was represented by only a handful of papers. Given the high level of activity in this area it occurred to us that the readership of the journal might well ®nd a broad sample of recent AM ®ndings and theory of some interest and, with the encouragement of the Editor, we have compiled the present volume. The papers presented here were invited by us based on presentations made at the ICOM-96. We selected authors whose conference presentations contained or re¯ected new directions in AM research and we asked each to prepare a paper presenting new data and theory in either detailed form or as review papers. In our view the present collection presents a snapshot of some of the more exciting developments which are currently taking place and which will in¯uence the ®eld for some years to come. Three interconnected issues inform these papers as a whole: (a) the nature and organization of autobiographical knowledge, (b) the accuracy of autobiographical memories, and (c) the relation of memories to the self. We now brie¯y review each paper and return to these three issues in our closing editorial comments.
Brown and Schop¯ocher have developed a cueing technique that holds much promise for exploring the organization of AM. In their procedure people recall speci®c memories and later are re-presented with their memories and asked to recall a second memory of which the ®rst reminds them. Their central ®nding is that many, but by no means all, of the resulting memory pairs formed temporal clusters. Brown and Schop¯ocher propose that speci®c memories are embedded in narrative-like event clusters that represent temporally delimited periods from a person's life. These authors suggest that there may be several factors operative in the formation of event clusters. For instance, events occurring close together in time may share features, i.e. be about the same locations, other persons, activities, etc., and because of these thematic associations the resulting memories become clustered together in long-term memory. Another factor in¯uencing clustering may be the extent to which existing memories are used to comprehend current experience. Presumably much of the time