Destination memory: the relationship between memory and social cognition

Destination memory refers to the ability to remember to whom one has sent information (e.g., “did I tell my colleague X or Y about the conference?”, “did I send that email to my colleague X or Y?”). This review describes empirical studies demonstrating how normal aging and neurological disorders compromise destination memory. Centrally, we propose a comprehensive framework, destination memory framework (DMF), in which destination memory contributes to the uniqueness of a communications episode by creating an association between the content of a communications event and the context of its transmission. The DMF also focuses on how the association between communicated information and its destination, an association mainly supported by binding, can be related to the subjective experience of an episode. Additionally, the DMF emphasizes how destination recall can be influenced by social processing, specifically by familiarity of interlocutors, stereotypes that are associated with interlocutors, and the perceived emotional and cognitive states of interlocutors. By so doing, we highlight how destination memory can be intertwined with not only basic cognition but social cognition as well.