ABSTRACT
Bahrick tested middle-aged and elderly people's memory for the Spanish that they had learned in US High Schools. A difficulty in exploring people's memories is that they can usually tell us great deal about what has happened to them but neither we nor they, can be sure how reliable their recollections are. A problem for objective research is that any recollection with which a courteous older person tries to oblige a tediously persistent psychologist will never be a first recall of an event. An excellent review of the literature on autobiographical memory by David Rubin emphasises that for people of all ages, reminiscence bumps or peaks tend to coincide with their periods of greatest and most engrossing activity and most involvement in personal and community crises. To find out what actually happens, psychologists ask people to recall as many events as they can from all parts of their lives, either spontaneously or when prompted by associations with random words.
