Final answer:
Your recollections about your last birthday are stored in your episodic memory, which is part of your long-term memory characterized by personal experiences. Most people, unlike those with superior autobiographical memory like Marilu Henner, have limitations recalling every single event from their past. Our memories are subject to biases, decay, and can be affected by brain damage, leading to the use of external reminders.
Step-by-step explanation:
Your Recollections About Your Last Birthday:
The content loaded in your mind about your recollections about your last birthday are stored in your episodic memory. Episodic memory, a term coined in the 1970s by Endel Tulving, refers to the personal experiences we remember, which include the context of what, where, and when. These memories are usually reported as a story and involve recollection of visual imagery, emotions, and the sense of familiarity. This contrasts with semantic memory, which includes knowledge about language and facts, and is usually reported as objective information without personal context.Recalling events such as birthdays, conversations, or what we ate on a specific date involves accessing our episodic memories. Marilu Henner, an American actress, is known to possess highly superior autobiographical memory, able to recall such specific details effortlessly.
However, most people cannot remember every single event from their past, as our memory capacity has limitations and can be affected by amnesia, bias, and decay over time. Episodic memories can be vivid and detailed but are prone to distortions and forgetting without frequent retrieval or significant importance.It is important to note biases and memory distortions can occur, as pointed out by Schacter (2001), where our emotions and worldview can affect how we remember events. The degradation of memory, such as in cases of brain damage, may lead to reliance on external memory aids, like a wall covered with sticky notes, to compensate for memory losses.