Iskander Mirza Dismissal and end of presidency What happened regarding the dismissal and end of presidency? civil-military relations continued to be a dominant factor between President Mirza and General Ayub Khan. Was there any controversy involving President Mirza and General Ayub Khan? the two men had very different point of view on running the government with the new situation, even though they were responsible for bringing about the change.
Did they often bump heads due to having different points of views?
Did President Mirza and General Ayub Khan often bump heads due to having different points of views?
Mirza grew up and completed his schooling in Bombay, attending the Elphinstone College of the University of Bombay, but left the university to attend the Royal Military Academy in Sandhurst when he was selected by the British Governor-General for the King's Commission. Mirza was the first Indian graduate of the military academy, and gained his commission in the British Indian Army as 2nd Lt. on 16 July 1920. As was customary for newly commissioned British Indian Army officers, he was initially attached for a year to the second battalion of the Cameronians (Scottish Rifles). On 16 July 1921, he was promoted to lieutenant and was assigned to command a platoon on 30 December 1921. His military career was spent in the Military Police. In spite of hailing from Bengal, his military career was mostly spent in the violent Western region of India, participating in the Waziristan war in 1920. After the campaign, he was transferred to the 17th Poona Horse (Queen Victoria's Own), as an army inspector but left active service to join the Indian Political Service (IPS) on August 1926. His first assignment was posted in Aligarh in Uttar Pradesh as an assistant commissioner before posting as political agent in Hazara in the North West Frontier Province. He received promotion to army captain on 17 October 1927. From 1928-33, Mirza spent time as political agent in the troubled Tribal belt, having served as an assistant commissioner in the districts of Dera Ismail Khan on April 1928, Tonk on May 1928, Bannu on April 1930, and Nowshera on April 1931. In 1931, Captain Mirza was appointed a district officer and later posted as deputy commissioner at Hazara in May 1933, where he served for three years until a posting to Mardan as assistant commissioner from October 1936 (deputy commissioner from January 1937). Promoted to major on 16 July 1938, he became the political agent of the Tribal Belt in April 1938, stationed at Khyber. He remained there until 1945. Mirza was appointed and served as the political agent of Odisha and North West Frontier Province from 1945 until 1946. He was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel on 16 July 1946. His ability to run the colonial administrative units had brought him to a prominence that prompted the British Indian Government to appoint him as the Joint Defence Secretary of India in 1946. In this position, he was responsible for dividing the British Indian Army into the future armies of Pakistan and India. Around this time, he became closer to Liaquat Ali Khan and began formatting political relations with the politicians of the Muslim League. After the legislative elections held in 1954, the Awami League had been successfully negotiating with the Muslim League for a power-sharing to form the national government against the Republican Party. By 1958, I.I. Chundrigar and A.Q. Khan had successfully reorganized the Muslim League that was threatening the reelection and political endorsement for Mirza for the second term of his presidency. Furthermore, the Republican Party presided by Prime Minister Sir Feroze Khan had been under pressured over the electoral reforms issue at the National Assembly. Upon witnessing these developments, President Mirza ordered the mass mobilization of the military and imposed emergency in the country after declaring the martial law against his own party's administration led by Prime Minister Feroze Khan by abrogating the writ of the Constitution and dissolving the national and provisional assemblies on the midnight of 7/8 October 1958. In morning of 8 October 1958, President Mizra announced via national radio that he was introducing a new constitution "more suited to the genius of the Pakistan nation", as he believed democracy was unsuited to Pakistan "with its 15% literacy rate". Upon abdicating, Mirza took the nation into confidence, saying that: Three weeks ago, I (Iskander Mirza) imposed martial law in Pakistan and appointed General Ayub Khan as Supreme Commander of the [Armed Forces] and also as Chief Martial Law Administrator.... By the grace of God... This measure which I had adopted in the interest of our beloved country has been extremely well received by our people and by our friends and well wishers abroad... I have done best to administer in the difficult task of arresting further deterioration and bringing order out of chaos... In our efforts to evolve an effective structure for future administration of this country... Pakistan Zindabad, Pakistan Zindabad! This martial law imposed by country's first Bengali president was the first example of martial law in Pakistan, which would continue until the dissolution of East Pakistan in 1971. Iskander Mirza appointed then-Army Commander of the Pakistan Army, General Ayub Khan, as the Chief Martial Law Administrator (CMLA), which proved his undoing within three weeks. The two-man rule political regime was evolved under President Mirza and his appointed chief martial law administration and then-army chief General Ayub Khan. However, the two men had very different point of view on running the government with the new situation, even though they were responsible for bringing about the change. President Mirza had not envisaged any change in his previous powers; he wanted to retain the ability to maneuver things in keeping with his own whims. Judging from the situation, the things however had changed as the time and situation both were demanding the complete solution. General Ayub Khan came to an understanding that the real political power rested with the support from the military, and within a week of enforcing the martial law, President Mirza realized the delicate position he got himself into. In an interview with Dawn, President Mirza regretted his decision saying: "I did not mean to do it" while offering assurances that the martial law would be for the shortest possible duration. In 1959, President Mirza accepted the resignation of Vice-Admiral M.S. Choudhri, replacing with Vice-Admiral A.R. Khan as the new naval chief but the civil-military relations continued to be a dominant factor between President Mirza and General Ayub Khan. In an attempt to consolidate the powers under his control, President Mirza appointed a new administration cabinet that consisted of bureaucrats and technocrats and unsuccessfully tried by role of the CMLA General Ayub Khan as the Prime Minister on 24 October 1958 but such actions could not implemented due to General Ayub Khan's strong protest and briefly lodged a complain to President Mirza about his "high hand" method. The new administration did not satisfy CMLA Ayub Khan who had more control in the administration than President Mirza. Ayub dispatched the military unit to enter in presidential palace on the midnight of 26-27 October 1958 and placed him in an airplane to exile in England. Subsequently, Admiral A. R. Khan and four army and air force generals: Azam, Amir, Wajid, and Asghar Khan were instrumental in the demise of President Mirza. CANNOTANSWER
President Mizra announced via national radio that he was introducing a new constitution "more suited to the genius of the Pakistan nation",
Sahibzada Sayyid Iskander Ali Mirza  (, ; 13 November 1899 – 13 November 1969), was a Pakistani general officer, Bengali businessman and East Pakistani civil servant who was the first president of Pakistan. He was elected in this capacity in 1956 until being dismissed by his appointed army commander General Ayub Khan in 1958.

