Adults' memories of childhood cluster in the year of a residential move.

When adults are asked to recall personal past events, transitional episodes occurring in late adolescence and early adulthood are especially likely to be remembered. In addition, recent research has shown that older adults' memories of middle adulthood tend to cluster around the transitional event of moving to a new residence. In the present research, adults recalled five memories of events that occurred between ages 7 and 13, and they subsequently identified family moves that occurred during the same age interval. As hypothesised, participants' event memories were over-represented in the year of their most important childhood move. Memory clustering was enhanced for moves that were linked retrospectively to other salient coinciding events (e.g., a parental divorce). The results provide additional support for the idea that prominent life transitions provide an organising structure for autobiographical memory.