Chapter 11 - Autobiographical Memory

Question 1

Autobiographical memory

Answer 1

Memory across the lifespan for both specific events and and self-related information.

Question 2

Infantile amnesia

Answer 2

The tendency to recollect few autobiographical memories from the first 5 years of life.

Question 3

Reminiscence bump

Answer 3

A tendency in participants over 40 to show a high rate of recollecting personal experiences from their late teens and early twenties.

Question 4

Life narrative

Answer 4

A coherent and integrated account of one’s life that is claimed to form the basis of autobiographical memory.

Question 5

Autobiographical knowledge base

Answer 5

Facts about ourselves and our past that form the basis for autobiographical memory.

Question 6

Working self

Answer 6

A concept proposed by Conway to account for the way in which autobiographical knowledge is accumulated and used.

Question 7

Autonoetic consciousness

Answer 7

A term proposed by Tulving for self-awareness, allowing the rememberer to reflect on the contents of episodic memory.

Question 8

Flashbulb memory

Answer 8

Term applied to the detailed and apparently highly accurate memory of a dramatic experience.

Question 9

PTSD

Answer 9

Emotional disorder whereby a dramatic and stressful event such as rape results in persistent anxiety, often accompanied by vivid flashback memories of the event.

Question 10

Reappearance hypothesis

Answer 10

The view that under certain circumstances, such as flashbulb memory and PTSD, memories can be created that later reappear in exactly the same form.