Autobiographical memory and self
Explanation
Autobiographical memory is the capacity to recall specific episodes of one's own life, organised around an I who lived them. It is distinguished from other types of memory (semantic, procedural, working) by its personal and temporal reference, and is one of the cornerstones of conscious identity. Martin Conway and his Self-Memory System model is one of the most influential theoretical proposals: self and memory are mutually constituted.
In Conway's model, autobiographical memory is hierarchically organised. At the base, specific memories of concrete events (that afternoon, that instant). Above, general events (a season, a period of time). At the top, lifetime periods (adolescence, first job, marriage). This structure is integrated with the present self, called the conceptual self, which filters and reconstructs memories according to current goals, values and narrative. To remember is not to reproduce; it is to reconstruct under the influence of the self of now.
The neuroscience of autobiographical memory has identified a recurrent brain network: medial prefrontal cortex, posterior cingulate/precuneus, medial temporal lobes (hippocampus), which largely overlaps with the default mode network. Imagining the future, recalling the past and thinking about oneself activate, to a large extent, the same circuit, suggesting that the system of self-reference, episodic memory and future projection are aspects of a single capacity: autobiographical imagination.
For consciousness, this is capital. The narrative self spoken of by Ricoeur, McAdams and others rests structurally on this autobiographical memory system. If lesions affect the hippocampus (as in H.M. or patients with anterograde amnesia), the ongoing self is severely affected: a new identity cannot be built upon experiences that are not remembered. And if biographical memory of the past is lost (deep retrograde amnesia), the continuity of selfhood fragments.
Autobiographical memories are reconstructive, not reproductive. Each time we remember, we edit the memory according to the current state, with biases of consistency (I was always like this), positive optimisation (ageing improves the affective valence of memories), distortions through suggestion (false memories, studied by Loftus), and reputation effects (recalling facts that maintain a coherent self-image). This has implications in legal contexts (testimonies), therapeutic ones (trauma, recovered memories) and ethical ones.
Pathologies of autobiographical memory are windows into consciousness. In dissociative amnesia (related to trauma), patients do not remember large periods of their lives. In hyperthymesia or photographic memory syndrome, some people remember each day lived in enormous detail, which is not always well-being: it is sometimes a source of suffering. In dementias, the progressive loss of autobiographical memory is accompanied by erosion of the self. All this shows that autobiographical memory is not an accessory of the conscious self; it is, to a large extent, its very fabric.
Strengths
- A clear and empirically productive operational distinction.
- Compatible with the cognitive neuroscience of the hippocampus.
- Explains clinical cases such as selective amnesias.
- Articulates self with memory in an investigable way.
Main critiques
- Discussion of whether non-human animals have autonoetic consciousness.
- The reconstructiveness of memory casts doubt on the fidelity of the remembered self.
- Tension with theories that deny a substantial self.