Involuntary and Voluntary Memory Sequencing Phenomena An Interesting Puzzle for the Study of Autobiographical Memory Organization and Retrieval

One of the most enduring questions about long-term memory is how such a vast quantity of information is organized for efficient and reliable retrieval. Within semantic memory, the clustering of items in category generation tasks informs our understanding of organization. Bousefield (1953) defined a cluster as “a sequence of associates having an essential relationship between its members . . . [with the] assumption that clustering is a consequence of organization in thinking and recall” (p. 229). Similarly, clustering in the recall of personal experiences can inform our understanding of autobiographical memory organization. There are two sources of clustering in the autobiographical memory literature. One is a laboratory technique known as event cueing, where subjects voluntarily generate sequences of autobiographical memories. The other is a naturally occurring phenomenon known as involuntary memory chaining, where subjects spontaneously generate sequences of autobiographical memories. While both of these clustering sources have produced internally consistent sets of results, the findings between the sources are contradictory, with the former indicating dominance for temporal associations, the latter dominance for conceptual associations among autobiographical memories.