不随意自传体记忆指,个人过去经历的事件在没有主动提取的情况下自动浮现于脑海的记忆现象。文章从不随意自传体记忆的研究方法、记忆特点和理论解释三个方面,分别介绍结构日记、词汇联想、栅栏任务和压力电影范式等研究方法;说明了不随意自传体记忆提取直接性、内容具体性和情绪影响性等特性,认为其原因是记忆内容的非整合性和显著联结;阐述了全局工作空间智能分布模型、双重表征理论、认知模型理论和解释能力理论的内容及其不足。最后指出未来研究应关注对不随意自传体记忆特殊性的解释、对其结构的进一步整合及对其功能的深入探究。

Reduced specificity of autobiographical memories retrieved to word cues on the Autobiographical Memory Test (AMT) associated with increased posttraumatic stress in traumatized samples has been already confirmed, though the researches for the adolescents are still not very substantial. Theoretical debates concerning the dominant influences on this effect have focused on affect regulation, whereby specific personal information is avoided more by those experiencing greater distress, versus impaired executive control, whereby increased distress is associated with an inability to set aside inappropriately general responses on the AMT. The present study compared these 2 views using AMT and AMT-R (the reversed version of the AMT) together. All the participants were recruited from a nonclinical and normal middle school. Participants (divided into three groups: high-PTSD, n = 31, low-PTSD, n = 32, and nontraumatic controls, n = 30)were required to generate specific memories response to emotion-related cue words in the AMT, whereas had to generate general memories from the past in the AMT-R. An emphasis on the role of affect regulation would predict that distress would be associated with reduced specificity (as in the standard AMT), whereas emphasis on the role of executive control would predict that this relationship should be reversed. The results indicated that, in contrast with the earlier studies, high-PTSD and low-PTSD groups behaved less specificity than nontraumatic controls and high-PTSD group also had generated less specific memories than low-PTSD group, regardless of cue valence in the AMT. But there were no significant differences of specific memories among the three groups in the AMT-R. The findings suggested that reduced autobiographical memory specificity has been demonstrated in traumatized adolescents in this study, and the results of AMT and AMT-R supported the affect regulation may play a greater role. Moreover, the clinical implications of the current research are discussed.

Convenient sampling is used in communities of Beijing and 599 participants were recruited(mean age=67.50±5.1 years, mean marriage time=41.9±6.5 years). They were required to complete a 5-minute quick-memory-recall interview of autobiographical memory and the Older Adults’Marital Attachment Scale. Quantitative characteristics of marital autobiographical memory were explored from the impacts of time distribution, emotional valence and attachment style. Results showed that: 1)The distribution of positive marital autobiographical memory over family life cycle among older adults shows an approximately U-shaped curve, indicating that there exists newly marriage effect and recency effect. However, the distribution of negative marital autobiographical memory doesn't show recency effect; 2)The number of positive events recalled by the old adults is greater than negative ones, indicating a ″positivity preference″ of old adults in marital autobiographical memory; 3)Attachment style may have an effect on quantitative characteristics of marital autobiographical memory: individuals with secure, preoccupied and dismissive attachment styles all report more positive events than negative ones, whereas there is no difference between the number of positive events and negative events for individuals with fearful attachment style.

旨在探究健康个体执行控制资源损耗对自传体记忆生动性及情绪的影响。实验一采用Stroop任务探讨了一般执行控制资源损耗的影响,结果发现损耗组自传体记忆生动性和情绪强度显著低于控制组。实验二采用不同的干扰任务进一步探讨执行控制资源损耗的影响,结果显示中央执行的资源损耗对生动性和情绪强度影响最大,而视空间模板、语音环资源损耗的影响次之,且二者无显著差异。实验结果支持了自传体记忆的执行控制资源受损理论和资源有限理论,并对临床治疗具有实际应用价值。

不安全依恋者的注意偏向是指依恋焦虑和回避个体对依恋信息产生或趋近或回避的注意偏好,这一注意偏好使得个体形成了处理与依恋对象关系的特殊认知机制：依恋回避个体偏好采用防御性机制,倾向于回避对依恋信息的注意;依恋焦虑个体偏好采用夸大性机制,倾向于夸大威胁性信息,因而会积极寻求与依恋对象的亲近。不安全依恋者注意偏向的差异主要体现在情绪信息、痛觉感受和工作记忆三个方面;加工阶段特征主要涉及P1、N1波等代表的注意自动加工和LPP波代表的注意控制加工;脑网络上主要包括两个子网络,即负责情绪评估的边缘系统和负责情绪调节的以前额叶为代表的神经网络。未来研究中更应该关注刺激物的生态效度,检验依恋系统是否激活,不安全依恋者注意偏向的自动加工和控制加工阶段的关系,不安全依恋者注意偏向产生的分子遗传机制以及注意偏向的跨文化研究。

