I outline the basic systems model, a theory that can account for the encoding and retrieval of autobiographical memories (Rubin, 1998, 2005, 2006). Next I demonstrate that the model adapts easily for other related tasks in order to address what aspects of autobiographical memory the basic systems model is trying to explain, and how varying the activity of the basic systems can produce different classes of memories. Finally, in order to contrast the model most starkly to current cognitive theory and major alternative accounts of autobiographical memory based on it, I consider four central assumptions that lead to three fundamental claims, which are all counter to the basic systems model but which are central to other accounts of cognition and autobiographical memory. The clearer and stronger my discussion of these claims, the easier it will be to see if I am misguided. I may be wrong, but I will try not to be boring.

The model applied to an autobiographical event

The prototypical autobiographical event whose memory I wish to explain is a single ride on a merry-go-round at an amusement park. This chapter is about a model that could describe an autobiographical memory of this event if it were based on our most basic, solid, current understanding of the mind and the brain, instead of trying to modify models initially based on a 1960s computer. The model needs to account for or include the phenomenological, metacognitive judgments of reliving the ride and believing that it really happened to you, the various emotions from boredom to joy that might accompany this particular event, a general knowledge of the physical ride that would allow you to choose a seat with or without vertical motion, the script for paying for and taking such a ride, and a narrative context in which this event is embedded and which helps you understand and share with others the significance of the ride. Components should include rich visual imagery for the brightly colored animals, auditory imagery for the imitation calliope, spatial imagery for the ride and its surrounds, olfactory imagery for odors from nearby food stands, kinesthetic imagery of motion, and even an account of why the visual and spatial images are stronger than the olfactory and kinesthetic ones.

Development of autobiographical memory from infancy to old age

The three chapters in this part together address the development of autobiographical memory from infancy to old age. The chapters offer different perspectives on this topic and focus on different parts of the life span. The chapter by Bauer reviews and discusses research on memory in infancy and early childhood. Bauer identifies different rates of forgetting for very early childhood memories as compared to memories later in life. She discusses the implications of these findings for our understanding of infantile amnesia. The chapter by Fivush reviews and discusses how sociocultural factors affect autobiographical memory development. She proposes that although episodic representations are available from a very early age, the ability to construct and integrate such episodes into temporally and thematically coherent autobiographical stories of the personal past emerges gradually during the preschool years and continues to develop through adolescence under the influence of sociocultural factors. The chapter by Fitzgerald and Broadbridge examines the development of autobiographical memory from a life-span perspective and also discusses the implications of this perspective for research on autobiographical memory more broadly. Among other things, Fitzgerald and Broadbridge discuss possible explanations of the reminiscence bump (i.e., the increase of memories from young adulthood relative to the surrounding periods) from a life-span developmental perspective.

How memories are consolidated is a problem that is at the core of memory research. Without consolidation, memories are fleeting; distraction, interference, noxious agents, drugs, brain damage, or the mere passage of time will disrupt and eliminate them. Consolidation is the time and experience-dependent process by which newly acquired memories become stabilized so that they are relatively immune to disruption by all these influences. Not surprisingly, therefore, consolidation has been a topic of investigation since the beginning of the scientific study of memory. In this chapter, I will focus on the role that autobiographical memory has played in our understanding of the neural mechanisms implicated in consolidation.

The turn of the twentieth century

Autobiographical memory played a significant role in establishing that brain damage or trauma can disrupt consolidation, and continues to play this role during bedside investigations of memory loss. Patients are asked routinely if they know where they are, what brought them to this location, what they did recently, and what they remember about their more remote past, such as the schools they attended, the friends they had, the jobs they held, and so on. They also are asked questions regarding general knowledge, such as who is the current mayor or head of the country, and about news events from the recent and remote past. Based on such anecdotal evidence, investigators dating back to the end of the nineteenth century concluded that recent memories are more vulnerable to disruption than remote memories, presumably because the latter had an opportunity to become consolidated whereas the former did not (Ribot, 1882). The term “consolidation” was coined by Müller and Pilzecker (1900) to account for the results of their behavioral, laboratory-based experiments in which they measured the time it took newly learned memories to become resistant to disruption by a subsequent, to-be-remembered event. By 1904, Burnhamconcluded:

Discussion

There is one chapter in this part. In this final chapter, the editors attempt to integrate the preceding contributions to this book into a coherent ecological theory of autobiographical memory.

