AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL MEMORY FOR CHILDHOOD EVENTS - PATTERNS OF RECALL IN PSYCHIATRIC-PATIENTS WITH A HISTORY OF ALLEGED TRAUMA

SOCIAL scientists are currently being pressed upon by the legal and sc ientific communities to provide more definitive explanations regarding the nature and functions of memory (Loftus 1993), At the forefront of this debate is autobiographical memory, Autobiographical memory is a subclassification of memory within the declarative memory system and s ignifies memory for one's own personal life experiences in the recent and/or remote past. This study investigates the relationship between e arly trauma and memory for childhood events in adult psychiatric patie nts. The findings suggest that patients with an alleged history of tra uma have a measurably different pattern of recall for early events tha n the patient and nonpatient comparison groups.