2.46 Autobiographical Memory
M. A. Conway and H. L. Williams, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK
ª 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
2.46.1
2.46.2
2.46.3
2.46.4
2.46.5
2.46.6
2.46.7
2.46.8
References
Introduction
A Brief Biography of Autobiographical Memory Research
The Representation of Autobiographical Knowledge in Long-Term Memory
Episodic Memory
Self-Defining Memories
Self-Images
The Life Span Distribution of Autobiographical Memories
Closing Section: Why Do We Have Autobiographical Memory?
2.46.1 Introduction
The term autobiographical memory refers to our
memory for specific episodes, episodic memory, and
to our conceptual, generic, and schematic knowledge
of our lives, autobiographical knowledge. Typically
these two types of long-term memory representation
are brought together in an act of remembering where
they form a specific memory. Consider the following
example:
My earliest memories relate to a time in my childhood 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 sweeping 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 autobiographical
knowledge in this memory, e.g., when we lived in
Malta, my parents were kind to me, some generic
visual imagery, e.g., how various features of the house
looked, and some highly specific knowledge of time,
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locations, and actions. Autobiographical memories very
frequently come to mind as these compilations of
different types of knowledge are configured into a
memory in a specific act of remembering. As such
they clearly illustrate the highly constructive nature
of autobiographical remembering. We will return to
memory construction in a later section, but now that
we have some idea of what is meant by the term
autobiographical memory, we might ask about how it
has been studied. After all, autobiographical memories
are personally important memory representations.
They are the content of the self and define who we
are, who we have been, and, importantly, who we can
yet become. They enable us to have a past, present, and
future in which we exist as individuals. They are,
therefore, one of our most important bodies of knowledge and because of that would have been, it might be
thought, the focus of memory research for many
decades.
2.46.2 A Brief Biography of
Autobiographical Memory Research
Remarkably, however, the study of autobiographical
memory has mainly taken place over the last 2 decades, whereas as the formal scientific study of
memory itself is at least over a century old, dating,
arguably, to the seminal work of Herman Ebbinghaus
(1885). Ebbinghaus famously studied memory for
relatively meaningless items, such as short lists of
constant-vowel-constant (CVC) letter strings. Less
well known is that he also studied memory for meaningful materials such as passages of prose, poetry, etc.
Ebbinghaus concluded that memory for these latter
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894 Autobiographical Memory
materials was influenced by too many factors beyond
the experimenter’s control and because of this the
scientific or experimental study of memory would be
more surely advanced using materials that the
experimenter had powerful control over, such as
CVC strings. Ebbinghaus’s view held sway and the
experimental study of memory in the laboratory
has generally used to-be-remembered materials generated and controlled by the experimenter. Almost
by definition this excludes autobiographical memories, as these are formed outside the laboratory in
our everyday lives in response to complicated meaningful experiences – experiences over which the
experimenter has no control.
Given the dominance of experimental studies of
memory, it is perhaps not so surprising that it is only
in relatively recent times that autobiographical memory has received any attention at all. According to
one view, science moves from the simple to the
complex and perhaps it was the case that some
understanding of memory, deriving from experimental studies, had to be attained before the field could
grapple with the complexities of autobiographical
memory and the inevitable role in memory of mysterious entities such as the self, goals, and emotion.
There is no doubt some truth in this but, as with all
history including personal history, the story is more
complicated. So, for instance, at the time Ebbinghaus
was writing his field-defining book, another great
nineteenth-century scientist, Sir Francis Galton
(1883), was reporting his seminal work into memory.
One aspect of this research focused on the recall of
autobiographical memories. Galton was interested in
how many memories we have and developed a technique that 100 years later became known as the cue
word technique. In this procedure, Galton revealed
to himself, one at a time, words he had previously
arranged into an alphabetical list. In response to each
word, he noted what thoughts passed through his
mind. So when reading abasement, abhorrence, etc.
(remember this was Victorian England), he would
write out his thoughts. He carried out this procedure
for the fairly long list of words on several separate
occasions. There were a wide range of findings but
one striking outcome was that many of his thoughts
were (autobiographical) memories and they often
came to mind in the form of visual mental images.