Historically significant public events sometimes organize autobiographical memory, acting as temporal landmarks and providing the thematic content which defines the lifetime periods they spawn (Brown and Lee, 2010; Brown, Lee, Krslak, et al., 2009). We begin this chapter by briefly reviewing a research program that has demonstrated the existence of these historically defined autobiographical periods and that has allowed us to identify the conditions that bring them about. In this section, we also present data from four samples of World War II-generation adults, data which prove that historically defined autobiographical periods endure over time. Next, we consider the theoretical implications of these findings. In particular, we introduce a new approach to autobiographical memory called the transition theory. This approach assumes that autobiographical memory is organized by transitional events and that these transitions can be self-initiated or externally imposed. On this view, historically defined autobiographical periods are formed by externally imposed transitions. We develop this point in the third and final section of this chapter.

The living-in-history project

War, terrorism, and natural disasters can have far-reaching effects on the lives of those involved (Blaikie, Cannon, Davis, et al., 1994; Levy and Sidel, 1997; McNally, 2003). Collective memory for extraordinary social events can also play a critical role in the construction and maintenance of group identities and in the persistence of intergroup hostility (Bar-Tal, 2007; Cairns and Roe, 2003; Halbwachs, 1992; Hirst, Cuc, and Wohl, this volume). Our project examined the mnemonic impact of public events at the individual level in order to understand when autobiographical memory and historical events can become intertwined. More specifically, the program of research was undertaken to determine whether public events affect the organization of autobiographical memory and to specify the conditions that result in the creation of historically defined autobiographical periods. We were interested in this issue because we suspected that people who had “lived in history” might understand the recent past in a different way than those who had not, and that this understanding might ground current and future beliefs about that past. For this reason, we wanted to identify public events that caused people to “live in history” and to distinguish these epoch-defining events from other significant public events.

Preface

The chapters included in this book were given as invited addresses at the conference “Theoretical Perspectives on Autobiographical Memory,” which was held in Aarhus, Denmark, June 13–15, 2010. It was the first open-call conference dedicated to the study of autobiographical memories. The conference involved more than 150 participants from more than 15 different countries, testifying to the internal scope of the field. The conference brought together some of the most outstanding researchers on autobiographical memory. Each of them presented their key findings and particular theoretical perspective on the field. The conference marked the opening of the Center on Autobiographical Memory Research (CON AMORE) at Aarhus University funded by the Danish National Research Foundation’s Center of Excellence Program.

It is appropriate to begin this chapter by quoting one of the most influential pioneers of cognitive psychology (Neisser, 1967) and autobiographical memory research (Neisser, 1986, 1988, 1994). The position expressed by Neisser is not just relevant in relation to understanding the self. In this chapter we will propose a similar ecological approach to the understanding of autobiographical memory.

According to most definitions, autobiographical memory is the ability to consciously remember personal events. However, personal events are not unchanging, ontological entities. They are constructions that vary substantially with regard to their temporal, spatial, and social complexity. Some event constructions are simple – e.g., eating a sandwich in a cafe – whereas others are more complicated – e.g., eating a sandwich in a cafe while attending a conference on autobiographical memory and discussing shared past experiences with colleagues. In the latter example, the event (eating the sandwich) embeds other personal events (the shared past experiences being discussed over the meal) and is itself embedded in the overarching event of participating in the conference. It involves complex social knowledge, including knowledge of conferences and knowledge of the other persons who take part in the event, such as their roles, expertise, and mutual relations.

In 1929, at the age of 4 years, prominent African-American activist Malcolm X experienced a horrifying event that became his “earliest vivid memory”:

Why was this early childhood experience so memorable? One answer to this question focuses on well-known and carefully studied mental and affective processes known to enhance memory vividness (e.g., Rubin and Kozin, 1984). The episode was highly emotional; it was distinctive and unique; it carried immense personal and familial importance; and as a result it was repeatedly thought about, talked about, and written about in the years that followed. The memory represents these qualities so strongly that it would be far more difficult to explain its absence than its prominent place in Malcolm’s life history.

A second answer to the question of why the episode was vividly remembered focuses on adaptive functions rather than mental processes. Autobiographical memory is much more than a passive record of things that happened years ago – it also actively influences current thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors. Malcolm X’s memory seemed to anchor a continuing set of attitudes and deeply felt feelings that helped to set the course of his career as an activist and leader (Pillemer, 1998, pp. 75–76). He referred back to episodes of childhood trauma and harassment when speaking publicly about racial hatred and injustice (Malcolm X, 1965, p. 6).

From the moment we wake up to the moment we fall asleep, we spend much time thinking about all sorts of events and situations that are yet to happen – an errand to run this afternoon, an appointment at the dentist tomorrow, the next lab meeting, a romantic dinner tonight, plans for the weekend, a job interview next month, to give just a few examples. Young adults may experience, on average, around sixty thoughts about the future during a typical day (i.e., one future thought every 16 minutes), and much of these thoughts probably serve important functions, such as planning and decision making (D’Argembeau, Renaud, and Van der Linden, 2011). The ability to imagine and plan for the future (here referred to as “future thinking”) is thus clearly a prominent feature of the human mind.

