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Memory, brain, self and culture


Professor Martin Conway


Autobiographical memory - memory for the experiences of our lives - is the database of self. Memories constrain what the self can be and autobiographical knowledge more generally represents an idiosyncratic personal history of the self in the past. This central and complex form of memory is modulated by many different brain regions and, as a consequence, is open to many forms of disruption, some of which are discussed. On a general rather than individual level autobiographical memory is open to cultural influences, although there are also some interesting cultural invariances and these too are considered in this presentation.

Professor Martin Conway has studied human memory for over 20 years. He graduated from University College London in 1980 with an honours degree in Psychology, gained his Ph.D from the Open University (1984), and then worked at the Medical Research Council's Applied Psychology Unit in Cambridge (1983-1987). Subsequently he was a lecturer in Psychology at Hatfield Polytechnic and then at the University of Lancaster. In 1993 he gained a Chair in Psycholoy at the University of Bristol where he was Head of Department from 1994 to 2001. In 2001 he joined the University of Durham as a Professor of Psychology. He has written and edited several books on human memory, regularly publishes in international memory journals, and co-edits the journal Memory which he co-founded in 1993.