Mirza was educated at the University of Bombay before attending the military college in Sandhurst in the United Kingdom. After a brief military service in the British Indian Army, he joined the Indian Political Service and spent the majority of his career as a political agent in the Western region of the British India until elevated as joint secretary at the Ministry of Defence in 1946. After the independence of Pakistan as result of the Partition of India, Mirza was appointed as first Defence Secretary by Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan, only to oversee the military efforts in first war with India in 1947, followed by failed secessionism in Balochistan in 1948. In 1954, he was appointed as governor of his home province of East Bengal by prime minister Mohammad Ali of Bogra to control the law and order sparked as a result of the popular language movement in 1952, but later elevated as interior minister in Bogra administration in 1955.

Playing a crucial role in ousting of governor-general Sir Malik Ghulam, Mirza assumed his position in 1955 and was elected as the first president of Pakistan when the first set of Constitution was promulgated in 1956. His presidency, however, marked with political instability which saw his unconstitutional interferences in the civilian administration that led to the dismissal of four prime ministers in a mere two years. Facing challenges in getting the political endorsements and reelection for the presidency, Mirza surprisingly suspended the writ of the Constitution by having imposed martial law against his own party's administration governed by Prime Minister Feroze Khan on 8 October 1958, enforcing it through his army commander General Ayub Khan who dismissed him when the situation between them escalated, also in 1958. Mirza lived in the United Kingdom for the remainder of his life and was buried in Iran in 1969.

His legacy and image is viewed negatively by some Pakistani historians who believe that Mirza was responsible for weakening of democracy and political instability in the country.

Origins

Ancestral roots and family background

Iskander Ali Mirza was born in Murshidabad, Bengal in India on 13 November 1899, into an elite and wealthy aristocrat family who were titled as Nawab of Bengal and later after 1880 Nawab of Murshidabad. Mirza was the eldest child of Sahibzada Sayyid Muhammad Fateh Ali Mirza (b. 1864–d. 1949) and his first wife, Dilshad Begum née Tyabji (b. 1869–d. 1924).

The title, Mirza (lit. Master), is an honorific surname bestowed to his family to represent royalty, which was customary to give to individuals in medieval India. From his grandfather's ancestral roots, he was of Iraqi Arab descent.

The Mirza family was an influential and wealthy feudal family in Bengal, with close ties with British monarchy. His father, Fateh Ali Mirza belonged to the ruling house of Murshidabad, grandson of the first Nawab Mansur Ali Khan.

He was a direct descendant of Mir Jafar, the first Nawab of Bengal under British Raj who betrayed Siraj ud-Daulah.

Education and military service in India (1920–47)

Mirza grew up and completed his schooling in Bombay, attending the Elphinstone College of the University of Bombay, but left the university to attend the Royal Military College in Sandhurst when he was selected by the British Governor-General for the King's Commission. Mirza was the first Indian graduate of the military college, and gained his commission in the British Indian Army as 2nd Lt. on 16 July 1920. As was customary for newly commissioned British Indian Army officers, he was initially attached for a year to the second battalion of the Cameronians (Scottish Rifles). On 16 July 1921, he was promoted to lieutenant and was assigned to command a platoon on 30 December 1921.