Narrative approach research on self assumed that individual constructed and developed self through telling life-story and retrieving autobiographical memory. Recent study explored the factors that influence narrative and its meaning on self-development. Relative results showed that such factors as coherent positive narrative, narrative style, and personality traits were correlated with life-story and self-development. A series of experiments proved that different narrative person and self perspective on autobiographical memory have different effect on emotion, behavior, and body. On the basis of those studies, researchers conducted clinical intervention and carried out fundamental researches including neural mechanisms. It proposed that future research should expand research materials and explore influence factors, such as cross-culture study of narrative style and self perspective.

It has long been one of the grand ideas in psychology that people internalize their relationships with significant others, which influences their experience of subsequent relationships and their sense of self. Recent work in social cognition has largely neglected the impact of internally represented interpersonal information, however, with researchers choosing instead to focus on the perception of self and other persons in isolation. After a review of relevant theoretical models, it is proposed that research could profitably examine people's relational schemas, defined as cognitive structures representing regularities in patterns of interpersonal relatedness. The elements of a relational schema include an interpersonal script for the interaction pattern, a self-schema for how self is experienced in that interpersonal situation, and a schema for the other person in the interaction. Research strategies are discussed.

A new 4-group model of attachment styles in adulthood is proposed. Four prototypic attachment patterns are defined using combinations of a person's self-image (positive or negative) and image of others (positive or negative). In Study 1, an interview was developed to yield continuous and categorical ratings of the 4 attachment styles. Intercorrelations of the attachment ratings were consistent with the proposed model. Attachment ratings were validated by self-report measures of self-concept and interpersonal functioning. Each style was associated with a distinct profile of interpersonal problems, according to both self- and friend-reports. In Study 2, attachment styles within the family of origin and with peers were assessed independently. Results of Study 1 were replicated. The proposed model was shown to be applicable to representations of family relations; Ss' attachment styles with peers were correlated with family attachment ratings.

Abstract Three-year old's attention toward and memory of affectively laden information presented in specialty designed puppet snows were examined to test the hypothesis, based on Bowlby's theory of attachment and the internal-working-model construct central to the theory, that children with secure attachment histories (measured at 12 months) would prove less distractable during positive than negative events and would remember positive events more accurately than negative events, with the reverse being true of children with insecure attachment histories Support for this hypothesis emerged in the case of memory but not attention (for which no attachment effects emerged), even when infants' temperament-emotionality and general verbal intelligence were taken into consideration Results are discussed in terms of life-course implications of affective-cognitive information processing and directions for future research.

Although autobiographical memory specificity is an important developmental feature fostering adaptation throughout life, little is known about factors related to interindividual differences in autobiographical memory specificity. The current study investigated associations with early adolescents communication with mother about their experiences and their trust in her support. For this reason, 80 general population children (ages ranging from 10 to 13) were asked to retrieve specific memories of interactions with mother. Communication and trust in maternal support were measured using questionnaires. Results showed that specificity of autobiographical memories was directly linked with communication, but not with trust in maternal support. Moreover, evidence was found in favor of an indirect effect of trust on autobiographical memory specificity through communication. This study suggests that trust-related mother-child communication is important to understand interindividual differences in autobiographical memory specificity.

Abstract The purpose of the present study is to investigate the relationships between attachment dimensions (i.e., attachment anxiety and avoidance), autobiographical memory, and accepting the past. University students (N = 222, women = 127, men = 95) participated to the study. The relationships between attachment anxiety, avoidance, and autobiographical memory were examined within the context of the phenomenological properties of the autobiographical memory. Results revealed that attachment anxiety significantly predicted visceral reactions, vividness, negative valence, and social aspect of autobiographical memory. Results also indicated that attachment anxiety was a reliable predictor of accepting the past. Attachment avoidance significantly predicted recollection. Furthermore, the interaction between attachment anxiety and avoidance significantly predicted specificity, vividness, and social aspect of autobiographical memories. The patterns of the interaction effect suggested that those with fearful attachment pattern reported higher levels of specificity, vividness, and social components of the recalled memories than those with dismissive attachment. Findings indicated that attachment anxiety, but not avoidance, has a consistent effect on the affective aspects of autobiographical memory.

