Abstract
Although many theorists have postulated a variety of functions of autobiographical memory — including directive, self definitional, and social — there has been little investigation of how people actually use their autobiographical memories on a daily basis. Using two different methods of soliciting autobiographical memories with different subject populations, we asked people to describe previous times when they had consulted their memories of the events. Across these two experiments, we found several usages that were observed frequently. These common uses all described the self in a social context for a relationship maintenance purpose. In the second experiment we found evidence for self regulatory uses of autobiographical memories, while in the first we found evidence for some using memories to illustrate a point in conversation. We found almost no evidence for directive uses of autobiographical memory in either experiment. We conclude with a discussion of how theories of the function may influence theories of retrieval.
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© 1992 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
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Hyman, I.E., Faries, J.M. (1992). The Functions of Autobiographical Memory. In: Conway, M.A., Rubin, D.C., Spinnler, H., Wagenaar, W.A. (eds) Theoretical Perspectives on Autobiographical Memory. NATO ASI Series, vol 65. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-7967-4_12
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-7967-4_12
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
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