His military career was spent in the Military Police. In spite of hailing from Bengal, his military career was mostly spent in the violent North-West Frontier Province of India, participating in the Waziristan war in 1920. After the campaign, he was transferred to the 17th Poona Horse (Queen Victoria's Own), as an army inspector but left active service to join the Indian Political Service (IPS) in August 1926. His first assignment was posted in Aligarh in Uttar Pradesh as an assistant commissioner before posting as political agent in Hazara in the North West Frontier Province. He received promotion to Captain on 17 October 1927.

From 1928 to 1933, Mirza spent time as political agent in the troubled Tribal belt, having served as an assistant commissioner in the districts of Dera Ismail Khan in April 1928, Tonk in May 1928, Bannu in April 1930, and Nowshera in April 1931. In 1931, Captain Mirza was appointed a district officer and later posted as deputy commissioner at Hazara in May 1933, where he served for three years until a posting to Mardan as assistant commissioner from October 1936 (deputy commissioner from January 1937). Promoted to major on 16 July 1938, he became the political agent of the Tribal Belt in April 1938, stationed at Khyber. He remained there until 1945.

Mirza was appointed and served as the political agent of Odisha and North West Frontier Province from 1945 until 1946. He was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel on 16 July 1946. His ability to run the colonial administrative units had brought him to prominence that prompted the British Indian Government to appoint him as the Joint Defence Secretary of India in 1946. In this position, he was responsible for dividing the British Indian Army into the future armies of Pakistan and India. Around this time, he became closer to Liaquat Ali Khan and began formatting political relations with the politicians of the Muslim League. About him Abdul Ghaffar Khan wrote: ""According to my instructions the mass movement was launched. A Muslim Deputy-Commissjoner, Janab Iskander Mirza, avowing his traditional loyalty to the British, excelled his masters, beating to death Syed Akbar, a Khudai Khidmatgar. He went to the extent of poisoning vegetables in a Khudai Khidmatgar camp. Those who ate them were taken seriously ill. I would rather not expose his other crimes but would rather produce him before the Almighty, whom we all have to face on the Day of judgement."

Political career in Pakistan

Defence Secretary (1947–50)

As the partition of India took place by the United Kingdom, Colonel Mirza played a substantial role in a committee that was responsible for dividing British India's Army, Navy and Air Force into the future militaries of India and Pakistan.

He was appointed as first Defence Secretary in the Liaquat administration by the Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan, who relied on running the government on British viceregal model with close coordination of civilian bureaucracy, the police and the military. As Defence Secretary, he oversaw the military efforts in the first war with India in 1947, as well as witnessing the failed secession in Balochistan by Khan of Kalat.

In 1950, Mirza was promoted to two-star rank, having skipped the one-star promotion as Brigadier, and upgraded his rank as Major-General in the Pakistan Army by the promotion papers approved by Prime Minister Ali Khan. He was appointed as Colonel Commandant of the Military Police while serving as the Defence secretary in the Liaquat administration. In 1951, Prime minister Ali Khan appointed him as the director of the Department of Kashmir and Afghanistan Affairs (DKA).

His tenure as defense secretary also saw the deployment of Military Police in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) as a result of the Bengali Language Movement, during which the East Pakistan Rifles fatally shot four student activists. Within a short span of time, the Military Police had the control of the state and its officer commanding submitted the report of their course of action to Major General Iskander Mirza in 1954.

In 1951, he backed the Liaquat administration's decision of appointing the native chiefs of staff of the army, air force and navy, and dismissed deputation appointments from the British military. For the four-star appointment, the Army GHQ sent the nomination papers to Prime Minister's Secretariat that included four-senior major-generals in the race for the army command of the Pakistan Army: Major-General Iftikhar Khan, Major-General Akbar Khan, Major-General Ishfakul Majid, and Major-General N.A.M. Raza.

Initially, it was Major-General Iftikhar Khan who was promoted to four-star rank and selected to be appointed as first native commander of the army but died in an airplane crash en route after finishing the senior staff officers' course in the United Kingdom. All three remaining major-generals were bypassed including the recommended senior-most Major-General Akbar Khan and Major-General Ishfakul Majid due to Major-General Mirza's lobbying for the army selection when he presented convincing arguments to Prime Minister Ali Khan to promote the junior-most Major-General Ayub Khan to the post despite the fact that his name was not included in the nomination list. Ayub's papers of promotion were controversially approved and appointed as the first native Commander-in-Chief of the Pakistan Army with a promotion to the rank of Lieutenant General (acting full General) on 17 January 1951 by Prime Minister Ali Khan.