Although there is much evidence that activating mental representations of attachments figure is beneficial for psychological health and can reduce stress response, no research has directly investigated whether attachment activation can ameliorate hormonal stress response. This study investigated whether activating an attachment figure or a non-attachment figure following administration of a socially evaluated cold pressor test to elicit stress impacted on glucocorticoid and noradrenergic response. Participants (N=61) provided baseline salivary samples, underwent a cold pressor test, then imagined an attachment or non-attachment figure, and finally provided subsequent saliva samples. Participants who imagined a non-attachment figure had greater noradrenergic response following the stressor than those who imagined an attachment figure. These findings highlight that activating attachment representations can ameliorate the immediate noradrenergic stress response.

The authors describe a model of autobiographical memory in which memories are transitory mental constructions within a self-memory system (SMS). The SMS contains an autobiographical knowledge base and current goals of the working self. Within the SMS, control processes modulate access to the knowledge base by successively shaping cues used to activate autobiographical memory knowledge structures and, in this way, form specific memories. The relation of the knowledge base to active goals is reciprocal, and the knowledge base "grounds" the goals of the working self. It is shown how this model can be used to draw together a wide range of diverse data from cognitive, social, developmental, personality, clinical, and neuropsychological autobiographical memory research.

Understanding the cognitive processing of attachment-relevant information has become a major focus of attachment research. Previous research demonstrated links between attachment and memory for attachment-related information, but results were contradictory and did not control for mood-effects. The current study aimed to provide a conceptual framework to capture inconsistencies. A straightforward memory bias hypothesis was derived and tested. Fifty children (aged 10-12) completed questionnaires assessing confidence in maternal support and depressive symptoms, and a memory task in which they recalled positive and negative words that referred to previous interactions with mother. Less confidence in maternal support and more depressive symptoms were linked to a more negative mother-related memory bias. The effect of confidence in maternal support remained marginally significant when controlling for depressive symptoms, explaining the initial effect of depressive symptoms. These findings support attachment theory's hypothesis that attachment-relevant information is processed in an attachment expectation-congruent way.

Researchers have used J. Bowlby's (1969/1982, 1973, 1980, 1988) attachment theory frequently as a basis for examining whether experiences in close personal relationships relate to the processing of social information across childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. We present an integrative life-span-encompassing theoretical model to explain the patterns of results that have emerged from these studies. The central proposition is that individuals who possess secure experience-based internal working models of attachment will process--in a relatively open manner--a broad range of positive and negative attachment-relevant social information. Moreover, secure individuals will draw on their positive attachment-related knowledge to process this information in a positively biased schematic way. In contrast, individuals who possess insecure internal working models of attachment will process attachment-relevant social information in one of two ways, depending on whether the information could cause the individual psychological pain. If processing the information is likely to lead to psychological pain, insecure individuals will defensively exclude this information from further processing. If, however, the information is unlikely to lead to psychological pain, then insecure individuals will process this information in a negatively biased schematic fashion that is congruent with their negative attachment-related experiences. In a comprehensive literature review, we describe studies that illustrate these patterns of attachment-related information processing from childhood to adulthood. This review focuses on studies that have examined specific components (e.g., attention and memory) and broader aspects (e.g., attributions) of social information processing. We also provide general conclusions and suggestions for future research.

Attachment theorists propose that individuals' internal working models influence their social information processing. This study explored links between attachment representations and social information processing by examining adolescents' (n = 189; Mage = 16.5 years) attachment-related biases. Participants completed laboratory tasks assessing for (a) emotionally salient childhood events, (b) adjectives describing their parents, and (c) generalized parent-related characteristics not specific to their own parents. As expected, dismissing attachment (assessed using the Adult Attachment Interview) was linked across tasks to a deactivating strategy in which for emotional childhood events and attachment-relevant stimuli was reduced. In contrast, evidence that preoccupied attachment was linked to a hyperactivating strategy in which was heightened emerged only in relation to emotional childhood events.

