title: Ways of sampling voluntary and involuntary autobiographical memories in daily life.
abstract: Cognitive psychologists have often equaled retrieval of personal events with voluntary recall from autobiographical memory, but more recent research shows that autobiographical memories often come to mind involuntarily-that is, with no retrieval effort. Voluntary memories have been studied in numerous laboratory experiments in response to word-prompts, whereas involuntary memories primarily have been examined in an everyday living context, using a structured diary procedure. However, it remains unclear how voluntary memories sampled in the laboratory map onto self-prompted voluntary memories in daily life. Here, we used a structured diary procedure to compare different types of voluntary autobiographical memories to their involuntary counterparts. The results replicated previous findings with regard to differences between word-prompted voluntary and involuntary memories, whereas there were fewer differences between self-prompted voluntary and involuntary memories. The findings raise the question as to what is the best way of sampling voluntary memories and the best comparison for involuntary memories.
authors.affiliation: Center on Autobiographical Memory Research, Department of Psychology and Behavioural Sciences, Aarhus University, Denmark. Electronic address: annesr@psy.au.dk.
authors.forename: Anne S
authors.initials: AS
authors.lastname: Rasmussen
authors.affiliation: Center on Autobiographical Memory Research, Department of Psychology and Behavioural Sciences, Aarhus University, Denmark.
authors.forename: Kim B
authors.initials: KB
authors.lastname: Johannessen
authors.affiliation: Center on Autobiographical Memory Research, Department of Psychology and Behavioural Sciences, Aarhus University, Denmark.
authors.forename: Dorthe
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Berntsen
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D061212:Memory, Episodic; D011939:Mental Recall / Q000502:physiology*; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests / Q000592:standards*; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000379:methods*; D014836:Volition / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Autobiographical memory; Diary method; Function; Involuntary retrieval; Voluntary retrieval