbinghauswas writing his field-defining book, another greatnineteenth-century scientist, Sir Francis Galton(1883), was reporting his seminal work into memory.One aspect of this research focused on the recall ofautobiographical memories. Galton was interested inhow many memories we have and developed a tech-nique that 100 years later became known as the cueword technique. In this procedure, Galton revealedto himself, one at a time, words he had previouslyarranged into an alphabetical list. In response to eachword, he noted what thoughts passed through hismind. So when reading abasement, abhorrence, etc.(remember this was Victorian England), he wouldwrite out his thoughts. He carried out this procedurefor the fairly long list of words on several separateoccasions. There were a wide range of findings butone striking outcome was that many of his thoughtswere (autobiographical) memories and they oftencame to mind in the form of visual mental images.Galton was rather disappointed to discover that therewas not an endless variety in his thoughts or mem-ories and that he often recalled the same thoughts/memories on subsequent occasions of testing. Heconcluded that we probably have far fewer memories

than we imagine we have – about 6500 according to

one researcher who tried to recall all her memories

(Smith, 1952).An obvious problem with Galton’s method is that

once a subject has recalled a memory, then that

memory became associated with the cue word and

as such was much more likely to be recalled on

subsequent occasions. If so, then Galton may well

have underestimated the extent of his autobiographi-

cal memories. Nonetheless, the cue word method has

proved especially useful in more contemporary stud-

ies of autobiographical memory and Galton’s original

work remains a rewarding read for memory research-

ers, as does Ebbinghaus’s important book.Another book from this period that remains sig-

nificant is Theodore Ribot’s (1882) classic case

studies of memory distortions and malfunction fol-

lowing brain injury. This work also contains one of

the first theories of autobiographical memory and is

worth consulting for that alone. Other memory

researchers from the late nineteenth century also

studied autobiographical memory (see Conway,

1990, 2004, for reviews), and among them Henri

and Henri (1896, 1898) conducted the first autobio-

graphical memory survey. However, psychology

came to be dominated by behaviorism, at the heart

of which was the belief that all psychological theory

should be built upon that which was observable. As

memories are internal mental states, they cannot be

studied by direct observation but can only be inferred

by their effects upon behavior, i.e., upon what can be

recalled in an experiment where the conditions of

learning, retention, and remembering are highly con-

trolled. This approach became known as verbal

learning. Indeed, the dominant journal in the area

was called the Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal

Behavior (renamed in the 1980s the Journal of Memory

and Language). For many decades, verbal learning

dominated memory research and in many respects

still does. A lone voice during this period was the

British researcher Sir Fredrick Bartlett, whose

famous book Remembering: A Study in Experimental and

Social Psychology (1932) is generally credited with

having created and maintained a different tradition

in memory research. In this tradition, the concept of a

schema (some sort of general representation of simi-

lar experiences, narrative, and cultural conventions)

was central and social interactions and culture played

important roles in remembering. Bartlett was, how-

ever, largely uninterested in detailed memories of

specific experiences – what we now call episodic

Autobiographical Memory 895

memories. Because of this, his work did not rein-vigorate the study of autobiographical memory.

Instead the reemergence of the study of autobio-graphical memory after 100 years of silence (Cohen,1989) started to take place in the 1970s and gatheredpace in the 1980s. Figure 1 shows the cumulativefrequency of papers, by year since 1970, that haveused the phrase autobiographical memory. Thisadmittedly is a crude index of research activity intothe topic, but as crude as it is, it nonethelessdepicts very strikingly how autobiographical memoryresearch has rapidly increased and developed in thelast 35 years. So what happened to end the century ofsilence? There were, arguably, two main forces thatled to renewed interest in this important aspect ofmemory. The first was the gradual emergence of neu-ropsychology as a distinct research area and within itthe study of malfunctions of human memory followingbrain damage. One of the striking symptoms ofpatients with memory impairments caused by braindamage is that they virtually always have disruptedautobiographical memory. In a particularly importantpaper Crovitz and Schiffman (1974) reintroduced theGalton cue word method as a way of eliciting auto-biographical memories in normal populations andlater in patients with closed head injuries sufferingfrom various degrees of amnesia, thus simultaneouslyrediscovering both Galton and Ribot. The secondforce was the developing interest within cognitivescience in how to model and represent stories andmemories. An important paper here that demonstratedhow autobiographical memory might be studied under

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

160

180

200

1976

1977

1978

1979

1980

1981

1982

1983

1984

1985

1986

1987

1988

1989

1990

1991

1Ye

Figure 1 Frequency of articles or research reviews published

abstract, or key words from 1970 to 2006. Data obtained from I

laboratory conditions was that of Robinson (1976),who also used the cue word method to investigatedifferences between memories with different types ofaffect. Add to this Brown and Kulik’s (1977) originalsurvey of flashbulb memories, a rather timely remin-der from Neisser (1978) about the narrowness ofmemory research in the 1970s and preceding decades,and the highly significant volume edited by Neisser(1982), Memory Observed, which reprinted many of thepapers of earlier researchers on autobiographicalmemory and other then-neglected areas of memory,and a strong impetus was in place to rejuvenateresearch into autobiographical memory. It is, perhaps,important to note that the renewed interest, reflectedin Figure 1, had its roots in a rediscovery of theoriginal work of Galton, Ribot, and others (see tooRapaport, 1950, for an especially interesting review ofemotion and memory). It might be noted that themethods used by these early researchers – studyingone’s own memory, investigating malfunctions anddistortions of memories, and surveying memories –also re-emerged in the contemporary study of auto-biographical memory, and it is to the findings of thesemore recent studies we now turn.

2.46.3 The Representation ofAutobiographical Knowledge inLong-Term Memory

This section reviews current thinking about thenature of autobiographical knowledge. It is important

99219

9319

9419

9519

9619

9719

9819

9920

0020

0120

0220

0320

0420

0520

06

ar

using the term autobiographical memory in the article title,

SI Web of Knowledge, January 2007.


to note that a full review of findings is not undertakenhere and instead only main findings and their impli-cations are considered. One current model proposesthat autobiographical memories are generated in theself-memory system or SMS (Conway and Pleydell-Pearce, 2000). Very briefly, the SMS is considered tobe a virtual memory system consisting of a temporaryinteraction between control or executive processingsystems with a complex multilayered long-termmemory knowledge base. Another way to conceiveof this is as an interaction between currently active,dynamic, or fluid aspects of the self with more per-manent, long-term, or crystallized representations ofthe self and attributes of the self. The dynamic orexecutive aspect of the self is termed the working self.The working self consists of a complex hierarchy ofcurrently active goals (Conway and Pleydell-Pearce,2000) through which memories are encoded andretrieved. The working self also contains whatConway et al. (2004) termed the conceptual self,which in turn consists of beliefs, evaluations, andcurrently active self-images of what the self hasbeen in the past, currently is considered to be, andwhat it may become in the future.