Abstract In this study, we evaluated cortical connectivity modifications by electroencephalography (EEG) lagged coherence analysis, in subjects with dissociative disorders and in controls, after retrieval of attachment memories. We asked thirteen patients with dissociative disorders and thirteen age- and sex-matched healthy controls to retrieve personal attachment-related autobiographical memories through adult attachment interviews (AAI). EEG was recorded in the closed eyes resting state before and after the AAI. EEG lagged coherence before and after AAI was compared in all subjects. In the control group, memories of attachment promoted a widespread increase in EEG connectivity, in particular in the high-frequency EEG bands. Compared to controls, dissociative patients did not show an increase in EEG connectivity after the AAI. Conclusions: These results shed light on the neurophysiology of the disintegrative effect of retrieval of traumatic attachment memories in dissociative patients.

Abstract Autobiographical memory is a uniquely human system that integrates memories of past experiences into an overarching life narrative. In this review, I extend social-cultural models of autobiographical memory development and present theory and research that demonstrates that (a) autobiographical memory is a gradually developing system across childhood and adolescence that depends on the development of a sense of subjective self as continuous in time; (b) autobiographical memory develops within specific social and cultural contexts that relate to individual, gendered, and cultural differences in adults' autobiographical memories, and, more specifically, (c) mothers who reminisce with their young children in elaborated and evaluative ways have children who develop more detailed, coherent, and evaluative autobiographical memories.

Previous research has established that mothers vary in how elaborately they reminisce with their preschool children, but explanation of these individual differences is lacking. We predicted that maternal elaborations during reminiscing would be related to mother-child attachment status, as well as to measures of verbal and nonverbal emotional expressiveness. Thirty-eight middle class mothers and their 41/2-year-old children participated in a reminiscing task and a joint art activity, and mothers completed the Attachment Behavior Q-set (Waters, 1987). Mothers who were more elaborative during reminiscing also reported a more secure attachment bond, but these variables were unrelated to either verbal or nonverbal expression of emotion during mother-child interaction. However, patterns of relations also varied by gender of child. Theoretical implications of these results for understanding joint reminiscing and attachment are discussed.

Abstract The associations between attachment orientations, temperament, resilience, and various dimensions of self-defining memories were examined in 83 female Israeli adolescents and young adults. Resiliency and positive temperament were associated with positive qualities of memories, whereas negative emotionality and reactivity were associated with poor recollection quality. Lower levels of fearful attachment orientation were associated with interpersonal memories and mixed emotions in memories, and a profound-distrust attachment orientation was associated with life-threatening memories. The study highlights the contribution of these qualities to recollections and underscores the contribution to theory and practical implications.

Abstract Gender differences in the emotional intensity and content of autobiographical memory (AM) are inconsistent across studies, and may be influenced as much by gender identity as by categorical gender. To explore this question, data were collected from 196 participants (age 18-40), split evenly between men and women. Participants narrated four memories, a neutral event, high point event, low point event, and self-defining memory, completed ratings of emotional intensity for each event, and completed four measures of gender typical identity. For self-reported emotional intensity, gender differences in AM were mediated by identification with stereotypical feminine gender norms. For narrative use of affect terms, both gender and gender typical identity predicted affective expression. The results confirm contextual models of gender identity (e.g., Diamond, 2012 . The desire disorder in research on sexual orientation in women: Contributions of dynamical systems theory. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 41, 73-83) and underscore the dynamic interplay between gender and gender identity in the emotional expression of autobiographical memories.

