Describe an incident from the period before you attended school. |
E.P.: When I was 5 years old, we moved from Oakland to the country. I was very excited and looked forward to the change. I remember the truck that dad rented. It was hardly full because we didn’t have much furniture. When it was time to leave, mom got in the car and followed behind the truck. I rode in the truck with dad. |
CON: I remember the day that my older sister started school. I cried because I was the only one who wasn’t going. I carried on so much that my mother got fed up and told my sister to take me with her to school. So I ended up starting school early. |
Describe an incident that occurred during the period in which you attended elementary school. |
E.P.: I was in second grade. I was playing in the schoolyard. I was running, and I tripped and fell. I broke my arm. Mom came and took me to Dr. T. in downtown Hayward. He put a cast on my arm. I wore it for 4 weeks.* |
CON: I was playing in the schoolyard—swinging on a pole. The pole came down and hit a third grade girl that was playing nearby. It crushed her and she was out of school for the rest of the year. |
Describe an incident that occurred during the period in which you attended high school. |
E.P.: When I was 13, I got sick. I got all swollen. Mom drove me to Dr. T.’s office. He said I had dropsy and said I had to stay in bed for a month. I was upset because I couldn’t go out and play with my friends. I gave mom urine samples every day. She took them to the doctor’s office to check for blood.* |
CON: In high school biology class, we took a field trip to the woods. It was during the spring. We went looking for plants to identify them. It was a very pleasant day, pretty and relaxing. |
Note. The specific AMI test items are presented, followed by the memories described by patient E.P. and an age-matched control subject who received the same Autobiographical Memory score as E.P. for the Childhood period. The accuracy of two of the memories described by E.P. was verified (*), but family members were unable to confirm or disconfirm the accuracy of the third memory. If one assumes that this memory was inaccurate, E.P.’s score remains within the range of control subjects’ scores.