Galton was rather disappointed to discover that there
was not an endless variety in his thoughts or memories and that he often recalled the same thoughts/
memories on subsequent occasions of testing. He
concluded 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 autobiographical memories. Nonetheless, the cue word method has
proved especially useful in more contemporary studies of autobiographical memory and Galton’s original
work remains a rewarding read for memory researchers, as does Ebbinghaus’s important book.
Another book from this period that remains significant is Theodore Ribot’s (1882) classic case
studies of memory distortions and malfunction following 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 autobiographical 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 controlled. 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 similar experiences, narrative, and cultural conventions)
was central and social interactions and culture played
important roles in remembering. Bartlett was, however, largely uninterested in detailed memories of
specific experiences – what we now call episodic
Autobiographical Memory
memories. Because of this, his work did not reinvigorate the study of autobiographical memory.
Instead the reemergence of the study of autobiographical memory after 100 years of silence (Cohen,
1989) started to take place in the 1970s and gathered
pace in the 1980s. Figure 1 shows the cumulative
frequency of papers, by year since 1970, that have
used the phrase autobiographical memory. This
admittedly is a crude index of research activity into
the topic, but as crude as it is, it nonetheless
depicts very strikingly how autobiographical memory
research has rapidly increased and developed in the
last 35 years. So what happened to end the century of
silence? There were, arguably, two main forces that
led to renewed interest in this important aspect of
memory. The first was the gradual emergence of neuropsychology as a distinct research area and within it
the study of malfunctions of human memory following
brain damage. One of the striking symptoms of
patients with memory impairments caused by brain
damage is that they virtually always have disrupted
autobiographical memory. In a particularly important
paper Crovitz and Schiffman (1974) reintroduced the
Galton cue word method as a way of eliciting autobiographical memories in normal populations and
later in patients with closed head injuries suffering
from various degrees of amnesia, thus simultaneously
rediscovering both Galton and Ribot. The second
force was the developing interest within cognitive
science in how to model and represent stories and
memories. An important paper here that demonstrated
how autobiographical memory might be studied under
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laboratory conditions was that of Robinson (1976),
who also used the cue word method to investigate
differences between memories with different types of
affect. Add to this Brown and Kulik’s (1977) original
survey of flashbulb memories, a rather timely reminder from Neisser (1978) about the narrowness of
memory research in the 1970s and preceding decades,
and the highly significant volume edited by Neisser
(1982), Memory Observed, which reprinted many of the
papers of earlier researchers on autobiographical
memory and other then-neglected areas of memory,
and a strong impetus was in place to rejuvenate
research into autobiographical memory. It is, perhaps,
important to note that the renewed interest, reflected
in Figure 1, had its roots in a rediscovery of the
original work of Galton, Ribot, and others (see too
Rapaport, 1950, for an especially interesting review of
emotion and memory). It might be noted that the
methods used by these early researchers – studying
one’s own memory, investigating malfunctions and
distortions of memories, and surveying memories –
also re-emerged in the contemporary study of autobiographical memory, and it is to the findings of these
more recent studies we now turn.
2.46.3 The Representation of
Autobiographical Knowledge in
Long-Term Memory
This section reviews current thinking about the
nature of autobiographical knowledge. It is important
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Figure 1 Frequency of articles or research reviews published using the term autobiographical memory in the article title,
abstract, or key words from 1970 to 2006. Data obtained from ISI Web of Knowledge, January 2007.
896 Autobiographical Memory
to note that a full review of findings is not undertaken
here and instead only main findings and their implications are considered. One current model proposes
that autobiographical memories are generated in the
self-memory system or SMS (Conway and PleydellPearce, 2000). Very briefly, the SMS is considered to
be a virtual memory system consisting of a temporary
interaction between control or executive processing
systems with a complex multilayered long-term
memory knowledge base. Another way to conceive
of this is as an interaction between currently active,
dynamic, or fluid aspects of the self with more permanent, long-term, or crystallized representations of
the self and attributes of the self. The dynamic or
executive aspect of the self is termed the working self.
The working self consists of a complex hierarchy of
currently active goals (Conway and Pleydell-Pearce,
2000) through which memories are encoded and
retrieved. The working self also contains what
Conway et al. (2004) termed the conceptual self,
which in turn consists of beliefs, evaluations, and
currently active self-images of what the self has
been in the past, currently is considered to be, and
what it may become in the future.
