ABSTRACT
Developmental psychology can often shed light on issues that arise in the study of adult cognition. Indeed, it is a premise of developmental psychology that mature forms can best be understood through the study of their development. The present issue of the independence of the representation of trait and autobiographical knowledge about the self is a good case in point. I believe that recent studies of the emergence of autobiographical memory in early childhood, and their implications for memory function and organization, can help to interpret the findings from Klein and Loftus' (chapter 1, this volume) elegant series of experiments with adults.