Abstract The chapter is organized into three major sections. The first section provides a description of the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) protocol and individual differences among the organized response patterns. I begin by introducing the ways in which the three organized classifications can be understood in terms of both attentional and eparately, albeit relatedly inguistic (conversational or discourse) mechanisms. The former relies on the thinking of Main (e.g., 1990, 1993) regarding flexibility versus inflexibility of attention under stress. The analyses of the linguistic or conversational mechanisms draw upon the work of linguistic philosopher H. P. Grice (1975, 1989). These mechanisms are well represented in the central AAI state-of-mind scales, although each of those scales (as described in a history of the Bay Area longitudinal study; Main, Hesse, & Kaplan, 2005) had been devised prior to Main's discovery of Grice's work. I conclude this section by presenting some prototypical responses to two different AAI queries that are common among "organized" speakers. As differing responses are presented, I point out how they can be understood in terms of both attentional and Gricean conversational mechanisms. In the second section, I describe how trained coders systematically approach the analysis of an AAI transcript. This was not explicated in the first edition of this chapter (Hesse, 1999), leaving a mystery for readers who had been aware of the instrument and its connections to other phenomena, but not of the ways in which interview texts are analyzed. There are two additional approaches to analyzing the AAI, beyond the five major classifications presented in 1999. These have drawn less attention in the literature, despite the fact that they appear to be of at least equal power. First, the three organized categories of the AAI are ultimately divided into 12 subclassifications, which I describe here for the first time. This is in keeping with Ainsworth's division of her three organized infant Strange Situation classifications into eight subclassifications (Ainsworth et al, 1978), which she predicted would "in time prove even more useful than classification into the three major groups themselves" (Ainsworth et al, 1978, p. 251). As I note here, AAI and Strange Situation subclassifications have now been found to be significantly related in four different investigations (including Behrens, Hesse, & Main, 2007), but nonetheless remain underutilized. Second, from its inception, the AAI scoring system has included a set of (9-point) continuous rating scales that assess the speaker's current "state of mind with respect to attachment," whether with respect to a given parent (e.g., idealizing of the father) or with respect to discourse patterning in general (e.g., overall coherence of transcript, vague discourse usages). As researchers from several laboratories have correctly emphasized, use of these scales releases the restriction of range imposed by the presentation of findings only in terms of classifications, and hence substantially increases statistical power (Fyffe & Waters, 1997; Roisman, Fraley, & Belsky, 2007). This section brings together all three current methods of AAI text analysis. In the third section, I review selected studies based on the AAI, beginning with Main's original investigation of a Bay Area sample (Main & Goldwyn, 1984b, 1988, 2008). I review (and then partially update) the best-replicated findings regarding the AAI, including those related to its psychometric properties, and then move on to a necessarily select group of newer studies. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

Abstract Historical and current theories of infantile amnesia are examined. To evaluate the viability of these theories, as well as the phenomenon of infantile amnesia itself, a review of memory development from birth through the preschool years is provided, including an overview of relevant perceptual and neurological maturation. In the context of this review, extant theories of infantile amnesia are shown to falter, and it is concluded that infantile amnesia is a chimera of a previously unexplored relationship between the development of a cognitive sense of self and the personalization of event memory. This hypothesis is examined in detail and discussed in the context of related developments in language and social cognition.

Given that autobiographical memory provides a cognitive foundation for the self, we investigated the relative importance of visual, auditory and olfactory autobiographical memories for the self. Th ...

The frequency and characteristics of involuntary autobiographical memories were compared in 25 stable dysphoric and 28 non-dysphoric participants, using a new laboratory-based task (Schlagman & Kvavilashvili, 2008). Participants detected infrequent target stimuli (vertical lines) in a simple vigilance task and recorded any involuntary autobiographical memories that came to mind, mostly in response to irrelevant words presented on the screen. Dysphoric participants reported involuntary memories as frequently and as quickly as non-dysphoric participants and their memories were not repetitive intrusive memories of negative or traumatic events. Additional content analysis showed that dysphoric participants did not recall more memories of objectively negative events (e.g., accidents, illnesses, deaths) than non-dysphoric participants. However, significant group differences emerged in terms of a mood congruency effect whereby dysphoric participants rated their memories as more negative than non-dysphoric participants. Moreover, the proportion of negatively rated involuntary memories was related to lower mood ratings at the end of the session in the dysphoric but not in the non-dysphoric group. Finally, groups did not differ on several memory characteristics such as vividness, specificity (high in both groups) and rates of rehearsal (low in both groups). Theoretical and practical implications of these findings for research on depression and autobiographical memory are discussed.

Building on the simulated-amnesia work of Christianson and Bylin (Applied Cognitive Psychology, 13, 495-511, 1999), the present research introduces a new paradigm for the scientific study of memory of childhood sexual abuse information. In Session 1, participants mentally took the part of an abuse victim as they read an account of the sexual assault of a 7-year-old. After reading the narrative, participants were randomly assigned to one of four experimental conditions: They (1) rehearsed the story truthfully (truth group), (2) left out the abuse details of the story (omission group), (3) lied about the abuse details to indicate that no abuse had occurred (commission group), or (4) did not recall the story during Session 1 (no-rehearsal group). One week later, participants returned for Session 2 and were asked to truthfully recall the narrative. The results indicated that, relative to truthful recall, untruthful recall or no rehearsal at Session 1 adversely affected memory performance at Session 2. However, untruthful recall resulted in better memory than did no rehearsal. Moreover, gender, PTSD symptoms, depression, adult attachment, and sexual abuse history significantly predicted memory for the childhood sexual abuse scenario. Implications for theory and application are discussed.