The working self regulates the construction of
new memories in the SMS, at both encoding and
during retrieval, by controlling access to the autobiographical memory knowledge base. Figure 2
illustrates this relation between the working self and
The working self
Goal hierarchy Conceptual self Self images
Control processes
Autobiographical knowledge base
Autobiographical
knowledge
Episodic
memories
Figure 2 The relationship between the working self and
the autobiographical knowledge base.
the knowledge base. The working self modulates
memory by controlling the cues that are used to
activate knowledge in the knowledge base. This is
achieved by shaping cues so that particular types of
information are activated. For example, a person
asked to recall a memory of childhood might recall
their earliest memory. Thus, elaborating the cue
from ‘recall a memory from childhood’ into the cue
‘recall my earliest memory.’ This elaboration may
take place several times as a cue is fine-tuned to
access the information sought. An idea central to
the SMS model is that specific autobiographical
memories are formed when stable patterns of activation exist over interconnected representations
of autobiographical knowledge and associated episodic memories. Thus, when conceptual and generic
knowledge of the attributes of a house one lived in as
a child, the relationship one had with one’s parents,
and a specific (episodic) memory of a moment in time
are all activated together and interlinked, then the
rememberer has the experience of remembering and
their consciousness is dominated by a specific memory – as in the example we started with. It is these
different types of autobiographical knowledge and
their organization in long-term memory that we are
concerned with next and we return to considering the
process of constructing memories in a subsequent
section.
According to the SMS model, long-term memory
contains two distinct types of autobiographical
representation: autobiographical knowledge and
episodic memories. Autobiographical knowledge is
organized in partonomic hierarchical knowledge
structures (Conway and Bekerian, 1987; Barsalou,
1988; Conway, 1993, 1996; Lancaster and Barsalou,
1997; Burt et al. 2003) that range from highly
abstract and conceptual knowledge (such as that
contained in the conceptual self) to conceptual
knowledge that is event-specific and experiencenear. Autobiographical memory knowledge structures terminate in episodic memories, the second
type of autobiographical representation contained
in the autobiographical knowledge base. Figure 3
illustrates how these complex autobiographical
memory knowledge structures might be represented
in long-term memory.
The upper part of Figure 3 focuses on autobiographical knowledge and specifically on the life
story, lifetime periods, and general events (Conway,
2005). These divisions of autobiographical knowledge are on a dimension of specificity, and at the
most abstract level is a structure termed the life story
Autobiographical Memory
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Life story
Themes
Relationship
theme
Work theme
The conceptual self
Lifetime
periods
Friends
with Y:
Others
Activities
Locations
Projects
Goals
Working at
pub X:
Others
Goals
Locations
Projects
Activities
General
events
Leeds
Supervisor
Clearing tables
Episodic memories
Pay rise
Becoming a
waitress
Meeting
George
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 characterize, 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 selfimages 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 channeled 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
898 Autobiographical Memory
specific episodic memories. It in this way that a
memory can be gradually formed or constructed.
Lifetime periods contain representations of locations, people, activities, feelings, and goals common to
the period they represent. They effectively encapsulate
a period in memory and in so doing provide further
ways in which access to autobiographical knowledge is
channeled, or directed. Lifetime periods have been
found to contain evaluative knowledge, negative and
positive, of progress in goal attainment (Beike and
Landoll, 2000), and lifetime periods may play an
important role in the life story. For instance, lifetime
periods may provide autobiographical knowledge that
can be used to form life story schema and thus support
the generation of themes. Lifetime periods may be
particularly appropriate for this because of the goalevaluative information they contain. For example, a
lifetime period such as ‘when I was at university,’ will
consist of representations of people, locations, activities, feelings, and goals common to the period but will
also contain some general evaluation of the period, i.e.,
this was an anxious time for me, living away from
home was difficult, I was lonely, I found the work too
difficult, etc. (see Cantor and Kihlstrom, 1985).
