ABSTRACT
Understanding about memory is, in many ways, constrained by the situations and tasks in which it has been investigated. While a variety of experimental paradigms have been used to study memory, these hardly are representative of the numerous situations in which memory actually is used in everyday life (see Neisser, 1982; Perlmutter, 1980b). For example, while most experimental memory tasks test for deliberate, short-term retention of discrete stimuli (e.g., word lists), most everyday use of memory involves nondeliberate, long-term retention of complex events. Yet, because each memory task requires different cognitive processing, it has been difficult to integrate research findings from even the limited range of paradigms that have been used to study memory. Moreover, because different paradigms have been used with different species and different age groups, it has been difficult to synthesize a comparative or developmental perspective on memory.