The working self regulates the construction ofnew memories in the SMS, at both encoding andduring retrieval, by controlling access to the au-tobiographical memory knowledge base. Figure 2illustrates this relation between the working self and

The working self

Goal hierarchy Conceptual self Self images

Autobiographical knowledge base

Autobiographicalknowledge

Episodic memories

Control processes

Figure 2 The relationship between the working self and

the autobiographical knowledge base.

the knowledge base. The working self modulatesmemory by controlling the cues that are used toactivate knowledge in the knowledge base. This isachieved by shaping cues so that particular types ofinformation are activated. For example, a personasked to recall a memory of childhood might recalltheir earliest memory. Thus, elaborating the cuefrom ‘recall a memory from childhood’ into the cue‘recall my earliest memory.’ This elaboration maytake place several times as a cue is fine-tuned toaccess the information sought. An idea central tothe SMS model is that specific autobiographicalmemories are formed when stable patterns of activa-tion exist over interconnected representationsof autobiographical knowledge and associated episo-dic memories. Thus, when conceptual and genericknowledge of the attributes of a house one lived in asa child, the relationship one had with one’s parents,and a specific (episodic) memory of a moment in timeare all activated together and interlinked, then therememberer has the experience of remembering andtheir consciousness is dominated by a specific mem-ory – as in the example we started with. It is thesedifferent types of autobiographical knowledge andtheir organization in long-term memory that we areconcerned with next and we return to considering theprocess of constructing memories in a subsequentsection.

According to the SMS model, long-term memorycontains two distinct types of autobiographicalrepresentation: autobiographical knowledge andepisodic memories. Autobiographical knowledge isorganized in partonomic hierarchical knowledgestructures (Conway and Bekerian, 1987; Barsalou,1988; Conway, 1993, 1996; Lancaster and Barsalou,1997; Burt et al. 2003) that range from highlyabstract and conceptual knowledge (such as thatcontained in the conceptual self) to conceptualknowledge that is event-specific and experience-near. Autobiographical memory knowledge struc-tures terminate in episodic memories, the secondtype of autobiographical representation containedin the autobiographical knowledge base. Figure 3illustrates how these complex autobiographicalmemory knowledge structures might be representedin long-term memory.

The upper part of Figure 3 focuses on autobio-graphical knowledge and specifically on the lifestory, lifetime periods, and general events (Conway,2005). These divisions of autobiographical knowl-edge are on a dimension of specificity, and at themost abstract level is a structure termed the life story

Life story

RelationshipthemeWork theme

Working atpub X:OthersGoalsLocationsProjectsActivities

Friendswith Y:OthersActivitiesLocationsProjectsGoals

The

con

cept

ual s

elf

Epi

sodi

c m

emor

ies

Themes

Lifetimeperiods

Generalevents

SupervisorClearing tables

Pay rise Becoming awaitress

MeetingGeorge

Leeds

Figure 3 Knowledge structures in autobiographical memory. Adapted from Conway MA (2005) Memory and the self.

J. Mem. Lang. 53(4): 594–628.


(Pillemer, 1998; Bluck and Habermas, 2001; Bluck,

2003). The life story contains general factual and

evaluative knowledge about the individual. It may

also contain self-images that divide and separate the

self into several different selves. It is represented in

more or less coherent sets of themes that character-

ize, identify, and give meaning to a whole life (Bluck

and Habermas, 2000, 2001). Divisions in the life story

may be supported by the way in which different self-

images contain cues that differentially access other

knowledge in the autobiographical knowledge base.

For example, a self that accesses a particular lifetime

period (see Figure 3) will have cues that are chan-

neled by knowledge represented as part of the

lifetime period, which in turn can be used to access

particular sets of general events that contain cues to


specific episodic memories. It in this way that amemory can be gradually formed or constructed.

Lifetime periods contain representations of loca-tions, people, activities, feelings, and goals common tothe period they represent. They effectively encapsulatea period in memory and in so doing provide furtherways in which access to autobiographical knowledge ischanneled, or directed. Lifetime periods have beenfound to contain evaluative knowledge, negative andpositive, of progress in goal attainment (Beike andLandoll, 2000), and lifetime periods may play animportant role in the life story. For instance, lifetimeperiods may provide autobiographical knowledge thatcan be used to form life story schema and thus supportthe generation of themes. Lifetime periods may beparticularly appropriate for this because of the goal-evaluative information they contain. For example, alifetime period such as ‘when I was at university,’ willconsist of representations of people, locations, activ-ities, feelings, and goals common to the period but willalso contain some general evaluation of the period, i.e.,this was an anxious time for me, living away fromhome was difficult, I was lonely, I found the work toodifficult, etc. (see Cantor and Kihlstrom, 1985).

The life story and lifetime periods are part of theconceptual self where they represent a summaryaccount of the self and its history, and where theycan be used to initiate and focus searches of the auto-biographical knowledge base. General events, on theother hand, are more clearly part of the knowledgebase itself and have been found to play important rolesin organizing personal knowledge. General events aremore strongly event-specific than lifetime periods butnot as event-specific as sensory-perceptual episodicmemories, which are directly derived from actualexperience (Conway, 2001, 2005). General eventsrefer to a variety of autobiographical knowledge struc-tures such as single events, e.g., the day we went toLondon; repeated events, e.g., work meetings; andextended events, e.g., our holiday in Spain (Barsalou,1988). General events are organized in several differentways. For example, they can take the form of mini-histories structured around detailed and sometimesvivid episodic memories of goal attainment in devel-oping skills, knowledge, and personal relationships(Robinson, 1992). Some general events may be ofexperiences of particular significance for the self andact as reference points for other associated generalevents (Singer and Salovey, 1993; Pillemer, 1998). Yetother general events may be grouped together becauseof their emotional similarity (McAdams et al.,2001), and it is likely that there are yet other

forms of organization at this level which await investi-gation(see for example, Brown and Schopflocher, 1998).However, the research currently available indicatesthat organization of autobiographical knowledge atthe level of general events is extensive and it appearsto virtually always refer to progress in the attainmentof highly self-relevant goals. General event knowl-edge then represents information highly relevant tothe goal hierarchy of the working self.

In one study of this type of knowledge, Robinson(1992) examined people’s memories for the acquisi-tion of skills, e.g., riding a bicycle, driving a car, andfor aspects of personal relationships. These generalevents were found to be organized around setsof vivid memories relating to goal attainment.Consider two examples from Robinson’s study:

Ever agreeable, and eager to do anything that would

get me out of the doldrums of inferiority, my father

rented a bike and undertook to help me to learn to

ride it. I shall always remember those first few glor-

ious seconds when I realized I was riding on my

own. . . (Quinn, 1990, cited in Robinson, 1992: 224.)

The first time I flew an airplane was one of the best

firsts. It marked a sense of accomplishment for

myself, and it also started me on the career path I

have always wanted to follow. The day was warm

and hazy, much as summer days in Louisville are.

My nervousness didn’t help the situation, as I per-

spired profusely. But as we took off from runway 6

the feeling of total euphoria took over, and I was no

longer nervous or afraid. We cruised at 2500 feet and

I worked on some basic manoeuvres for approxi-

mately 45 minutes. We then returned to the

airport, where I realized that this will soon be a

career. (Robinson, 1992: 226.)

These first-time memories cue other relatedmemories and the whole general event carriespowerful self-defining evaluations that persist overlong periods of time.

