Main description:

The meeting Theoretical Perspectives on Autobiographical Memory was held at the Grange Hotel, Grange-over-Sands, in the Lake District region of North Western England, July 1991. The workshop was financed by a generous grant from the NATO Scientific Affairs Division under the Advanced Research Workshop programme and without this funding the meeting would not have been possible: the organisers and delegates gratefully acknowledge the support of the NATO Advanced Research Workshops programme. Thirty-five scientists from five different NATO countries attended the workshop and twenty-seven delegates presented papers. The two aims of the workshop were to bring together in one forum a number of comparatively separate approaches to autobiographical memory and to promote theory in the area generally . These aims were fulfilled in the presentations and discussions, particularly the final discussion session, in which delegates focussed on the central issues of the nature, structure, and functions of autobiographical memory and how these emerge in different research areas. The present volume contains the papers arising from the workshop. We thank Mrs. Sheila Whalley for secretarial help and Fiona Hirst and Stephen Anderson fur practical assistance in coordinating registration for the workshop.

Contents:

Making Sense of the Past.- What is Autobiographical Memory?.- Phenomenal Experience in Laboratory and Autobiographical Memory Tasks.- Personal Context in Autobiographical and Narrative Memories.- Autobiographical Remembering: Creating Personal Culture.- Autobiographical Memory and Conceptualizations of the Self.- The Social Construction of Autobiographical Memory.- Autobiographical Remembering: An Integrative Approach.- Memory for an Early School Report.- A Structural Model of Autobiographical Memory.- The Wider Importance of Autobiographical Memory Research.- The Functions of Autobiographical Memory.- First Experience Memories: Contexts and Functions in Personal Histories.- There is More to Episodic Memory than Just Episodes.- Remembering my Worst Sins: How Autobiographical Memory Serves the Updating of the Conceptual Self.- The Construction and Function of Vivid Memories.- Autobiographical Memory and Survey Methodology: Furthering the Bridge between Two Disciplines.- Socio-historical Context and Autobiographical Memories: Variations in the Reminiscence Phenomenon.- Collective Memory and Collective Memories.- Emotional Memories in Laboratory Studies versus Real-life Studies: Do they Compare?.- Evaluating "the Cognitive Structure of Emotions" using Autobiographical Memories of Emotional Events.- Repression and Autobiographical Memory.- Categoric and Extended Autobiographical Memories.- Autobiographical Memory and Life-history Narratives in Aging and Dementia (Alzheimer type).- Autobiographical Memory in Clinical Research and Practice.- Is Autobiographical Impairment Due to a Deficit of Recollection? An Overview of Studies on Alzheimer Dements, Frontal and Global Amnesic Patients.- Semantic and Autobiographical Memory: Neuropsychological Dissociations?.- Definitions of Autobiographical Memory.