The life story and lifetime periods are part of the
conceptual self where they represent a summary
account of the self and its history, and where they
can be used to initiate and focus searches of the autobiographical knowledge base. General events, on the
other hand, are more clearly part of the knowledge
base itself and have been found to play important roles
in organizing personal knowledge. General events are
more strongly event-specific than lifetime periods but
not as event-specific as sensory-perceptual episodic
memories, which are directly derived from actual
experience (Conway, 2001, 2005). General events
refer to a variety of autobiographical knowledge structures such as single events, e.g., the day we went to
London; repeated events, e.g., work meetings; and
extended events, e.g., our holiday in Spain (Barsalou,
1988). General events are organized in several different
ways. For example, they can take the form of minihistories structured around detailed and sometimes
vivid episodic memories of goal attainment in developing skills, knowledge, and personal relationships
(Robinson, 1992). Some general events may be of
experiences of particular significance for the self and
act as reference points for other associated general
events (Singer and Salovey, 1993; Pillemer, 1998). Yet
other general events may be grouped together because
of their emotional similarity (McAdams et al.,
2001), and it is likely that there are yet other
forms of organization at this level which await investigation(see for example, Brown and Schopflocher, 1998).
However, the research currently available indicates
that organization of autobiographical knowledge at
the level of general events is extensive and it appears
to virtually always refer to progress in the attainment
of highly self-relevant goals. General event knowledge then represents information highly relevant to
the goal hierarchy of the working self.
In one study of this type of knowledge, Robinson
(1992) examined people’s memories for the acquisition of skills, e.g., riding a bicycle, driving a car, and
for aspects of personal relationships. These general
events were found to be organized around sets
of 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 glorious 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 perspired 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 approximately 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 related
memories and the whole general event carries
powerful self-defining evaluations that persist over
long periods of time.
Relatively recent experiences, particularly those
occurring during the current lifetime period, that give
rise to sets of multiply related general events and
associated episodic memories must be represented in
terms of the currently active goals of the working self
that dominate at the time. Burt et al. (2003) investigated
this for several extended events, e.g., Christmas shopping. In these studies, events were sorted into groups
by participants, and from these groupings currently
active themes were identified. Figure 4 shows the
organization of a series of episodic memories associated
Autobiographical Memory
Theme
PARENTS
Theme
HOUSE
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Theme
SPORT
Event
R and I had a good
look at some
interesting houses in
a magazine
Buying a
house
We were at home when R
told me that the dye that the
council had put down the
toilet was connected to the
council system
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18/12/97
R and I put in an
offer on a house in
Bishopsdale and
they accepted
Arrived home and R told me
there was a major problem
with the sewage system of
the house we are buying
30/11/97
16/12/97
R, I, and our mobile
mortgage manager talked
about our loan application
Had a major bout of
depression and could not
stop crying, swearing, and
yelling at R at home
1/12/97
13/12/97
Memories
R and I met the
builder at the new
place to get the
builder’s consent
R and I received the
loan approval at home
4/12/97
5/12/97
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 the
general event to unique and specific moments in time.
One important property of this organization is that
when goals change and new themes and lifetime periods 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 goal
information 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 goalrelated evaluative knowledge or self-defining memories (Singer and Salovey, 1993) along with more
general knowledge and specific episodic memories.
General events provide, then, records of complicated
and extended goal-related activities. These have
powerful implications for the self, especially the conceptual self, and how a person evaluates their self.
2.46.4 Episodic Memory
So far we have been concerned with autobiographical
knowledge, but specific autobiographical memories
900 Autobiographical Memory
Table 1
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
Eight characteristics of episodic memory
They retain summary records of sensory-perceptual-conceptual-affective processing derived from working memory.
They are predominantly represented in the form of (visual) images.
They represent short time slices, determined by changes in goal processing.
They are only retained in a durable form if they become linked to conceptual autobiographical knowledge. Otherwise
they are rapidly forgotten.
Their main function is to provide a short-term record of progress in current goal processing.
They are recollectively experienced when accessed.
When included as part of an autobiographical memory construction, they provide specificity.
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 eight
characteristics of episodic memories (from Conway,
2005, Table 4), and each of these is now considered in
turn. The first three characteristics of episodic memories (numbered I, II, and III) in Table 1 concern
properties of episodic memories. First, the content of
episodic memories is highly event-related and consists of detailed records of sensory-perceptual and
conceptual-affective processing that was prominent
during the original experience. Note that these are
summary rather than literal representations, although
they may occasionally contain some exact representations of processing that occurred during an
experience (see the last paragraph of this section).
