Different Routes to Conversational Influences on Autobiographical Memory

This review examines cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying social influence on autobiographical memory. We aim for this review to serve as a bridge between researchers who focus on veridicality (e.g., eyewitness memory) and those who give primacy to meaning, especially given the elusive nature of measuring veridicality in uncontrolled personal experiences. We assess whether mechanisms are similar for three aspects of memories, namely facts, interpretations, and autobiographical reasoning. We present a model of memory change in facts and interpretations that is incidental and time-bound, in contrast to change in autobiographical reasoning that is more deliberate and open to influence. We emphasize the empirical challenges of studying memory that is truly autobiographical alongside the compromise to experimental control required to answer certain questions. We finally argue that autobiographical memory represents a naturalistic domain where memory processes, reasoning processes, and conversational influences collide, with potential implications for applied research on veridicality.