Remembering and Knowing: Using Another’s Subjective Report to Make Inferences About Memory Strength and Subjective Experience

My first first-author paper from my PhD research has now been accepted for publication in Consciousness and Cognition.  I am soooo happy.  This paper really feels like my first proper publication.  The first one I took primary responsibility for writing.  The first one I took the lead in all stages of producing – designing the experiments, analysing the data, writing the manuscript.  Of course I got invaluable help from my supervisor, and additional guidance and support from other people, but it really was my baby, and I am so pleased that it’s now going to be out there – for other psychologists to read!

It has been a long road.  I started collecting this data in 2008, and finished the set of three experiments presented here in 2010.  But moving countries and jobs, and finishing up my PhD thesis, has meant that writing papers has not been at the forefront of my activities as it probably should have been.

The publication process has also been a long road.  I first submitted this to C&C in July 2012.  Although it has therefore taken 8 months and 2 revisions (+ a 3rd minor typo set of revisions) to be accepted, the process has mostly been good, and I think the paper is better for it.

One person that I think was crucial in this was the editor to which my paper was assigned.  She was amazing.  That might be too effusive a word, and I don’t have much experience of editors to compare her to (2 other recent co-author papers on which I helped address editors comments), but her comments really helped make it a better paper.  She provided thorough summaries of the reviewers comments (which sometimes differed widely), gave suggestions as to different methods as to how I might address certain comments, and had clearly spent a lot of time really understanding my paper and the reviewers opinions on my paper.  I don’t know if she knew it was my first first-author submission and that was why she was so supportive and helpful (a quick Google of me resulting in finding any of my academic web papers would have shown her that)? – I suppose I’d like to think not and think that she is just always like that?  But in any case, her direction and guidance helped me improve the paper no end.  She clearly put a lot of time and effort into reading and commenting on my work and I am immensely grateful for that.

Anyway, thanks to a great editor, wonderful guidance from my supervisor, and statistical advice from colleagues, this paper is close to being out there, in the real world, hopefully being read!

Oh, and if you’d like to participate in this programme of research, please click here to complete the latest questionnaire I have created examining subjective experience in others’ memories:  https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/SEOmemories

(I’ll post a link and a PDF when I have the proofs from C&C)