Second, although they can, and indeed do, contain
information from all the sensory modalities, they
have been found to be predominantly visual in nature
(see Brewer, 1988, for an interesting early study of
the content of episodic memories). Finally they
represent short time-slices of experience highly
related to the moment-by-moment segmentation of
experience 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 over
the events of the day will bring to mind many highly
detailed and specific episodic memories of events
which occurred earlier in the day (see Williams
et al., 2007b). In subsequent days, however, as the
retention interval lengthens, many of these episodic
memories, which are often of rather low self-relevance, routine events, become inaccessible. Even
those that are retained over longer retention intervals
are 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 some
way 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 measured 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 episodic
memories is to provide a record of recent goal-processing episodes. Episodic memories provide a way in
which to rapidly and effectively check that goalrelated 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. If
one of these routine events mapped onto an important goal or set of goals, then the episodic memory
might become integrated with other knowledge in
the autobiographical knowledge base and so become
an enduring episodic memory. The study of selfdefining experiences, the experience of trauma, and
vivid memories generally provide many examples of
how episodic memories become important parts of
the 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 remembering. This is often referred to as recollective
experience, and this and other forms of memory
awareness have been the focus of many contemporary
memory studies (see Tulving, 1985; Gardiner and
Richardson-Klavehn, 2000, for reviews). Memory
awareness in autobiographical remembering appears
to be triggered or activated when an episodic memory
enters conscious awareness (Conway, 2001, 2005),
although it can also occur in other ways (cf. Moulin
et al., 2005). Episodic memories, when they enter the
construction of an autobiographical memory, cause
the experience of remembering and also provided
the constructed memory with specificity. As we will
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see, the specificity of the memory is important and is a
quality that can be lost when memory malfunctions
in, for example, psychological illness. Specificity provides a link to the experience of the world, and
episodic memories are experience-near representations and stand in contrast to autobiographical and
other conceptual knowledge which is experience-distant. Thus, the experience of remembering and
memory specificity are important qualities of episodic
memories. Finally, in Table 1 (see VII), it is suggested
that episodic memories might be represented in a
separate brain region from more autobiographical
conceptual knowledge (this is elaborated in Conway,
2005). We will return to this issue in the closing
section of this chapter, but we might note here one
general and intriguing finding that seems to support
it: patients who suffer brain damage which has led to
amnesia for much of their preinjury life, and especially amnesia for preinjury episodic memories, have
nonetheless been found to retain often extensive autobiographical knowledge (Conway and Fthenaki,
2000).
2.46.5 Self-Defining Memories
The autobiographical knowledge base is complex
and represents the personal history of an individual
in different ways, i.e., as knowledge and as specific
memories. Because of this complexity, the knowledge
base is highly organized and some parts are more
accessible than other parts. Generally, those autobiographical knowledge structures that are strongly
associated with current goals and current images of
the self are in a more accessible state than knowledge
structures that are currently less self-relevant. In this
section, we consider how the relation to the self can
shape and organize autobiographical memory.
One important type of personal knowledge that
appears to be highly accessible to the self is that of
self-defining memories (SDMs). An SDM is a specific
type of autobiographical memory that has the following attributes: affective intensity, vividness, high
levels of rehearsal, linkage to similar memories, and
connection to an enduring concern or unresolved
conflict (Singer and Moffitt, 1991/1992; Singer and
Salovey, 1993; Singer, 2005). Self-defining memories
can be distinguished from other types of vivid
memories. For example, flashbulb memories, as originally defined by Brown and Kulik (1977), are a
particularly vivid and affective form of personal
event memory (Pillemer, 1998), often about
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important public events. They have been found to be
associated with four interrelated variables: surprise,
consequentiality, importance, and emotion (Conway,
1995). Having these qualities does not necessarily
indicate, however, that the memory is central to
enduring goals of the self, and it is certainly possible
to have highly vivid memories of events that are low in
self-relevance (Conway et al., 2004). Importantly then,
the two distinguishing criteria for self-defining
memories that differentiate them from other vivid
memories are, first, their linkage to other memories
within the individual that share similar personal
themes and, second, their relevance to the individual’s
enduring concerns or unresolved conflicts.
