However, it's not simply a yearning for the past in a generic sense that drives people to try to relive past decades. A phenomenon called the "reminiscence bump" (Rubin et al., 1998) leads adults of all ages to remember with great clarity and fondness the years of their own youth. Autobiographical memory, your recall of the events of your life, is sharpest for the events spanning roughly the ages of 15 to 30. As you think back on your past, you're most likely to be able to generate strong mental images of what you were doing at that time, perhaps even to the date. It's literally, a "bump" in your ability to remember what happened during these key critical years of life.