Relatively recent experiences, particularly thoseoccurring during the current lifetime period, that giverise to sets of multiply related general events andassociated episodic memories must be represented interms of the currently active goals of the working selfthat dominate at the time. Burt et al. (2003) investigatedthis for several extended events, e.g., Christmas shop-ping. In these studies, events were sorted into groupsby participants, and from these groupings currentlyactive themes were identified. Figure 4 shows theorganization of a series of episodic memories associated

ThemePARENTS

Event

R and I had a goodlook at someinteresting houses ina magazine

R and I put in anoffer on a house inBishopsdale andthey accepted

23/11/97

30/11/97

ThemeHOUSE

Buying ahouse

ThemeSPORT

We were at home when Rtold me that the dye that thecouncil had put down thetoilet was connected to thecouncil system

Arrived home and R told methere was a major problem with the sewage system ofthe house we are buying

16/12/97

18/12/97

Had a major bout ofdepression and could notstop crying, swearing, andyelling at R at home

13/12/97

R and I received the loan approval at home

5/12/97

R and I met thebuilder at the newplace to get thebuilder’s consent

4/12/97

R, I, and our mobilemortgage manager talkedabout our loan application

1/12/97

Memories

Figure 4 Episodic memories associated with the general event of buying a house. From Burt CDB, Kemp S, and Conway

MA (2003) Themes, events, and episodes in autobiographical memory. Mem. Cogn. 31: 317–325.


with the general event of buying a house (Burt et al.,

2003). The themes shown in Figure 4 are all associated

with other memories as well and with lifetime periods

in which the themes were present. The findings of Burt

et al. (2003) demonstrate that general events typically

access groups of episodic memories that connect thegeneral event to unique and specific moments in time.

One important property of this organization is that

when goals change and new themes and lifetime per-

iods become central to the working self, a record of the

past concerns of an older version of the working self

exists in the form of general events and the colonies of

episodic memories they access. Thus, even if no goalinformation is explicitly encoded, it can, to at least

some extent, be inferred from the groupings of general

events and the associated episodic memories. Indeed,Robinson found that many memories featured goal-related evaluative knowledge or self-defining mem-ories (Singer and Salovey, 1993) along with moregeneral knowledge and specific episodic memories.General events provide, then, records of complicatedand extended goal-related activities. These havepowerful implications for the self, especially the con-ceptual self, and how a person evaluates their self.

2.46.4 Episodic Memory

So far we have been concerned with autobiographicalknowledge, but specific autobiographical memories

Table 1 Eight characteristics of episodic memory

I They retain summary records of sensory-perceptual-conceptual-affective processing derived from working memory.II They are predominantly represented in the form of (visual) images.

III They represent short time slices, determined by changes in goal processing.

IV They are only retained in a durable form if they become linked to conceptual autobiographical knowledge. Otherwisethey are rapidly forgotten.

V Their main function is to provide a short-term record of progress in current goal processing.

VI They are recollectively experienced when accessed.

VII When included as part of an autobiographical memory construction, they provide specificity.VIII Neuroanatomically they may be represented in brain regions separate from other (conceptual) autobiographical

knowledge networks.


consist of autobiographical knowledge and episodic

memories. Episodic memories are, however, rather

different types of representations. Table 1 lists eightcharacteristics of episodic memories (from Conway,

2005, Table 4), and each of these is now considered in

turn. The first three characteristics of episodic mem-ories (numbered I, II, and III) in Table 1 concern

properties of episodic memories. First, the content of

episodic memories is highly event-related and con-sists of detailed records of sensory-perceptual and

conceptual-affective processing that was prominent

during the original experience. Note that these aresummary rather than literal representations, although

they may occasionally contain some exact represen-tations of processing that occurred during an

experience (see the last paragraph of this section).

Second, although they can, and indeed do, containinformation from all the sensory modalities, they

have been found to be predominantly visual in nature

(see Brewer, 1988, for an interesting early study ofthe content of episodic memories). Finally they

represent short time-slices of experience highly

related to the moment-by-moment segmentation ofexperience into events (Williams et al., 2007b; Zacks

et al., 2007).Clearly, many episodic memories will be formed

every day and simply casting one’s mind back overthe events of the day will bring to mind many highly

detailed and specific episodic memories of events

which occurred earlier in the day (see Williamset al., 2007b). In subsequent days, however, as the

retention interval lengthens, many of these episodicmemories, which are often of rather low self-rele-

vance, routine events, become inaccessible. Even

those that are retained over longer retention intervalsare often not as detailed as they were close to the

point of their formation. It has been suggested that

only those episodic memories that are linked in someway to currently active goals become integrated with

autobiographical knowledge in long-term memory.

Episodic memories that become integrated in this

way are retained over long retention intervals mea-sured in months, years, decades, and even a lifetime

(point IV in Table 1). Relatedly, the SMS model

posits that one of the main functions of episodicmemories is to provide a record of recent goal-pro-

cessing episodes. Episodic memories provide a way in

which to rapidly and effectively check that goal-related actions have been executed. They let the

rememberer know that they did, for instance, lock

the door, post the letter, have a coffee, and so on. Ifone of these routine events mapped onto an impor-

tant goal or set of goals, then the episodic memorymight become integrated with other knowledge in

the autobiographical knowledge base and so become

an enduring episodic memory. The study of self-defining experiences, the experience of trauma, and

vivid memories generally provide many examples of

how episodic memories become important parts ofthe autobiographical knowledge base, where they

endure for many years (see Pillemer, 1998; Ehlers

and Clark, 2000; Singer, 2005).Points VI and VII in Table 1 focus on another

important aspect of episodic memories – that they are

very highly associated with the experience of remem-

bering. This is often referred to as recollectiveexperience, and this and other forms of memory

awareness have been the focus of many contemporary

memory studies (see Tulving, 1985; Gardiner andRichardson-Klavehn, 2000, for reviews). Memory

awareness in autobiographical remembering appearsto be triggered or activated when an episodic memory

enters conscious awareness (Conway, 2001, 2005),

although it can also occur in other ways (cf. Moulinet al., 2005). Episodic memories, when they enter the

construction of an autobiographical memory, cause

the experience of remembering and also providedthe constructed memory with specificity. As we will


see, the specificity of the memory is important and is aquality that can be lost when memory malfunctionsin, for example, psychological illness. Specificity pro-vides a link to the experience of the world, andepisodic memories are experience-near representa-tions and stand in contrast to autobiographical andother conceptual knowledge which is experience-dis-tant. Thus, the experience of remembering andmemory specificity are important qualities of episodicmemories. Finally, in Table 1 (see VII), it is suggestedthat episodic memories might be represented in aseparate brain region from more autobiographicalconceptual knowledge (this is elaborated in Conway,2005). We will return to this issue in the closingsection of this chapter, but we might note here onegeneral and intriguing finding that seems to supportit: patients who suffer brain damage which has led toamnesia for much of their preinjury life, and espe-cially amnesia for preinjury episodic memories, havenonetheless been found to retain often extensive auto-biographical knowledge (Conway and Fthenaki,2000).

2.46.5 Self-Defining Memories

The autobiographical knowledge base is complexand represents the personal history of an individualin different ways, i.e., as knowledge and as specificmemories. Because of this complexity, the knowledgebase is highly organized and some parts are moreaccessible than other parts. Generally, those autobio-graphical knowledge structures that are stronglyassociated with current goals and current images ofthe self are in a more accessible state than knowledgestructures that are currently less self-relevant. In thissection, we consider how the relation to the self canshape and organize autobiographical memory.