Both of these features – linkage of similar memories and relevance to concerns and conflicts – have
been investigated in research into individuals’ motivations and goals. For example, Thorne et al. (1998)
looked at young adults’ important relationship memories generated in two interviews over a 6-month
period of time. Participants had freedom to describe
similar or different relationship episodes in the second
interview. Thorne et al. scored the memories for
social motives for the memories that varied from
time 1 to time 2, as well as the points of emphasis in
the twice-told memories. For both unique memories
and repeated memories, the authors found ‘‘moderate
thematic consistency’’ (Thorne et al., 1998: 258), indicating that these memories, even when varying in
content, reflected similar motivational themes and
narrative structures. In a related study, Demorest
and Alexander (1992) had raters code individuals’
significant personal memories for overarching interpersonal scripts. A month later, these same individuals
generated a set of fictional scenarios. Raters coded the
themes of these scenarios and found striking overlap
in terms of thematic continuity between the original
memories and the imaginary stories. These results,
along with those of Thorne et al. (1998), suggest that
individuals link remembered and imagined experiences through personally significant themes. These
themes originate, according to the SMS model, from
the goals of the working self, but later can also serve to
influence its ongoing goal processing.
Further evidence of the relationship of self-defining memories to individuals’ enduring conflicts and
concerns comes from the work of Singer and colleagues (Singer, 1990; Moffitt and Singer, 1994;
Singer, 2005). These researchers found the affective
quality of self-defining memories to be a function of
the relevance of the memories to the attainment of a
person’s most desired goals. Moreover, this was found
902 Autobiographical Memory
to be the case not only for memories relevant to the
attainment of approach goals (desired goals), but also
for memories about active efforts to avoid the consequences of undesired outcomes (Moffitt and Singer,
1994). Singer et al. (2002) additionally reported that
the more personal growth students attributed to
memories that grew out of community service
experiences, the more likely these students were to
place an overall emphasis on generative goal pursuits
in their lives (see also de St. Aubin and McAdams,
1995). Similarly, in examining the relationship of
turning-point and other significant personal memories to overall themes of the personality, McAdams
(McAdams, 1982; McAdams et al., 1996) has consistently found power-oriented memories to be linked to
agentic or individualistic motives, while intimacyoriented memories reflected communal, social, and
relationship motives. Jardine (1999) found that
women counselors who experienced life transitions
during their clinical training associated themes from
their self-defining memories with their set of possible
selves (Markus and Nurius, 1986). In a series of clinical case studies involving both individual and
couples in psychotherapy, Singer found self-defining
memories to be linked to critical relationship themes
which were expressed in both clients’ intimate relationships and in the transference dynamics of the
therapy (Singer and Singer, 1992, 1994; Singer and
Salovey, 1996; Singer, 2001; Singer and Blagov, 2004).
In addition to their linkage to goals, SDMs also can
play directive and mood regulatory functions for the
self (Pillemer, 1998, 2003; Bluck, 2003). For example,
SDMs have been found to play a role in providing life
lessons or integrative meanings that help individuals
in optimal adjustment and personal growth. This is
what Bluck (2003) termed the directive function of
autobiographical memories. Blagov and Singer (2004)
demonstrated that individuals with larger numbers of
SDMs that contained reflective themes or messages,
as reliably coded by three raters (see Singer and
Blagov (2000) for an SDM coding manual), displayed
optimal levels of self-restraint and emotional expression, as measured by the Weinberger Adjustment
Inventory Short Form (Weinberger, 1997, 1998).
Thorne et al. (2004) found that, compared to other
types of personal memories, individuals were more
likely to rely on SDMs involving tension or goal
conflict to provide insights and life lessons.
SDMs provide information that can guide and
direct the individual in everyday life. One specific
form of directive function is the regulation of mood.
Josephson et al. (1996) found that nondepressed
individuals enlisted positive memories to repair
negative moods, while mildly depressed individuals
were less likely to recruit positive memories after a
negative mood had been induced. Similarly, Moffitt
et al. (1994) found that depressed individuals were
less likely to recall SDMs when asked to retrieve a
positive memory, while they did not differ in memory specificity for negative memories. Williams
(1996), though not specifically addressing SDMs,
has argued that a lack of memory specificity in
depressed and suicidal individuals reflects a cognitive
deficit generalized from a learned defense against
encoding and retrieving affectively threatening selfrelevant experiences. In summary, the findings from
a broad range of studies converge on the view that
SDMs are central to goals and conflicts within the
individual (see Singer, 2005); they provide important
integrative lessons, insights, or directives for the
working self (see especially Pillemer, 1998); and
they may regulate mood in important ways.
