On the prevalence of event clusters in autobiographical memory

Event clusters are narrative-like memory structures that draw together information about causally and thematically related events (Brown & Schopflocher, 1998a, 1998b). Prior research, using a method called event cueing, indicates that clusters play an important role in the organization of autobiographical memory and suggests that cluster formation is a by-product of the normal processes required to plan, execute, evaluate, and discuss meaningful event sequences. Two new event-cueing experiments are reported in this article. In the first, participants (undergraduates) were cued with personal memories from the past week, the recent past (high school), or the distant past (grade school) and were required to respond to each of the cueing events by retrieving a second, related personal event (the cued event). Cueing and cued events were often drawn from the same cluster. However, cueing events from the distant past were somewhat less likely to elicit clustermates than cueing events from the past week or the recent past. Experiment 2 demonstrated that participants responded to cueing events fastest when they were instructed to retrieve clustermates and slowest when they were required not to retrieve clustermates. These findings rule out biased retrieval as an explanation for the frequent recall of clustermates and suggests that the cluster rates provide a conservative measure of the prevalence of event clusters in autobiographical memory.