We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 June 2009
Historically, psychology has long recognized the existence of two different forms of mental organization. The distinction has been given many names “rational” vs. “intuitive,” “constrained” vs. “creative,” “logical” vs. “prelogical,” “realistic” vs. “autistic,” “secondary process” vs. “primary process” … a common thread runs through all the dichotomies. Some thinking and remembering is deliberate, efficient and obviously goal-directed; it is usually experienced as self-controlled as well. Other mental activity is rich, chaotic and inefficient; it tends to be experienced as involuntary, it just “happens.”
(Neisser, 1967, p. 297)Involuntary autobiographical memories belong to a class of mental phenomena that enter consciousness in an uncontrolled fashion and thus in ways that may appear to be inexplicable and maybe even mystifying to the individual. For example, a former colleague reported that he was often reminded of a particular school friend when he ate cheese with caraway seeds (which he rarely did). Not being able to detect any connection between this person and cheese with caraway seeds, he turned to “the expert” for an explanation. Unfortunately, I could not provide one that he felt was completely satisfying. Nonetheless, in what follows, I will try to provide an overall theory of involuntary autobiographical memories that has the potentials of accounting for most individual cases (although it may be possible for the reader to come up with personal observations and anecdotes that it seems to miss).
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.
