The Role of the Self in the Organization of Memories and Imagined Future Events

International audienceThis chapter reviews the organizational role of the self in the distributions and accessibility of memories and imagined future events. It covers research on the self-reference effect, self-defining memories, and the reminiscence bump. In this context, the different methods used to explore the relationships between the self, autobiographical memory, and future thinking are reviewed. A comparative view of the findings obtained for the past and the future are also given. The contributions of studies conducted in both healthy controls and clinical populations are discussed. One section is devoted to investigations in people with neurological and neuropsychiatric conditions and their contribution to improving our understanding of the relationships between autobiographical memory and the self