Memories of early childhood: Qualities of the experience of recollection

Memories judged to be recollections were contrasted with memories known to be based on second-hand sources in order to investigate the phenomenological qualities that underlie the experience of recollection. Adults rated the qualities of their recollections of an early childhood experience. Their ratings were compared with ratings of the qualities of memories of a similar autobiographical experience where the information was known to derive from other sources. Reported recollections were rated higher than memories based on other sources for many qualities, including sensory and spatial detail, location, thoughts, feelings, completeness, event detail, and pictorial representation. Comparison of the ratings of memories dating from different ages suggests that a memory may be judged to be recollected even if only a subset of the qualities characterizing recollections are present. This provides partial support for and clarification of Rubin's multiple-systems model of autobiographical memory.