2.46.6 Self-Images
Conway et al. (2004) describe what they termed the
conceptual self. One important knowledge structure in
the conceptual self are self-images. It is proposed that
self-images are knowledge structures that summarize
complex sets of interlinked autobiographical knowledge
and episodic memories that cumulatively support a
particular view or version of the self. (Note that selfimages can be permanent stable representations or more
transitory, fleeting mental representations.) Conway
(2005) proposes that these summary representations
may often be experienced as images and hence the
term self-images. A question of some interest here is
how self-images are related to selective sets of memories. Rathbone et al. (2006; described in Conway, 2005)
studied this by having a group of middle-aged participants complete a short questionnaire in which they
completed six ‘I am. . .’ statements (Kuhn and
McPartland, 1954). An ‘I am. . .’ could be anything, for
example, I am bad, I am sociable, I am a banker, I am a
mother, etc. Later each person recalled specific autobiographical memories to each of their ‘I am. . .’
statements. The dates of the memories, expressed in
age at encoding, and the dates of the emergence of the
‘I am. . .’ statement were then compared; Figure 5
shows the distribution of age at encoding of the memories relative to age of emergence of the ‘I ams. . .’.
Figure 5 strikingly shows that age at encoding clusters
around the date of emergence of the ‘I ams. . .,’ strongly
Autobiographical Memory
903
14.0
Percentage of memories
12.0
10.0
8.0
6.0
4.0
2.0
40
36
28
32
24
20
16
12
4
8
0
–4
2
–8
6
–1
0
–1
4
–2
8
–2
2
–2
6
–3
–3
–4
0
0.0
Age of memories (in 2-year bins) relative
to date of formation of ‘I ams’
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 autobiographical memory into self-images, might be
particularly important in the development of the
self – a point we return to after considering the
distribution of memories over the life span and the
significance of this for the self.
2.46.7 The Life Span Distribution of
Autobiographical 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
Number of memories
60
50
The
reminscence
bump
40
30
20
Period of
recency
Period of
childhood
amnesia
10
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
Age at encoding (in 5-year bins)
45
50
Figure 6 Idealized representation of the life span retrieval curve. From Conway MA (2005) Memory and the self. J. Mem.
Lang. 53(4): 594–628.
904 Autobiographical Memory
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 phenomena 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
a wide range of specific and detailed autosbiographical 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 unavailable 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 language 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 (RoveeCollier, 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 processes 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
Percentage of memories
35
Japan
Bangladesh
UK
China
US
All
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
5
10
15
20 25 30 35 40 45 50
Age at encoding (in 5-year bins)
55
60
Figure 7 Life span retrieval curves from five countries. From Conway MA (2005) Memory and the self. J. Mem. Lang. 53(4):
594–628.
Autobiographical Memory
observation that U.S. mothers undertake more memory talk with their children than mothers from other
countries. Moreover, Wang and her colleagues (e.g.
Wang, 2001) have found powerful cross-cultural differences in the focus and content of memories.
Childhood memories from people in cultures with
interdependent self-focus (Markus and Kitayama,
1991) such as China tend to be less oriented to the
individual, less emotional, and more socially oriented
than the childhood memories of people from cultures
with independent self-focus, for example, Northern
European or North American cultures (see Wang,
2001). Thus, socialization experiences and the selffocus that predominates in a culture may influence
the accessibility of earliest memories and their
content.
The second component of the life span retrieval
curve is the period when rememberers were aged
10 to 30 years, known as the reminiscence bump
(Rubin et al., 1986). The reminiscence bump is distinguished by an increase in recall of memories
relative to the periods that precede and follow it.
The reminiscence bump is present not just in the
recall of specific autobiographical memories but
also emerges in a range of different types of autobiographical knowledge. For example, the reminiscence
bump has been observed in the recall of films
(Sehulster, 1996), music (cf. Rubin et al., 1998),
books (Larsen, 1998), and public events (Schuman
et al., 1997; Holmes and Conway, 1999). Memories
recalled from the period of the reminiscence bump
are more accurate (Rubin et al., 1998), are judged
more important than memories from other time periods, and are rated as highly likely to be included in
one’s autobiography (Fitzgerald, 1988; Fromholt and
Larsen, 1991, 1992; Fitzgerald, 1996; Rubin and
Schulkind, 1997). The reminiscence bump is only
observed in people over the age of about 35 years
and some recent findings suggest that it might only
be present, or is much more prominent, in memories
of positive experiences (Rubin and Bernsten, 2003).