One important type of personal knowledge thatappears to be highly accessible to the self is that ofself-defining memories (SDMs). An SDM is a specifictype of autobiographical memory that has the follow-ing attributes: affective intensity, vividness, highlevels of rehearsal, linkage to similar memories, andconnection to an enduring concern or unresolvedconflict (Singer and Moffitt, 1991/1992; Singer andSalovey, 1993; Singer, 2005). Self-defining memoriescan be distinguished from other types of vividmemories. For example, flashbulb memories, as ori-ginally defined by Brown and Kulik (1977), are aparticularly vivid and affective form of personalevent memory (Pillemer, 1998), often about

important public events. They have been found to beassociated with four interrelated variables: surprise,consequentiality, importance, and emotion (Conway,1995). Having these qualities does not necessarilyindicate, however, that the memory is central toenduring goals of the self, and it is certainly possibleto have highly vivid memories of events that are low inself-relevance (Conway et al., 2004). Importantly then,the two distinguishing criteria for self-definingmemories that differentiate them from other vividmemories are, first, their linkage to other memorieswithin the individual that share similar personalthemes and, second, their relevance to the individual’senduring concerns or unresolved conflicts.

Both of these features – linkage of similar mem-ories and relevance to concerns and conflicts – havebeen investigated in research into individuals’ moti-vations and goals. For example, Thorne et al. (1998)looked at young adults’ important relationship mem-ories generated in two interviews over a 6-monthperiod of time. Participants had freedom to describesimilar or different relationship episodes in the secondinterview. Thorne et al. scored the memories forsocial motives for the memories that varied fromtime 1 to time 2, as well as the points of emphasis inthe twice-told memories. For both unique memoriesand repeated memories, the authors found ‘‘moderatethematic consistency’’ (Thorne et al., 1998: 258), indi-cating that these memories, even when varying incontent, reflected similar motivational themes andnarrative structures. In a related study, Demorestand Alexander (1992) had raters code individuals’significant personal memories for overarching inter-personal scripts. A month later, these same individualsgenerated a set of fictional scenarios. Raters coded thethemes of these scenarios and found striking overlapin terms of thematic continuity between the originalmemories and the imaginary stories. These results,along with those of Thorne et al. (1998), suggest thatindividuals link remembered and imagined experi-ences through personally significant themes. Thesethemes originate, according to the SMS model, fromthe goals of the working self, but later can also serve toinfluence its ongoing goal processing.

Further evidence of the relationship of self-defin-ing memories to individuals’ enduring conflicts andconcerns comes from the work of Singer and col-leagues (Singer, 1990; Moffitt and Singer, 1994;Singer, 2005). These researchers found the affectivequality of self-defining memories to be a function ofthe relevance of the memories to the attainment of aperson’s most desired goals. Moreover, this was found


to be the case not only for memories relevant to theattainment of approach goals (desired goals), but alsofor memories about active efforts to avoid the con-sequences of undesired outcomes (Moffitt and Singer,1994). Singer et al. (2002) additionally reported thatthe more personal growth students attributed tomemories that grew out of community serviceexperiences, the more likely these students were toplace an overall emphasis on generative goal pursuitsin their lives (see also de St. Aubin and McAdams,1995). Similarly, in examining the relationship ofturning-point and other significant personal mem-ories to overall themes of the personality, McAdams(McAdams, 1982; McAdams et al., 1996) has consis-tently found power-oriented memories to be linked toagentic or individualistic motives, while intimacy-oriented memories reflected communal, social, andrelationship motives. Jardine (1999) found thatwomen counselors who experienced life transitionsduring their clinical training associated themes fromtheir self-defining memories with their set of possibleselves (Markus and Nurius, 1986). In a series of clin-ical case studies involving both individual andcouples in psychotherapy, Singer found self-definingmemories to be linked to critical relationship themeswhich were expressed in both clients’ intimate rela-tionships and in the transference dynamics of thetherapy (Singer and Singer, 1992, 1994; Singer andSalovey, 1996; Singer, 2001; Singer and Blagov, 2004).

In addition to their linkage to goals, SDMs also canplay directive and mood regulatory functions for theself (Pillemer, 1998, 2003; Bluck, 2003). For example,SDMs have been found to play a role in providing lifelessons or integrative meanings that help individualsin optimal adjustment and personal growth. This iswhat Bluck (2003) termed the directive function ofautobiographical memories. Blagov and Singer (2004)demonstrated that individuals with larger numbers ofSDMs that contained reflective themes or messages,as reliably coded by three raters (see Singer andBlagov (2000) for an SDM coding manual), displayedoptimal levels of self-restraint and emotional expres-sion, as measured by the Weinberger AdjustmentInventory Short Form (Weinberger, 1997, 1998).Thorne et al. (2004) found that, compared to othertypes of personal memories, individuals were morelikely to rely on SDMs involving tension or goalconflict to provide insights and life lessons.

SDMs provide information that can guide anddirect the individual in everyday life. One specificform of directive function is the regulation of mood.Josephson et al. (1996) found that nondepressed

individuals enlisted positive memories to repairnegative moods, while mildly depressed individualswere less likely to recruit positive memories after anegative mood had been induced. Similarly, Moffittet al. (1994) found that depressed individuals wereless likely to recall SDMs when asked to retrieve apositive memory, while they did not differ in mem-ory specificity for negative memories. Williams(1996), though not specifically addressing SDMs,has argued that a lack of memory specificity indepressed and suicidal individuals reflects a cognitivedeficit generalized from a learned defense againstencoding and retrieving affectively threatening self-relevant experiences. In summary, the findings froma broad range of studies converge on the view thatSDMs are central to goals and conflicts within theindividual (see Singer, 2005); they provide importantintegrative lessons, insights, or directives for theworking self (see especially Pillemer, 1998); andthey may regulate mood in important ways.

2.46.6 Self-Images

Conway et al. (2004) describe what they termed theconceptual self. One important knowledge structure inthe conceptual self are self-images. It is proposed thatself-images are knowledge structures that summarizecomplex sets of interlinked autobiographical knowledgeand episodic memories that cumulatively support aparticular view or version of the self. (Note that self-images can be permanent stable representations or moretransitory, fleeting mental representations.) Conway(2005) proposes that these summary representationsmay often be experienced as images and hence theterm self-images. A question of some interest here ishow self-images are related to selective sets of mem-ories. Rathbone et al. (2006; described in Conway, 2005)studied this by having a group of middle-aged partici-pants complete a short questionnaire in which theycompleted six ‘I am. . .’ statements (Kuhn andMcPartland, 1954). An ‘I am. . .’ could be anything, forexample, I am bad, I am sociable, I am a banker, I am amother, etc. Later each person recalled specific auto-biographical memories to each of their ‘I am. . .’statements. The dates of the memories, expressed inage at encoding, and the dates of the emergence of the‘I am. . .’ statement were then compared; Figure 5shows the distribution of age at encoding of the mem-ories relative to age of emergence of the ‘I ams. . .’.Figure 5 strikingly shows that age at encoding clustersaround the date of emergence of the ‘I ams. . .,’ strongly

Per

cent

age

of m

emor

ies

–40

–36

–32

–28

–24

–20

–16

–12 –8 –4 0 4 8 12 16 20 24 28 32 36 40

0.0

Age of memories (in 2-year bins) relativeto date of formation of ‘I ams’

2.0

4.0

6.0

8.0

10.0

12.0

14.0

Figure 5 Distribution of memories recalled to ‘‘I ams. . .’’ (Rathbone et al., 2006).


suggesting that ‘I ams. . .’ or self-images are grounded in

sets of memories of formative experiences.Further work found that the ‘I ams. . .’ could be

categorized into two broad classes: roles and traits,

e.g., I am a student versus I am charming. However,

both types of ‘I ams. . .,’ role and trait, gave rise to the

same distribution as that shown for ‘I ams. . .’ overall

in Figure 5. Both role and trait ‘I ams. . .’ seem then

to be marked in memory by highly accessible specific

memories that come first to mind when the ‘I am. . .’is processed. This may reflect the grounding of these

aspects of the conceptual self, self-images, in subsets

of memories and knowledge that define and provide

the content for that self-image. This differentiation

of the self, supported by the organization of auto-

biographical memory into self-images, might be

particularly important in the development of the

self – a point we return to after considering the

50

10

20

Period ofchildhoodamnesia

Thereminscencebump

30

Num

ber

of m

emor

ies

40

50

60

10 15 20 25Age at encodin

Figure 6 Idealized representation of the life span retrieval curv

Lang. 53(4): 594–628.

distribution of memories over the life span and the

significance of this for the self.

