The Self and Autobiographical Memory: Correspondence and Coherence

TLDR

The study discusses a fundamental tension between adaptive correspondence—experience‑near sensory‑perceptual records of goal activity—and self‑coherence, a more abstract, conceptual long‑term store of autobiographical knowledge. The authors introduce a modified Self Memory System (SMS) and examine how this tension operates across its episodic, long‑term, and working self components. The modified SMS defines a long‑term self as the interaction between autobiographical knowledge and the conceptual self, while the working self mediates between episodic memory and the long‑term self depending on goal activity status. The SMS is applied to personality and clinical psychology through analyses of self‑defining memories, adult attachment categories, and traumatic case histories, and its role in imagination is illustrated via a discussion of Wordsworth’s poetry.

Abstract

A modified version of Conway and Pleydell-Pearce's Self Memory System (SMS) account of autobiographical memory and the self is introduced. Modifications include discussion of a fundamental tension between adaptive correspondence (experience-near sensory-perceptual records of goal activity) and self-coherence (a more abstracted and conceptualized-rich long-term store of conceptual and remembered knowledge). This tension is examined in relation to each SMS component—the episodic memory system, long-term self, and the working self. The long-term self, a new aspect of the model, consists of the interaction of the autobiographical knowledge base and the conceptual self. The working self, depending on goal activity status, mediates between episodic memory and the long-term self. Applications of the SMS to personality and clinical psychology are provided through analysis of self-defining memories and adult attachment categories, as well as case histories of traumatic memory. The SMS's role in imagination is examined through a brief discussion of Wordsworth's poetry.