Many of the more obvious explanations of the
reminiscence bump have been rejected, e.g., that the
memories are of first-time experiences and that is
why they are memorable, as in fact it has been
found that less than 20% are typically of first-time
experiences (Fitzgerald, 1988). Rubin et al. (1998)
reviewed a series of potential explanations and
argued in favor of an explanation in terms of novelty.
According to this view, the period when people are
aged 10–30 years, and especially 15–25 years, is distinguished by novel experiences, occurring during a
905
period of rapid change that gives way to a period of
stability. It is assumed that memories from the period
of rapid change are more distinct than those from the
period of stability and this is why they are comparatively more frequently accessed. By this account, a
period of rapid change taking place at some other
point in the life cycle should also lead to raised
accessibility of memories from that period relative
to more stable periods, and there is some evidence
that this is the case (Conway and Haque, 1999).
However, periods of (goal) change and experiences
of novelty always involve the self and a related but
alternative explanation is that the high accessibility
of memories from this period (and other periods as
well) may be related to their enduring relation to the
self (Conway and Pleydell-Pearce, 2000). Possibly,
many memories from the period of the reminiscence
bump are memories of self-defining experiences (see
Fitzgerald, 1988) and have a powerful effect in cohering the working self into a particular form. The
novelty of reminiscence bump experiences lies in
their newness and uniqueness for the self and they
may play a crucial role in the final formation of a
stable self system and identity formation during late
adolescence and early adulthood. The raised accessibility of these memories might then serve processes
relating to the coherence of self through time.
Thus, the period of the reminiscence bump might
be a period in which a sole ‘I am. . .,’ or self-image,
develops into multiple ‘I ams. . .,’ e.g., I am a son, I am
a student, I am a boyfriend, etc. Also, at this point
multiple ‘I will becomes. . .’ may be formed, supported by the differentiation of ‘I ams. . .’ and the
final emergence of a complete working self goal
hierarchy and conceptual self grounded in autobiographical knowledge and memories (the SMS).
Finally it might be noted that older patients with
schizophrenia have been found to show an early
and disorganized reminiscence bump, with an
impairment of conscious recollection associated
with memories highly relevant to personal identity
(Cuevo-Lombard et al., 2007). This suggests that a
developmental failure present in schizophrenia is the
consolidation of personal identity in late adolescence/early adulthood. Possibly, one of the features
of the abnormal SMS associated with this is a failure
or weakening of the grounding of conceptual autobiographical knowledge in episodic memories of
formative experiences, further demonstrating the
importance of an integrated self with self-images
strongly embedded in sets of defining episodic
memories.
906 Autobiographical Memory
2.46.8 Closing Section: Why Do We
Have Autobiographical Memory?
In many respects this may seem a pointless or rhetorical 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 example, 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 selfimages 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 progressed 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 simply 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 progress 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 short
term is highly adaptive and prevents the repetition of
actions and the adoption of courses of actions that
have a high probability of failing.
Conway (2005) argues that episodic memory is
the memory system that keeps a record of very recent
goal-related activities. It is a system that has evolved
highly specific memory representations that facilitate
the type of short-term goal processing that can keep
goals focused and environmentally relevant. It is
suggested that this is a species-wide adaptation and,
consequently, episodic memory is common to many
species. As such it is probably a phylogenetically
older memory system and may be represented in
neural networks located toward the middle and posterior of the brain (a temporal-occipital network; see
Conway, 2005). In contrast, humans have developed
conceptual knowledge that forms complex knowledge
structures that endure over long periods of time, even
over a lifetime. This, it is suggested, is a more recent
evolutionary development and is mediated by neural
networks toward the front of the brain: frontotemporal regions. The conceptual memory system
supports long-term goal processing, for example, relationships, work projects, etc. Episodic memories that
are retained become attached to conceptual knowledge and provide highly specific instances of goal
processing related to the more general or generic
goals of the conceptual self and self-images.
Autobiographical memory then allows us to have
both short- and long-term goals and to integrate
these in coherent ways that facilitate goal processing
in the future.
Acknowledgments
Martin Conway was supported by the award of a
Professorial Fellowship from the Economic and
Social Research Council (ESRC), RES-051-27-0127
of the United Kingdom, and Helen Williams by a
Research Assistantship, also from the ESRC.
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