2.46.7 The Life Span Distribution ofAutobiographical Memories

Important periods of development of the self are

reflected in the life span retrieval curve which is

observed when older adults (about 35 years and

older) recall autobiographical memories in free recall

or in a variety of cued recall conditions (Franklin and

Holding, 1977; Fitzgerald and Lawrence, 1984; Rubin

et al., 1986, 1998). Memories are plotted in terms of

age at encoding of the remembered experiences, and

the resulting life span retrieval curve typically takes a

form similar to that shown in Figure 6 (this is an

Period ofrecency

g (in 5-year bins)30 35 40 45 50

e. From Conway MA (2005) Memory and the self. J. Mem.


idealized representation derived from many studies

and not based on specific data).As Figure 6 shows, the life span retrieval curve

consists of three components: the period of childhood

amnesia (from birth to approximately 5 years of age),

the period of the reminiscence bump (from 10 to 30

years), and the period of recency (from the present

declining back to the period of the reminiscence

bump). The pattern of the life span retrieval curve

is extremely robust and has been observed in many

studies – to such an extent that it led Rubin to

conclude that it was one of the most reliable phenom-

ena of contemporary memory research (Conway and

Rubin, 1993). This reliability is remarkably striking.

In a recent study, Conway et al. (2005) sampled

groups from five different countries: the United

States, the United Kingdom, Bangladesh, Japan, and

China. Figure 7 shows the life span retrieval curves

for each of these countries. (Note that participants

were instructed not to recall events from the previous

year to eliminate the recency portion of the curve.)It can be seen from Figure 7 that there were

highly similar periods of childhood amnesia and

reminiscence bump across countries. This further

demonstrates the robustness of the life span retrieval

curve and perhaps its universality. If the data for the

five countries are collapsed together and an overall

life span retrieval curve plotted, then the remarkably

consistent distribution shown in the idealized curve

of Figure 6 is observed.There are many theoretical explanations of the

period of childhood amnesia (see Pillemer and White

1989; Wang, 2003, for reviews), but most flounder

on the fact that children below the age of 5 years have

50

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

10 15 20 25 30Age at encodin

Per

cent

age

of m

emor

ies

Figure 7 Life span retrieval curves from five countries. From C

594–628.

a wide range of specific and detailed auto-

sbiographical memories (Fivush et al., 1996; Bauer,

1997). Explanations that postulate childhood amnesia

to be related to general developmental changes in

intellect, language, emotion, etc., fail simply because

apparently normal autobiographical memories were

in fact accessible when the individual was in the

period of childhood amnesia. It seems unlikely that

an increase in general functioning would make una-

vailable previously accessible memories. From the

SMS perspective, this period is seen as reflecting

changes in the working self goal hierarchy, the idea

being that the goals of the infant and young child,

through which experience is encoded into memory,

are so different, so disjunct, from those of the adult

that the adult working self is unable to access those

memories (see also Howe and Courage, 1997, for a

particularly interesting account of childhood amnesia

in terms of development of the self). Other accounts

emphasize mother/child interactions, the role of lan-

guage development, and emergence of narrative

abilities (Fivush and Nelson, 2004).Socialization and culture must play some role in

the development of memory, although it seems that

the infant/child capacity to actually have episodic

memories may predate these developments (Rovee-

Collier, 1997). If this is the case, then presumably the

effects of socialization, culture, and language are

largely on the organization of memory and perhaps

on memory content as well, rather than on the pro-

cesses that mediate the actual formation of episodic

memories. For instance, the finding of Conway et al.

(2005) that U.S. participants retrieved earlier earliest

memories than all other groups might relate to the

g (in 5-year bins)35 40 45

JapanBangladeshUKChinaUSAll

50 55 60

onway MA (2005) Memory and the self. J. Mem. Lang. 53(4):


observation that U.S. mothers undertake more mem-ory talk with their children than mothers from othercountries. Moreover, Wang and her colleagues (e.g.Wang, 2001) have found powerful cross-cultural dif-ferences in the focus and content of memories.Childhood memories from people in cultures withinterdependent self-focus (Markus and Kitayama,1991) such as China tend to be less oriented to theindividual, less emotional, and more socially orientedthan the childhood memories of people from cultureswith independent self-focus, for example, NorthernEuropean or North American cultures (see Wang,2001). Thus, socialization experiences and the self-focus that predominates in a culture may influencethe accessibility of earliest memories and theircontent.

The second component of the life span retrievalcurve is the period when rememberers were aged10 to 30 years, known as the reminiscence bump(Rubin et al., 1986). The reminiscence bump is dis-tinguished by an increase in recall of memoriesrelative to the periods that precede and follow it.The reminiscence bump is present not just in therecall of specific autobiographical memories butalso emerges in a range of different types of autobio-graphical knowledge. For example, the reminiscencebump has been observed in the recall of films(Sehulster, 1996), music (cf. Rubin et al., 1998),books (Larsen, 1998), and public events (Schumanet al., 1997; Holmes and Conway, 1999). Memoriesrecalled from the period of the reminiscence bumpare more accurate (Rubin et al., 1998), are judgedmore important than memories from other time per-iods, and are rated as highly likely to be included inone’s autobiography (Fitzgerald, 1988; Fromholt andLarsen, 1991, 1992; Fitzgerald, 1996; Rubin andSchulkind, 1997). The reminiscence bump is onlyobserved in people over the age of about 35 yearsand some recent findings suggest that it might onlybe present, or is much more prominent, in memoriesof positive experiences (Rubin and Bernsten, 2003).

Many of the more obvious explanations of thereminiscence bump have been rejected, e.g., that thememories are of first-time experiences and that iswhy they are memorable, as in fact it has beenfound that less than 20% are typically of first-timeexperiences (Fitzgerald, 1988). Rubin et al. (1998)reviewed a series of potential explanations andargued in favor of an explanation in terms of novelty.According to this view, the period when people areaged 10–30 years, and especially 15–25 years, is dis-tinguished by novel experiences, occurring during a

period of rapid change that gives way to a period ofstability. It is assumed that memories from the periodof rapid change are more distinct than those from theperiod of stability and this is why they are compara-tively more frequently accessed. By this account, aperiod of rapid change taking place at some otherpoint in the life cycle should also lead to raisedaccessibility of memories from that period relativeto more stable periods, and there is some evidencethat this is the case (Conway and Haque, 1999).However, periods of (goal) change and experiencesof novelty always involve the self and a related butalternative explanation is that the high accessibilityof memories from this period (and other periods aswell) may be related to their enduring relation to theself (Conway and Pleydell-Pearce, 2000). Possibly,many memories from the period of the reminiscencebump are memories of self-defining experiences (seeFitzgerald, 1988) and have a powerful effect in coher-ing the working self into a particular form. Thenovelty of reminiscence bump experiences lies intheir newness and uniqueness for the self and theymay play a crucial role in the final formation of astable self system and identity formation during lateadolescence and early adulthood. The raised acces-sibility of these memories might then serve processesrelating to the coherence of self through time.

