In the summer of 2006 BBC Radio 4 launched a series of programs collectively called the Memory Experience. A central component of the memory experience was a website (http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/memory/) which listeners could access and record aspects of their memories including their three very earliest memories, self-defining memories, and memories of public events. The response was quite unexpected and at the time of writing over 7000 memories had been recorded on the site and with many still coming in we predict 10,000 by the time I give this talk. Listeners not only described their memories but also provided various ratings, e.g. memory vividness, rehearsal rates, emotional intensity, etc., and demographic data, e.g. age, gender, enthnicity, geographical location, etc. They also provided a judgement indicating their attachment style, i.e. secure, dismissing, preoccupied, or mixed. These data constitute the largest corpus of memories collected to date and I will report analyses of overall effects as well as effects decomposed by the rating, demographic, and attachment variables. At this early stage the average age of the earliest memory is (currently) 3 years 3 months in a sample of 3498 first memories. Memories for the assassination of JFK and death of Lady Dianna are the most frequent flashbulb memories, and self-defining memories are the most vivid and rehearsed of all memories. These findings are highly consistent with findings in the literature and therefore are reassuring that the website data are sound. Changes with these main effects in sub-groups of the sample will be reported in the talk (for instance, it seems that women may have reliably earlier first memories than men).

Martin A. Conway took his undergraduate degree in Psychology at University College London. His doctoral research was at the Open University 1980-1983, supported by a full SSRC grant, and he was awarded his Ph.D in march 1984. He then worked as a post-doctoral researcher (1983-1987) at the Medical Research Council’s Applied Psychology Unit (APU) in Cambridge, then under the Directorship of Professor Alan Baddeley. Following on from his thesis work he developed a productive line of research into the then uninvestigated area of ‘autobiographical memory’ - an area in which he was able to establish an international reputation. After Cambridge he worked as a Senior Lecturer (1987-88) at Hatfield Polytechnic (now the University of Hertfordshire) and a lecturer at the University of Lancaster (1988-1993). In 1993 he was appointed Professor at the University of Bristol and became Head of the Department in 1994. A post he held until 2001 when he left Bristol for a Professorship at the University of Durham, subsequently becoming Head of Department there. In 2004 he was awarded a prestigious ESRC Professorial Fellowship and moved to the University of Leeds, Institute of Psychological Sciences, where he established the Leeds Memory Group, became Director of Research, and subsequently Director of the Institute. In 2006 he became Chair of the Research Board of the British Psychological Society.

He has authored and edited several books on human memory, regularly publishes in international journals and co-edits the journal ‘Memory’ which he co-founded in 1993 with his wife Professor Susan Gathercole. His research has been funded by the ESRC, BBSRC, and the Marsden fund of New Zealand. He has collaborators in several laboratories worldwide and is a regular presenter at international conferences where he is often an invited keynote speaker.