A Talk on Event Memory

Putting the Self on the Shelf: Arguments for a Core-processes Approach to Event Memory

Norman R. Brown

Department of Psychology

University of Alberta

Much autobiographical memory research has focused on the relationship  between memories created from personal experience and knowledge of the Self. In this talk, I argue that this approach has limited our understanding of event memory in general and propose that a core set of processes is involved in creating, revising, and structuring event memories and that this is true regardless of whether the events in question are experienced directly or vicariously and regardless of whether they refer to actual occurrences, imagined occurrences or fictional ones. I then describe two lines of research that support this position. The first demonstrates that most autobiographical memories are believed to play little if any role in defining the Self; the second demonstrates that personal-event memories, vicarious-event memories and fictional-event memories are organized and retrieved in much the same way. I conclude by considering methodological mplications of this core-processes approach to event memory.

*The talk will be given at Boğaziçi University Rectorate Conference Hall at 3:00 PM.