When transmitted memories become autobiographical

nicht angegebenPeople not only remember events that have happened to themselves personally, but also those which have happened to others and which they have been told about. These memories are often referred to as transmitted memories and can share many of the same features of autobiographical memories. However, is the presence of the same phenomenological properties enough to suggest that transmitted memories are of the same elk as autobiographical memories? Or, is something additional involved in transforming another’s memory into a memory that is more one’s own? The present study sought to explore this question by examining the nature of the content of the phenomenological properties present in transmitted memories. Of particular interest was the nature of the differences of the phenomenological content of transmitted memories in providing possible clues to the process of the adaptation of another’s memory as one’s own. The present study explored these questions within the context of memories for events from the war in the former Yugoslavia, under the assumption that these events were relevant for the moral and identity life of the people concerned, thus being of a more highly charged character and increasing the possibility that individuals who only heard about these events, retained them in their memories in a vivid and alive manner. Nine participants of Serb ethnicity were interviewed about six different events. For each event, an autobiographical account was given by a person who had lived through the event and a transmitted account was given by a person who had only heard about the event. The accounts were subsequently coded and compared across phenomenological properties including imagery, auditory details, emotionality, bodily details and visual perspective. The results confirm previous findings that transmitted memories contain the same phenomenological properties as autobiographical memories. However, additionally, these results suggest that the process of incorporating the transformation of another’s memory as one’s own involves going beyond the factual information of the narrative and includes inference-making and self-referential imaginings