How do we mentally represent future events? What are our thoughts and mental images of the future made of? How are they constructed? The purpose of this chapter is to explore these issues. The first section reviews recent research that has revealed that the capacity to imagine future events is closely related to the capacity to remember past events. Next, I dig further into the nature of this relationship and consider the possible contribution of different kinds of autobiographical knowledge structures to the representation of future events. Finally, recent findings about the component processes underlying future thinking are presented and discussed.

Approaches to the study of autobiographical memory

How should studies on autobiographical memory be approached? The four chapters in this section address this question from different perspectives. The chapter by Rubin examines the neural and biological bases of autobiographical information. Rubin describes the construction of autobiographical memories as an interaction between functionally distinct subsystems of the mind and brain. He also discusses the implications of this view for our broader understanding of memory. The chapter by Habermas links modern research on autobiographical memory to the earlier psychoanalytic approach to the same phenomenon. Habermas offers a unique introduction to psychodynamic theories of autobiographical memory, and discusses the differences and similarities between these early approaches and modern ones.The chapter by Conway and Jobson addresses the role of the self, its goals, and its social and cultural context in the processing of autobiographical information and construction of memories. This chapter thus emphasizes the cultural, social, and motivational aspects of autobiographical remembering. The section ends with a chapter by Baddeley. As one of the early pioneers of autobiographical memory research, Baddeley takes a historical perspective and evaluates a number of different empirical approaches that have emerged over the years. He concludes by a call for more theoretical integration.

Human memory seems ill equipped to handle the multitude of demands placed on it. Schacter (1999) has treated the widely recognized weaknesses of memory as sins, raising an ideal of a “perfect memory.” For him, memory sins against people, and we assume that he would opine that people must simply learn to live with its corruption. They must accept that their memories are transient and perhaps undesirably persistent, and they must realize that memory is vulnerable to absent-mindedness, biases, source-monitoring errors, and the implantation of misinformation. These weaknesses are not what people might want out of their memory, but they are what evolution has provided.

In this volume on autobiographical memory, one might follow Schacter’s lead and ask what the cost of these faulty memories is for identity formation. As Christopher Nolan’s film Memento dramatically illustrates, the cost is no doubt severe. The central character in Memento, Leonard Shelby, struggles with a profound amnesia. This memory failure creates a tentative hold on the past that, as the movie progresses, leads to a slow disintegration of Lenny’s identity. As his nemesis Teddy says: “You don’t . . . know who you are, Lenny.” And indeed, the audience watches as Lenny slips in and out of a slowly emerging realization that he might be a murderer. Although Memento captures the relation between autobiographical memory and identity in extremis, it underscores how the fallibility of memories might make the hold people have on their identity ever so tentative. From this perspective, the flaws of memory might be viewed as cardinal sins.

The ability to remember personal events is at the heart of what defines an individual as a person with obligations, roles, and commitments in a given society. It enables us to draw lessons from our past and plan our personal future. It helps us to orientate and participate in complex social communities. Autobiographical memory is therefore crucial for a sense of identity, continuity, and direction in life.

In spite of this significance, concerted and systematic psychological research on autobiographical memory only began to emerge in the 1980s, roughly a hundred years after the publication of the first book launching experimental research on memory (Ebbinghaus, 1885/1964). Until then, experimental memory research had been focused on testing learning and memory for verbal material.

Research on autobiographical memory broke away from the existing field of memory research by introducing new methodological, theoretical, and philosophical challenges (e.g., Brewer, 1986; Crovitz and Schiffman, 1974; Neisser, 1982). For that reason, autobiographical memory researchers often had difficulty in getting their work published in existing psychology journals. Instead, edited books became an importantmedium for scientific exchange during the first decade.

The first edited book on autobiographical memory was published in the middle of the 1980s (Rubin, 1986). At this time, the autobiographical memory field was small and exotic.

Social and cultural aspects of autobiographical memory

The three chapters in this part all consider how each individual’s memory is embedded in a larger social, cultural, and historical context, and how this affects the organization and content of autobiographical memories as well their retrieval and forgetting. Hirst and colleagues discuss the notion of collective remembering and reviews studies showing how the social context affects retrieval and forgetting of autobiographical memories. Their chapter describes the relevance of the experimental paradigm of retrieval-induced forgetting for our understanding of autobiographical remembering within a social context. The chapter by Brown and colleagues examines the effects of transitons on the organization of autobiographical memories. They argue that events that “change the fabric of everyday life” will have lasting effects on memory organization by defining new time periods in the individual life course. Such transitions can be both historical events affecting an entire community (e.g., end of World War II) and more private events (e.g., getting married), which may be culturally normative. Pillemer and Kuwabara discuss the directive functions of autobiographical remembering – that is, how autobiographical memories may help us to arrive at a better understanding of a given problem and also how our memories help to set the course for our behavior and goals in complex social situations. By discussing such functional aspects of remembering, Pillemer and Kuwabara address how autobiographical memories become adaptive in a larger social and cultural context.

