ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses several aspects of the relation between loss and distortion of autobiographical memory content, and the implications for the relation between replicative and reconstructive processing. It then addresses the hypothesis that reconstructive processing is invoked when replicative processing fails. To clarify the relation between replicative and reconstructive processing of memory content one need tasks and research designs that yield indicants of systematic and nonsystematic error components for the same individuals. The chapter also assumes that only inferential-reconstructive processing introduces distortions of content and that these components reflect interactions of individual difference variables and affect associated with the content. Replicative and reconstructive-inferential processing of memory content are found to be sequential and supplementary, not interactive Inferential processing is invoked when replicative processing fails to retrieve the desired content. Distortions induced by inferential processing are likely to be in a direction that enhance positive affect.
