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‘So that we might have roses in December’: The functions of autobiographical memory
Author(s) -
Kihlstrom John F.
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
applied cognitive psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.719
H-Index - 100
eISSN - 1099-0720
pISSN - 0888-4080
DOI - 10.1002/acp.1618
Subject(s) - autobiographical memory , psychology , recall , episodic memory , feeling , childhood amnesia , popularity , fallacy , mental representation , representation (politics) , cognitive psychology , cognition , social psychology , cognitive science , childhood memory , epistemology , politics , philosophy , neuroscience , political science , law
Autobiographical memory is not merely declarative and episodic in nature. It also entails explicit self‐reference, chronological organization and causal relations. It entails conscious recollection, in terms of remembering, knowing, feeling or believing. Its functions may be agentic or nonagentic, but all are assigned, not intrinsic, and thus are observer‐relative features of reality. Questions about function risk committing the adaptationist fallacy. Intrapersonally, autobiographical memory is a critical component in the mental representation of self. Interpersonally, autobiographical memory provides a basis for establishing and maintaining social relationships. Autobiographical memory is an individual right, and it may also be an ethical obligation. The popularity of memoir as a literary genre indicates that it is also a means of making money. In a future world of artificial minds with infinite capacity for data storage, there still will be no substitute for the human capacity to remember what really matters and forget what does not. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.