Thus, the period of the reminiscence bump mightbe a period in which a sole ‘I am. . .,’ or self-image,develops into multiple ‘I ams. . .,’ e.g., I am a son, I ama student, I am a boyfriend, etc. Also, at this pointmultiple ‘I will becomes. . .’ may be formed, sup-ported by the differentiation of ‘I ams. . .’ and thefinal emergence of a complete working self goalhierarchy and conceptual self grounded in autobio-graphical knowledge and memories (the SMS).Finally it might be noted that older patients withschizophrenia have been found to show an earlyand disorganized reminiscence bump, with animpairment of conscious recollection associatedwith memories highly relevant to personal identity(Cuevo-Lombard et al., 2007). This suggests that adevelopmental failure present in schizophrenia is theconsolidation of personal identity in late adoles-cence/early adulthood. Possibly, one of the featuresof the abnormal SMS associated with this is a failureor weakening of the grounding of conceptual auto-biographical knowledge in episodic memories offormative experiences, further demonstrating theimportance of an integrated self with self-imagesstrongly embedded in sets of defining episodicmemories.


2.46.8 Closing Section: Why Do WeHave Autobiographical Memory?

In many respects this may seem a pointless or rhe-

torical question; after all, if we did not have

autobiographical memory there would be little in

the way of individuality, personality, culture, society,

literature, etc. Much that differentiates humanity

from other species would be absent (see Tulving,

1983). At the level of the individual, disruption to

or loss of autobiographical memory leads to people

who typically cannot function in society. For exam-

ple, clinically depressed patients often have severely

impaired autobiographical memories in which they

can no longer generate specific memories, their

memories lack detail, they are overly general

(Williams, 1996). Such patients cannot operate in

the social world and, moreover, have unspecific

futures in which they cannot visualize specific plans

and goals (Williams et al., 2007a). Similarly, with

amnesic patients whose memory disorders arise

from organic brain damage, having multiple self-

images in a specific future in which goals and plans

originating from memories of the past are realized is

no longer possible. Thus, one good reason to have an

intact and functioning autobiographical memory is

that it allows the individual to have a future in which

a continuous self operates.But what does this mean? The future is, of course,

a time where new experiences, some anticipated, will

take place. But we cannot know we have arrived at

the future without a memory – that is, without

knowledge of a past. The concept of future makes

no sense, conceptually or psychologically, without a

past. One way to think about this is to conceive of the

future as a place where new goal processing will take

place and the past as some sort of record of previous

episodes of goal processing. To achieve future goals

it is essential to have a record of how one has pro-

gressed with the same or related goals in the past.

Consider very recent goals. In order to know that one

locked the car after parking it this morning, we sim-

ply remember that episode. The events of the current

day can typically be recalled (on that day) at length

and in highly specific detail. Thus, checking on pro-

gress with goals, locking the car, making a call,

mailing a paper, etc., can be verified. However,

within a few days, access to these sorts of detailed

memories is lost. No doubt this is useful as retaining a

highly detailed record of every action would lead to

an overloaded and unworkable memory.

Nonetheless, keeping a detailed record in the shortterm is highly adaptive and prevents the repetition ofactions and the adoption of courses of actions thathave a high probability of failing.

Conway (2005) argues that episodic memory isthe memory system that keeps a record of very recentgoal-related activities. It is a system that has evolvedhighly specific memory representations that facilitatethe type of short-term goal processing that can keepgoals focused and environmentally relevant. It issuggested that this is a species-wide adaptation and,consequently, episodic memory is common to manyspecies. As such it is probably a phylogeneticallyolder memory system and may be represented inneural networks located toward the middle and pos-terior of the brain (a temporal-occipital network; seeConway, 2005). In contrast, humans have developedconceptual knowledge that forms complex knowledgestructures that endure over long periods of time, evenover a lifetime. This, it is suggested, is a more recentevolutionary development and is mediated by neuralnetworks toward the front of the brain: fronto-temporal regions. The conceptual memory systemsupports long-term goal processing, for example, rela-tionships, work projects, etc. Episodic memories thatare retained become attached to conceptual knowl-edge and provide highly specific instances of goalprocessing related to the more general or genericgoals of the conceptual self and self-images.Autobiographical memory then allows us to haveboth short- and long-term goals and to integratethese in coherent ways that facilitate goal processingin the future.

Acknowledgments

Martin Conway was supported by the award of aProfessorial Fellowship from the Economic andSocial Research Council (ESRC), RES-051-27-0127of the United Kingdom, and Helen Williams by aResearch Assistantship, also from the ESRC.

References

Barsalou LW (1988) The content and organization ofautobiographical memories. In: Neisser U and Winograd E(eds.) Remembering Reconsidered: Ecological andTraditional Approaches to the Study of Memory,pp. 193–243. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Bartlett FC (1932) Remembering: A Study in Experimental andSocial Psychology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.


Bauer P (1997) Development of memory in early childhood.In: Cowan N (ed.) The Development of Memory in Childhood,pp. 83–112. Sussex: Psychology Press.

Beike DR and Landoll SL (2000) Striving for a consistent lifestory: Cognitive reactions to autobiographical memories.Soc. Cogn. 18: 292–318.

Blagov PS and Singer JA (2004) Four dimensions of self-defining memories (specificity, meaning, content, and affect)and their relationships to self-restraint, distress, andrepressive defensiveness. J. Pers. 72: 481–511.

Bluck S (2003) Autobiographical memory: Exploring itsfunctions in everyday life. Memory 11: 113–123.

Bluck S and Habermas T (2000) The life story schema. Motiv.Emot. 24: 121–147.

Bluck S and Habermas T (2001) Extending the study ofautobiographical memory: Thinking back about life acrossthe life span. Rev. Gen. Psychol. 5: 135–147.

Brewer WF (1988) Memory for randomly sampledautobiographical events. In: Neisser U and Winograd E (eds.)Remembering Reconsidered: Ecological and TraditionalApproaches to the Study of Memory, pp. 21–90. New York:Cambridge University Press.

Brown NR and Schopflocher D (1998) Event clusters: Anorganization of personal events in autobiographical memory.Psychol. Sci. 9: 470–475.

Brown R and Kulik J (1977) Flashbulb memories. Cognition 5:73–99.

Burt CDB, Kemp S, and Conway MA (2003) Themes, events,and episodes in autobiographical memory. Mem. Cogn. 31:317–325.

Cantor N and Kihlstrom JF (1985) Social intelligence: Thecognitive basis of personality. In: Shaver P (ed.) Self,Situations, and Social Behavior. Review of Personality andSocial Psychology, pp. 15–34. Beverly Hills: Sage.

Cohen G (1989) Memory in the Real World, 1st edn.Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Conway MA (1990) Autobiographical Memory: An Introduction.Buckingham: Open University Press.

Conway MA (1993) The structure of memory. In Conway MAand Morris PE (eds.) International Library of Critical Writingsin Psychology, Vol. 2: Memory Structure, pp. 21–27.Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing.

