Remembering, imagining, false memories & personal meanings

• Published in: Consciousness and cognition Vol. 33; pp. 574 - 581
• Main Authors: Conway, Martin A., Loveday, Catherine
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Elsevier Inc 01-05-2015; Elsevier BV
• Subjects: Autobiographical memory; Episodic future thinking; Episodic memory; Humans; Imagination - physiology; Imagining; Memory; Memory, Episodic; Mental Recall - physiology; Personal meanings; Simulation; Studies; Working self; Episodic future thinking; Simulation; Autobiographical memory; Working self; Personal meanings; Episodic memory; Imagining
• ISSN: 1053-8100; 1090-2376
• DOI: 10.1016/j.concog.2014.12.002

•Memories are mental constructions.•Memories represent short time slices derived from experience.•Memories contain inferences and details not derived from memory of an experience.•All memories are to varying degrees false.•Memories ground personal meanings and beliefs.
The Self-Memory System encompasses the working self, autobiographical memory and episodic memory. Specific autobiographical memories are patterns of activation over knowledge structures in autobiographical and episodic memory brought about by the activating effect of cues. The working self can elaborate cues based on the knowledge they initially activate and so control the construction of memories of the past and the future. It is proposed that such construction takes place in the remembering–imagining system – a window of highly accessible recent memories and simulations of near future events. How this malfunctions in various disorders is considered as are the implication of what we term the modern view of human memory for notions of memory accuracy. We show how all memories are to some degree false and that the main role of memories lies in generating personal meanings.