During recollection of past experiences, the way autobiographical information is processed affects the intensity of the emotion aroused. Two main hypotheses were proposed in this respect: One focuses on the type of information activated during retrieval; the second is centered on the mode of processing at work. This article defends the notion that both perspectives need to be integrated to predict emotional arousal during autobiographical recollection. The authors explored the consequences on emotional feeling intensity by manipulating the type of information processed, together with the cognitive mode activated (specific vs. general level of processing). Results support previous findings that voluntarily specifying memories reduces emotional intensity. However, this was observed only when the details that make the event unique were processed.

Abstract In 3 experiments, the authors examined factors that, according to the source-monitoring framework, might influence false memory formation and true/false memory discernment. In Experiment 1, combined effects of warning and visualization on false childhood memory formation were examined, as were individual differences in true and false childhood memories. Combining warnings and visualization led to the lowest false memory and highest true memory. Several individual difference factors (e.g., parental fearful attachment style) predicted false recall. In addition, true and false childhood memories differed (e.g., in amount of information). Experiment 2 examined relations between Deese/Roediger-McDermott task performance and false childhood memories. Deese/Roediger-McDermott performance (e.g., intrusion of unrelated words in free recall) was associated with false childhood memory, suggesting liberal response criteria in source decisions as a common underlying mechanism. Experiment 3 investigated adults' abilities to discern true and false childhood memory reports (e.g., by detecting differences in amount of information as identified in Experiment 1). Adults who were particularly successful in discerning such reports indicated reliance on event plausibility. Overall, the source-monitoring framework provided a viable explanatory framework. Implications for theory and clinical and forensic interviews are discussed. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2008 APA, all rights reserved.

ABSTRACT Proposes a ternary classificatory scheme of memory in which procedural, semantic, and episodic memory constitute a monohierarchical arrangement. In this scheme, episodic memory is a specialized subsystem of semantic memory, which in turn is a specialized subsystem of procedural memory. The 3 memory systems differ from one another in a number of ways, including the kind of consciousness that characterizes their operations. The ternary scheme overlaps with dichotomies and trichotomies of memory proposed by others. Evidence for multiple systems is reviewed, and illustrative data are provided from experiments. Direct priming effects were found to be both functionally and stochastically independent of recognition memory. (100 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

Overgeneral memory (OGM) is a phenomenon that refers to difficulty retrieving specific autobiographical memories. The tendency to be overgeneral in autobiographical memory recall has been commonly observed among individuals with emotional disorders compared to those without emotional disorders. Despite significant advances in identifying mechanisms that underlie OGM, etiological models are not particularly developmental in nature and, instead, are focused on identifying isolated cognitive presentations of individuals with high OGM. The aim of the current paper is to utilize a developmental psychopathology framework, which emphasizes the interface between typical and atypical development, and risk and protective factors at multiple ecological levels, to propose a comprehensive model of OGM development. Specifically, (1) the progression of current etiological models of OGM is reviewed; (2) developmental theory and research on autobiographical memory that have relevance for OGM are discussed; and (3) an integrative model of OGM that includes processes at psychological, biological, social, and cultural levels is proposed. Directions for future research are formulated and treatment implications derived from this perspective are addressed.

The authors review research showing that when recalling autobiographical events, many emotionally disturbed patients summarize categories of events rather than retrieving a single episode. The mechanisms underlying such overgeneral memory are examined, with a focus onM. A. Conway and C. W. Pleydell-Pearce's (2000)hierarchical search model of personal event retrieval. An elaboration of this model is proposed to account for overgeneral memory, focusing on how memory search can be affected by (a) capture and rumination processes, when mnemonic information used in retrieval activates ruminative thinking; (b) functional avoidance, when episodic material threatens to cause affective disturbance; and (c) impairment in executive capacity and control that limits an individual's ability to remain focused on retrieval in the face of distraction.