Conway MA (1996) Autobiographical memories andautobiographical knowledge. In: Rubin DC (ed.)Remembering Our Past: Studies in Autobiographical Memory,pp. 67–93. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Conway MA (2001) Sensory perceptual episodic memory andits context: Autobiographical memory. Philos. Trans. R. Soc.Lond. 356: 1297–1306.

Conway MA (2004) Autobiographical memory and the self.In: Byrne JH, Eichenbaum H, Roediger H III, and ThompsonRF (eds.) Learning and Memory, 2nd edn. Farmingham Hills,MI: Macmillan Reference.

Conway MA (2005) Memory and the self. J. Mem. Lang. 53(4):594–628.

Conway MA and Bekerian DA (1987) Organization inautobiographical memory. Mem. Cogn. 15 119–132.

Conway MA and Fthenaki A (2000) Disruption and loss ofautobiographical memory. In: Cermak LS (ed.) Handbook ofNeuropsychology: Memory and Its Disorders, 2nd edn.,pp. 281–312. Amsterdam: Elsevier.

Conway MA and Haque S (1999) Overshadowing thereminiscence bump: Memories of a struggle forindependence. J. Adult Dev. 6: 35–44.

Conway MA and Pleydell-Pearce CW (2000) The construction ofautobiographical memories in the self memory system.Psychol. Rev. 107: 261–288.

Conway MA and Rubin DC (1993) The structure ofautobiographical memory. In: Collins AE, Gathercole SE,

Conway MA, and Morris PEM (eds.) Theories of Memory,pp. 103–137. Hove, Sussex: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Conway MA, Singer JA, and Tagini A (2004) The self andautobiographical memory: Correspondence and coherence.Soc. Cogn. 22: 495–537.

Conway MA, Wang Q, Hanyu K, and Haque S (2005) A cross-cultural investigation of autobiographical memory: On theuniversality and cultural variation of the reminiscence bump.J. Cross-Cultur. Psychol. 36: 739–749.

Crovitz HF and Schiffman H (1974) Frequency of episodicmemories as a function of their age. Bull. Psychon. Soc. 4:517–518.

Cuevo-Lombard C, Jovenin N, Hedelin G, Rizzo-Peter L,Conway MA, and Danion J-M (2007) Autobiographicalmemory of adolescence and early adulthood events: Aninvestigation in schizophrenia. J. Int. Neuropsychol. Soc. 13:335–343.

Demorest AP and Alexander IE (1992) Affective scripts asorganizers of personal experience. J. Pers. 60: 645–663.

De St. Aubin E and McAdams DP (1995) The relations ofgenerative concern and generative action to personalitytraits, satisfaction/happiness with life, and ego development.J. Adult Dev. 2: 99–112.

Ebbinghaus H (1885/1964) Memory: A Contribution toExperimental Psychology, Ruger HA and Bussenius CE(trans.). New York: Dover Publications.

Ehlers A and Clark DM (2000) A cognitive model ofposttraumatic stress disorder. Behav. Res. Ther. 38:319–345.

Fitzgerald JM (1988) Vivid memories and the reminiscencephenomenon: The role of a self narrative. Hum. Dev. 31:261–273.

Fitzgerald JM (1996) Intersecting, meanings of reminiscence inadult development and aging. In: Rubin DC (ed.)Remembering Our Past: Studies in AutobiographicalMemory, pp. 360–383. Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress.

Fitzgerald JM and Lawrence R (1984) Autobiographical memoryacross the lifespan. J. Gerontol. 39: 692–698.

Fivush R and Nelson K (2004) Culture and language in theemergence of autobiographical memory. Psychol. Sci. 15:573–577.

Fivush R, Hayden C, and Reese E (1996) Remembering,recounting, and reminiscing: The development of memory ina social context. In: Rubin D (ed.) Remembering Our Past:Studies in Autobiographical Memory, pp. 341–359.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Franklin HC and Holding DH (1977) Personal memories atdifferent ages. Q. J. Exp. Psychol. 29: 527–532.

Fromholt P and Larsen SF (1991) Autobiographical memory innormal aging and primary degenerative dementia (dementia ofthe Alzheimer type). J. Gerontol. Psychol. Sci. 46: 85–91.

Fromholt P and Larsen SF (1992) Autobiographical memory andlife-history narratives in aging and dementia (Alzheimer type).In: Conway MA, Rubin DC, Spinnler H, and Wagenaar WA(eds.) Theoretical Perspectives on AutobiographicalMemory, pp. 413–426. Dordrecht: Kluwer.

Galton F (1883) Inquiries into Human Faculty and ItsDevelopment, 1st edn. London: Macmillan and Co.

Gardiner JM and Richardson-Klavehn A (2000) Rememberingand knowing. In: Tulving E and Craik FIM (eds.) Handbook ofMemory, pp. 229–244. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Henri V and Henri C (1896) Enquete sur les premiers souvenirsde l’enfance. Annee Psychol. 3: 184–198.

Henri V and Henri C (1898) Earliest recollections. Pop. Sci.Month. 53: 108–115.

Holmes A and Conway MA (1999) Generation identity and thereminiscence bump: Memory for public and private events.J. Adult Dev. 6: 21–34.


Howe ML and Courage ML (1997) The emergence and earlydevelopment of autobiographical memory. Psychol. Rev.104: 499–523.

Jardine KF (1999) Transitions of women counsellors-in-training:Self-defining memories, narratives, and possible selves.Diss. Abst. Int. A Hum. Soc. Sci. 59(11-A): 4068.

Josephson B, Singer JA, and Salovey P (1996) Mood regulationand memory: Repairing sad moods with happy memories.Cogn. Emo. 10: 437–444.

Kuhn MH and McPartland TS (1954) An empirical investigationof self attitudes. Am. Sociol. Rev. 19: 68–76.

Lancaster JS and Barsalou LW (1997) Multiple organisations ofevents in memory. Memory 5: 569–599.

Larsen SF (1998) What is it like to remember? On phenomenalqualities of memory. In: Thompson CP (ed.) AutobiographicalMemory: Theoretical and Applied Perspectives, pp. 163–190.Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Markus HR and Kitayama S (1991) Culture and the self:Implications for cognition, emotion, and motivation. Psychol.Rev. 98: 224–253.

Markus H and Nurius P (1986) Possible selves. Am. Psychol. 41:954–969.

McAdams DP (1982) Experiences of intimacy and power:Relationships between social motives and autobiographicalmemory. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 42: 292–302.

McAdams DP, Hoffman BJ, Mansfield ED, and Day R (1996)Themes of agency and communion in significantautobiographical scenes. J. Pers. 64: 229–378.

McAdams DP, Reynolds J, Lewis M, Patten AH, and Bowman PJ(2001) When bad things turn good and good things turn bad:Sequences of redemption and contamination in life narrativeand their relation to psychosocial adaptation in midlife adultsand in students. Pers. Soc. Psychol. Bull. 27: 474–485.

Moffitt KH and Singer JA (1994) Continuity in the life story: Self-defining memories, affect, and approach/avoidancepersonal strivings. J. Pers. 62: 21–43.

Moffitt KH, Singer JA, Nelligan DW, Carlson MA, and Vyse SA(1994) Depression and memory narrative type. J. Abnorm.Psychol. 103: 581–583.

Moulin CJA, Conway MA, Thompson RG, James N, and JonesRW (2005) Disordered memory awareness: Recollectiveconfabulation in two cases of persistent deja vecu.Neuropsychologia 43: 1362–1378.

