Things About Memory Scale

I present here a scale, “Things about memory,” to assess the metacognitive knowledge of the functions of autobiographical memory. It consists of 13 statements about why people think about and share their personal memories, which are derived from prior research both within a single culture and across different cultural groups. The scale has an adult version and a child version. Compared with other instruments for memory functions, this scale is kept to a short length so that it can be used with both adults and children. Also, it asks about memory uses of a third person rather than participants themselves, to reflect the general knowledge about memory uses not specific to one’s own experience. This also eliminates potential social desirability concerns in self-report. The 13 statements reflect 4 broad functions of memory and memory sharing - self, social, directive, and emotion regulation – and measure different subtypes of functions within each broad category.