ABSTRACT
In this chapter I look at the way in which people remember everyday events: personal or historical events, events-physical or social-people observe in their lives, or events depicted in newspapers, magazines, or novels. I begin with the work carried out over the past 25 years in psychology and artificial intelligence on the basic representation of events. In this review I focus primarily on the seminal work of Robert Abelson and Roger Schank and their students, whose conceptualizations have dominated the field. Then I move to a discussion of various distortions of event memory, focusing on the voluminous literature on one particular type of distortion-namely, eyewitness memory for crimes-and the degree to which such memory can be influenced by misleading questions or misinformation. In this area I focus on the research carried out by Elizabeth Loftus and her associates, the criticisms that have been raised against this research, and some recent evidence trying to place this research in clearer perspective. Finally, I move to a discussion of research and theorizing on the topic of prospective memory, or memory for carrying out plans for future action, as well as some models of the process of planning itself.