Neisser U (1978) Memory: What are the importantquestions? In: Gruneberg MM, Morris PE, and Sykes RN(eds.) Practical Aspects of Memory. London: AcademicPress.

Neisser U (ed.) (1982) Memory Observed: Remembering inNatural Contexts, San Francisco: Freeman.

Pillemer DB (1998) Momentous Events, Vivid Memories.Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Pillemer DB (2003) Directive functions of autobiographicalmemory: The guiding power of the specific episode. Memory11: 193–202.

Pillemer DB and White SH (1989) Childhood events recalled bychildren and adults. Adv. Child Dev. Behav. 21: 297–340.

Quinn DK (1990) Freedom on wheels. The Christian ScienceMonitor. April 19, p. 17. Cited in Robinson JA (1992) Firstexperience memories: Contexts and function in personalhistories. In: Conway MA, Rubin DC, Spinnler H, andWagenaar W (eds.) Theoretical Perspectives onAutobiographical Memory, pp. 223–239. Dordrecht, TheNetherlands: Kluwer.

Rapaport D (1950/1971) Emotions and Memory. New York:International Universities Press.

Rathbone CJ, Moulin CJA, and Conway MA (2006)Autobiographical memory and identity: Self-centredmemories. Presented at the Fourth International Conferenceon Memory (ICOM-4), Sydney, Australia, July.

Ribot T (1882) Diseases of Memory: An Essay in the PositivePsychology, Smith WH (trans.). New York: D. Appleton.

Robinson JA (1976) Sampling autobiographical memory. Cogn.Psychol. 8: 578–595.

Robinson JA (1992) First experience memories: Contexts andfunction in personal histories. In: Conway MA, Rubin DC,Spinnler H, and Wagenaar W (eds.) Theoretical Perspectiveson Autobiographical Memory, pp. 223–239. Dordrecht, TheNetherlands: Kluwer.

Rovee-Collier C (1997) Dissociations in infant memory:Rethinking the development of implicit and explicit memory.Psychol. Rev. 104: 467–498.

Rubin DC and Berntsen D (2003) Life scripts help to maintainautobiographical memories of highly positive, but not highlynegative, events. Mem. Cogn. 31: 1–14.

Rubin DC and Schulkind MD (1997) The distribution ofautobiographical memories across the lifespan. Mem. Cogn.25: 859–866.

Rubin DC, Wetzler SE, and Nebes RD (1986) Autobiographicalmemory across the life span. In: Rubin DC (ed.)Autobiographical Memory. Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press.

Rubin DC, Rahhal TA, and Poon LW (1998) Things learned inearly adulthood are remembered best. Mem. Cogn. 26:3–19.

Schuman H, Belli RF, and Bischoping K (1997) The generationalbasis of historical knowledge. In: Jodelet D, Pennebaker J,and Paez D (eds.), Political Events and Collective Memories,pp. 47–78. London: Routledge.

Sehulster JR (1996) In my era: Evidence for the perception of aspecial period in the past. Memory 4: 145–158.

Singer JA (1990) Affective responses to autobiographicalmemories and their relationship to long-term goals. J. Pers.58: 535–563.

Singer JA (2001) Living in the amber cloud: A life story analysisof a heroin addict. In: McAdams DP, Josselson R, andLieblich A (eds.) Turns in the Road: Narrative Studies of Livesin Transition, pp. 253–277. Washington, DC: AmericanPsychological Association.

Singer JA (2005) Memories That Matter: Using Self-DefiningMemories to Understand and Change Your Life. Oakland:New Harbinger.

Singer JA and Blagov PS (2000) Classification system andscoring manual for self-defining autobiographical memories.Paper presented at the meeting of the Society for AppliedResearch on Memory and Cognition, Miami Beach, FL, June.

Singer JA and Blagov PS (2004) Self-defining memories,narrative identity, and psychotherapy: A conceptual model,empirical investigation, and case report. In: Angus LE andMcLeod J (eds.) Handbook of Narrative and Psychotherapy:Practice, Theory and Research, pp. 229–246. ThousandOaks CA: Sage.

Singer JA and Moffitt KH (1991/1992) An experimentalinvestigation of specificity and generality in memorynarratives. Imagin. Cogn. Pers. 11: 233–257.

Singer JA and Salovey AP (1993) The Remembered Self. NewYork: The Free Press.

Singer JA and Salovey AP (1996) Motivated memory: Self-defining memories, goals, and affect regulation. In: Martin Land Tesser A (eds.) Striving and Feeling: Interactions AmongGoals, Affect, and Self-Regulation, pp. 229–250. Hillsdale,NJ: Erlbaum.

Singer JA and Singer JL (1992) Transference in psychotherapyand daily life: Implications of current memory and socialcognition research. In: Barron JW and Eagle MN (eds.)Interface of Psychoanalysis and Psychology, pp. 516–538.Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Singer JA and Singer JL (1994) Social-cognitive and narrativeperspectives on transference. In: Masling JM and Bornstein


RF (eds.) Empirical Perspectives on Object Relations Theory.Empirical Studies of Psychoanalytic Theories, vol. 5,pp. 157–193. Washington, DC: American PsychologicalAssociation.

Singer JA, King LA, Green MC, and Barr SC (2002) Personalidentity and civic responsibility: ‘‘Rising to the occasion’’narratives and generativity in community action interns. J.Soc. Issues 58: 535–556.

Smith ME (1952) Childhood memories compared with those ofadult life. J. Genet. Psychol. 80: 151–182.

Thorne A, Cutting L, and Skaw D (1998) Young adults’relationship memories and the life story: Examples oressential landmarks. Narr. Inq. 8: 237–268.

Thorne A, McLean KC, and Lawrence AM (2004) Whenremembering is not enough: Reflecting on self-definingmemories in late adolescence. J. Pers. 72: 513–542.

Tulving E (1983) Elements of Episodic Memory. Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press.

Tulving E (1985) Memory and consciousness. Can. Psychol. 26:1–12.

Wang Q (2001) Cultural effects on adults’ earliest childhoodrecollection and self-description: Implications for the relationbetween memory and the self. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 81:220–233.

Wang Q (2003) Infantile amnesia reconsidered: A cross-culturalanalysis. Memory 11: 65–80.

Weinberger DA (1997) Distress and self-restraint as measuresof adjustment across the life span: Confirmatory factoranalyses in clinical and non-clinical samples. Psychol.Assess. 9: 132–135.

Weinberger DA (1998) Defenses, personality structure, anddevelopment: Integrating psychodynamic theory into atypological approach to personality. J. Pers. 66: 1061–1080.

Williams JMG, Barnhofer T, Crane C, et al. (2007a)Autobiographical memory specificity and emotionaldisorder. Psychol. Bull. 133(1): 122–148.

Williams HL, Conway MA, and Baddeley AD (2007b) Theboundaries of episodic memories. In: Shipley TF and ZacksJM (eds.) Understanding Events: How Humans See,Represent, and Act on Events. New York: Oxford UniversityPress.

Williams JMG (1996) Depression and the specificity ofautobiographical memory. In: Rubin DC (ed.)Remembering Our Past: Studies in AutobiographicalMemory, pp. 244–267. Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress.

Zacks JM, Speer NK, Swallow KM, Braver TS, and Reynolds JR(2007) Event perception: A mind/brain perspective. Psychol.Bull. 133: 273–293.

Documents

2.46 Autobiographical Memory -