Original article can be found at: http://www.psychonomic.org/ Copyright Psychonomic Society. DOI: 10.3758/MC.36.5.920Two studies compared the characteristics and retrieval times of involuntary and voluntary autobiographical memory under controlled laboratory conditions. A new laboratory task of involuntary autobiographical memories involved detecting vertical lines in a stream of stimuli with horizontal lines (an undemanding vigilance task) and recording any involuntary memories during the session. The majority of these memories were reported as being triggered by irrelevant cue-phrases presented on the screen. Voluntary autobiographical memories were sampled via a standard word-cue method in Session 2. The results showed that involuntary memories were more specific and retrieved significantly faster than voluntary memories. They were also more likely to be triggered by negative cues while cue valence did not have any effect on the number of voluntary memories. Furthermore, laboratory involuntary memories did not differ from naturalistic involuntary memories recorded in a diary by the same participants (Study 2). Taken together, these results have important implications for current theories of autobiographical memory and open up interesting avenues for future research

Research of aging and autobiographical memory has almost exclusively focused on voluntary autobiographical memory. However, in everyday life autobiographical memories often come to mind spontaneously without deliberate attempt to retrieve anything. The present study used diary and word-cue methods to compare the involuntary and voluntary memories of 44 young and 38 older adults. The results showed that older adults reported fewer involuntary and voluntary memories than younger adults. Additionally, the life span distribution of involuntary and voluntary memories did not differ in either young (a clear recency effect) or older adults (a recency effect and a reminiscence bump). Despite these similarities between involuntary and voluntary memories, there were also important differences in terms of the effects of age on some memory characteristics. Thus, older adults' voluntary memories were less specific and were recalled slower than those of young adults, but there were no reliable age differences in the specificity of involuntary memories.Moreover, older adults' rated their involuntary memories as more positive than young adults but this positivity effect was not found for voluntary memories. Theoretical implications of these findings for research on autobiographical memory and cognitive aging are discussed. Effects of age on involuntary and voluntary memory 3 Differential effects of age on involuntary and voluntary autobiographical memoriesAutobiographical memories are memories of events from one's own personal past and are crucial for developing and maintaining personal identity across the lifespan (Brewer, 1986; Conway & Pleydell-Pierce, 2000;Rubin, 1986). They are distinguished from autobiographical facts, which refer to autobiographical knowledge without remembering any particular episode (e.g., knowing that Mr. Smith was your primary school teacher), and can vary along several dimensions such as specificity, vividness, perspective, etc. Autobiographical memories can also differ in terms of whether they are recalled deliberately or spontaneously, hence the distinction between voluntary and involuntary autobiographical memory (Ball, 2007;Berntsen, 1996;Mace, 2007;Schlagman & Kvavilashvili, 2008).While research on voluntary autobiographical memory is long-standing with a growing number of studies on older adults, there is only one diary study, published in two parts, on the effects of age on involuntary memories (Schlagman, Schulz & Kvavilashvili, 2006;Schlagman, Kvavilashvili & Schulz, 2007).1 Moreover, several findings from this study did not replicate the results from research on voluntary autobiographical memories, indicating that age effects obtained on voluntary autobiographical memories cannot be automatically generalised to involuntary memories. The aim of the present study is to fill this gap in research by further examining the effects of age on involuntary autobiographical memory and -for the first time -to directly compare voluntary and involuntary autobiographical memory in young and ol...

Although research on autobiographical memory is growing steadily, very little is known about involuntary autobiographical memories that are spontaneously recalled in everyday life. In addition, very few studies have examined the actual content of autobiographical memories and how the content might change as a function of age. The present study carried out a content analysis of involuntary autobiographical memories recorded by young (N = 11) and old (N = 10) volunteers over a period of 1 week. A total of 224 memories were classified into 17 categories according to the type of content recalled (e.g., births, holidays, school). The results support the socioemotional theory of ageing (Carstensen, Isaacowitz & Charles, 1999) by showing that although young and old adults recalled a similar number of memories with a typically positive content (e.g., holidays, special occasions), older adults recalled very few memories with a typically negative content (e.g., accidents, stressful events). Moreover, even when such negative memories were recalled, they were rated by older adults as neutral or even positive. This so-called positivity effect in old age could not be entirely explained by participants' ratings of mood at the time of recall. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings for ageing and autobiographical memory research are discussed.

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This study examines flashbulb memories of a salient recent and a distant public event to assess patterns of forgetting in the formal characteristics of these memories. Memories of a recent event (September 11) were compared to memories of a distant event (the death of Princess Diana) in several samples of British and one sample of Italian participants. In British participants, the 51-month old memories of the death of Princess Diana were as detailed and specific as their memories of a 3-month old event, September 11. Moreover, their memories of Princess Diana were not different from memories of September 11 collected immediately or very soon after September 11 in two other groups of British participants. Results suggest that flashbulb memories of a distant public event can be as detailed, specific and vivid as memories of a very recent event. For Italian participants, however, flashbulb memory scores for September 11 were reliably higher than for the death of Princess Diana. There was also a small albeit reliable loss of specificity in British participants' memories of September 11 over the subsequent three months.