Autobiographical Knowledge Flashcards
How is AK organised hierarchically?
Highest level is a person’s overall life story (the set of themes that define their identity and tell their history).
Life story is made up of several life story schema (work and relationship schemas). A schema has defined slots (people & places) which can take certain values (‘my boss’ or ‘Glasgow’).
Each major life story schema is organised in terms of lifetime periods (e.g. ‘at university’).
Each lifetime period will have links to associated general events including single events, repeated events and extended events.
Name 4 types of autobiographical knowledge?
Life story; schema; lifetime periods and general events.
How are lifetime periods and general events linked to the working self?
Both LPs and GEs are seen as relating to particular goals and are evaluated in terms of their goal achievement.
What is Tulving’s (1972) distinction between episodic memory and semantic memory?
Episodic memory - individual personal experience.
Semantic memory - social and universal knowledge.
What was Conway’s argument about Tulving’s distinction between EM and SM being problematic?
See section 3.2. He does, however, maintain the concept of EM in that he sees components of GEs (e.g. the film club building) as being linked to near-experience sensory-perceptual details (e.g. a visual image of the building). He argues that these episodic memory details will soon be lost, however, unless linked to the semantic AM structure (e.g. to the representation of a general event).
