Phenomenal Experience in Laboratory and Autobiographical Memory Tasks

Abstract

The purpose of this chapter is to examine the role of phenomenal experience in traditional laboratory memory tasks and in studies of autobiographical memory. My motivation far taking on this difficuIt 10pic is that I think that researchers in the area of autobiographical memory have a1ways been a bit embarrassed by the "subjective," "phenomenal," and "imageable," aspects of autobiographical memory; but, when one examines the standard laboratory memory tasks, one fmds that all of the same phenomena are occurring in these tasks and therefore there is no reason for students of autobiographical memory 10 be defensive about their domain. The important message of this position is that investigators across the whole range of memory research have to face the problems related to phenomenal experience during memory tasks. In the first section of the chapter I list a set of memory phenomena involving phenomenal experience that seem in need of explanation. In the second section of the chapter I review the his tory of the study of the phenomenal characteristics of human memory. In the third section of the chapter I review theories about the phenomenal characteristics of human memory. In the fourth section of the chapter lexamine the empirical studies that have gathered data on phenomenal experience during memory tasks. In the last section of the chapter I analyze the state of theory and data in this area and make some suggestions for future research.