Autobiographical memory is perhaps the system that is most closely associated with your sense of self, of who you are and what experiences shaped you. The autobiographical memory system informs your life choices in important ways. Without it, you wouldn’t know if you are capable of hiking for two hours, if you can eat food with peanuts in it, or whether or not you’re married. And yet, the autobiographical memory system is prone to huge distortions. It’s a goal-oriented system. It recalls information that is consistent with your goals or perspective. We all tend to recontextualize our own life
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