The constituent structure of autobiographical memory: Autobiographical fluency in people with chronic epilepsy

A total of 59 people with chronic epilepsy recalled autobiographical episod es and personal facts (such as the names of friends or teachers) from vario us lifetime periods. Also tested was their verbal fluency and their fluency in generating items from semantic categories (animals, vegetables, US pres idents, and British prime ministers). Results of a cluster analysis and a c ommon factor analysis confirmed a dissociation between the retrieval of aut obiographical information and that of nonpersonal semantic information. The re was a similar dissociation between the recall of personal episodes and t he recall of the personal information, but the corresponding factors were h ighly correlated with one another. Finally, verbal fluency performance was significantly correlated with the retrieval of personal information, person al episodes, and common objects, but not with that of public figures. The c onstituent structure of autobiographical fluency is extremely robust across different populations.