There is More to Episodic Memory than just Episodes

Abstract

Recently many theorists have viewed life periods as a central organizing component of autobiographical memory. We resurrect some of our old unpublished research exploring the utility of distinguishing between periods (long-term thematic generalizations), episodes (sequential narratives of specific events or sets of interrelated events) and moments (isolated often vivid instants in time). We found that people readily generated memories that differed according to the primary characteristics ascribed to these units, as well as according to other interesting secondary characteristics (e.g., degree of emotionality). We use this distinction, and the reactions that it received from our reviewers, as a springboard for examining more recent attempts at documenting periods. This examination suggests that at least part of the difficulty that our original study met in being published may have been due to the differences in the goals of autobiographical and standard memory research: standard memory approaches consider underlying representations and processes whereas autobiographical memory, because it is concerned with how people remember their lives, requires consideration of phenomenological perspectives. Although standard memory measures can reveal informative qualities of lifetime periods, understanding how people think about and use periods in their autobiographical memories, requires at least some research that considers memory from the perspective of the rememberer.