Abstract
The process by which experience is divided into events was examined. Experiment 1 involved diarists recording their experiences over a 3-month period. Diary entries were later transcribed onto cards and the diarists arranged their cards so as to define events they had experienced, and in a separate phase arranged their cards so as to describe the themes that reflected their life. Examination of event- and theme-building strategies indicated that boundaries were frequently used, and events and themes were often formed from clusters of experience combined using content association rather than temporal sequence. Experiment 2 involved photographs taken by the participants, employed the same procedures as in Experiment 1, and revealed event- and theme-building strategies similar to those identified in Experiment 1. In Experiment 3 the size of the stimulus set from which events and themes were constructed was manipulated; this did not influence construction strategies. Overall, the experiments show that both autobiographical events and themes frequently consist of episodes taken from more than 1 day.
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This research was supported by a grant from the Marsden Fund (MS1012).
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Burt, C.D.B., Kemp, S. & Conway, M.A. Themes, events, and episodes in autobiographical memory. Memory & Cognition 31, 317–325 (2003). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03194390
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03194390