Autobiographical Remembering: An Integrative Approach

Many theories of autobiographical memory have relied on a specific combination of retrieval conditions: initial retrieval is intentional; the tests are direct; and, there is an awareness of the source of the information. In this paper, we discuss how these conditions restrict the application of theories, utilizing concepts that are currently in debate within more traditional fields of memory research. We provide examples of autobiographical memory retrieval in a naturalisitc setting and discuss how current theories cannot be generalised to these spontaneous conditions of retrieval