One of the most intriguing phenomena in the memory literature is infantile or childhood amnesia. The amnesia has two components: a relative paucity among adults of memories of specific past events from the first 3 to 4 years of life, and from the ages of 3 or 4 to age 7 or 8, a smaller number of memories than would be expected on the basis of forgetting alone (Pillemer and White, 1989). The amnesia made its debut in the psychological literature in 1893, with a report by C. Miles on adults’ responses to a questionnaire designed to gain information about the phenomenal experience of childhood. One of the questions included in the survey was, “What is the earliest thing you are sure you can remember? How old were you?” The average earliest memory of Miles’ 89 respondents was age 3.04 years. The amnesia was named in 1905 by Sigmund Freud, who remarked on “the peculiar amnesia which veils from most people (not from all) the first years of their childhood, usually the first six or eight years” (1905/1953, p. 581). For much of the twentieth century, efforts were made to describe the amnesia by characterizing adults’ earliest memories along dimensions of detail and completeness (highly detailed or fragmentary), perspective (first or third person), emotionality (predominantly positive, negative, or devoid of emotion), and so forth (see, e.g., Bauer, 2007; White and Pillemer, 1979, for reviews). Explanatory accounts ranged from theories of repression and “screening” of psychically unacceptable recollections (Freud, 1905/1953) to cognitive theories characterizing the ability to remember specific past events as a developmentally late achievement due to changes in representational processes (Piaget, 1962), or non-mnemonic developments, such as the dawning of autonoetic awareness (e.g., Perner and Ruffman, 1995), for example. Largely missing from the literature, however, were data on the memories of children within the age period eventually veiled by the amnesia. As a result, there was little to constrain accounts of the origins or development of the amnesia.

Autobiographical memories often arise involuntarily, that is, with no preceding retrieval effort, as illustrated by the example. However, most research on autobiographical/episodic memory still works under the assumption that conscious recollections of past events normally require a goal-directed and controlled (voluntary) retrieval process. For example, in his seminal book, Tulving (1983) argued that “access to, or actualization from, the episodic memory system tends to be deliberate and usually requires conscious effort” (p. 46). Mandler (1985) observed that episodic retrieval in general is “deliberate and consciously accessed” (p. 94), while acknowledging that “much of everyday memory experiences are in fact non-deliberate” (pp. 102–103). More recently, Davachi and Dobbins (2008) stated, “Occasionally, a memory will just pop into one’s head wholly uninvited. Although we have all had such involuntary recollections, they are arguably not the norm. . .” (p. 115). Here I am going to challenge this view by arguing that involuntary recollections are a basic mode of remembering.

A basic mode of remembering

On the first pages of his groundbreaking book on memory, Ebbinghaus (1885) identified three basic modes of remembering, a voluntary conscious mode, an involuntary conscious mode, and a non-conscious mode. However, since Ebbinghaus, modern cognitive psychologists have generally ignored the category of involuntary conscious memories (see Berntsen, 2009; Hintzman, 2011, for reviews). In contrast, involuntary conscious memories have received substantial attention in the field of clinical psychology, but almost always in relation to emotionally stressful experiences or psychological disorders (e.g., Brewin, Dalgleish, and Joseph, 1996; Ehlers, Hackmann, and Michael, 2004).

The title of this chapter reflects two important organizing features. The first is that it is about autobiographical memory, and the second is that it takes a life-span developmental perspective on that topic. Following chapters by Bauer and Fivush, this is the third of three explicitly developmental chapters in this volume. Developmentalists generally agree that when individuals report a memory, that report may be influenced by memory functions related to encoding, storage, retrieval, and forgetting; the development of the individual since the moment of the event across cognitive, social cognitive, and personality domains; and environmental and cultural factors. Thus, the developmental approach provides a great many challenges.

This chapter is structured to provide the reader with an image of the life-span development of autobiographical memory, but not an exhaustive review of the literature. That would not be possible within the available space. Research on the various topics discussed here is growing rapidly. According to the Web of Science, from 2005 to 2009, over 1,000 articles were published in the area of autobiographical memory, and almost 20 percent of those articles were developmental in nature. The pace of data collection, however, is running ahead of theoretical integration.