With Ayub becoming the army chief, it marked the change in the military tradition of preferring native Pakistanis and ending the transitional role of British Army officers. In 1951 also, he also helped elevating Commodore M.S. Choudhri to the promotion to two-star rank, Rear-Admiral, to assume the navy command of Pakistan Navy, but it was not until in 1953 when Admiral Choudhri took over the command.

Governorship of East Bengal and Cabinet Minister (1954–55)

Due to rapid political instability in East Bengal, Mirza was relieved as Defence Secretary and took over the governorship of East Bengal, in an appointment approved by then Governor-General Sir Malik Ghulam on 29 May 1954.

On 1 June 1954, Mirza took over the Government of East Bengal from chief minister A. K. Fazlul Huq as part of the governor rule that dismiss the United Front. He imposed the martial law, backed by the East Pakistan Rifles and dismissed the East Bengal Legislative Assembly.

After landing at the Dhaka Airport, Mirza sharply announced in Bengali language to the Pakistan media representatives, that he would not hesitate to use force to establish peace in the province, and personally threatening Maulana Bhashani of shooting him.

Iskander Mirza ruled East Pakistan with an iron fist, having arrested 319–659 political activists on his first week, including Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and Yusuf Ali Chowdhury.

By mid-June 1954, the number of arrests reached 1,051, including 33 assembly members and two Dhaka University professors. His authoritative actions had sown a permanent seed of hatred for the Pakistani government in the hearts of the people of East Pakistan despite the fact that Mirza was himself an ethnic Bengali. Amid criticism at the public level in Pakistan led Mirza of relieving him from the post of Governorship to East Bengal to Muhammad Shahabuddin in June 1955. He was the first Bengali to be governor of East Pakistan.
On 24 October 1954, he was appointed as Interior Minister in the Bogra administration of Prime Minister Mohammad Ali Bogra. During this time, he had maintained close political ties to the United States's establishment and was backed by Governor-General Sir Malik Ghulam for this post, which Mirza only remained until 7 August 1955.

As an Interior Minister, he provided strong political advocacy for the controversial geopolitical program, One-unit, which he faced strong criticism in the West Pakistan's politicians and the public in general.

Governor-general of Pakistan (1955–56)

In Bogra administration, he also took care the matters of Commonwealth and Kashmir affairs ministry as he had gained major political influence in the administration in 1955. During this time, Governor-General Malik Ghulam survived another fatal attack of Paralysis that made him unable to talk and walk, seeking treatment in the United Kingdom on a two-month leave.

Appointed only as acting governor-general since 7 August 1955, Mirza dismissed Malik Ghulam to take over his post on 6 October 1955, and forced Prime Minister Bogra to resign when he appointed him as the Pakistan Ambassador to the United States. On 12 August 1955, he invited Muhammad Ali, the Finance Minister, to take over the government as a prime minister.

Presidency (1956–58)

The newly constituted Electoral College unanimously elected Mirza as the first president upon the promulgation of the first set of the Constitution on 23 March 1956. The coalition of the Awami League, the Muslim League, and the Republic Party endorsed his presidency.

The Constitution drives the country's system of government toward parliamentarianism, with executive powers vested under the elected prime minister while the president serving as a ceremonial head of state.

On 12 September 1956, he established and became vice-president of the Republican Party that was in direct conflict with Muslim League, mainly due to disagreement on the idea of republicanism and conservatism. Unable to keep the substantial pressure on Mirza's Republic Party eventually led the Muslim League's successful demand for the resignation of Prime Minister Muhammad Ali on 12 September 1956.

Upon these development, President Mirza invited Awami League to form the central government that appointed Huseyn Suhrawardy as the Prime Minister, who made an alliance with the Republican Party, to take over the charge of the government.

Despite Mirza and Suhrawardy both being Bengalis and hailing from the Indian state of West Bengal, the two leaders had very different views of running the central government and both leader were in brief conflict, causing the harm to the unity of the nation. Prime Minister Suhrawardy found extremely difficult to govern effectively due to the issue of One Unit, alleviating the national economy, and President Mirza's constant unconstitutional interference in Suhrawardy administration.

President Mirza demanded the resignation of Prime Minister Suhrawardy and turned down his request to seek motion of confidence at the National Assembly. Threatened by President Mirza's dismissal, Prime Minister Suhrawardy tendered his resignation on 17 October 1957 and was succeeded by I. I. Chundrigar but he too was forced to resigned in mere two months.

President Mirza had widely lacked the parliamentary spirit, distrusting the civilians to ensure the integrity and sovereignty of country. His unconstitutional interference in the civil administration made the elected prime ministers effectively unable to function the government, as he had dismissed four elected prime ministers in matter of two years. On his last nomination, he appointed Feroz Khan as the seventh Prime Minister of the country, who had been supported by the Awami League and the Muslim League.

Martial law

After the legislative elections held in 1954, the Awami League had been successfully negotiating with the Muslim League for a power-sharing to form the national government against the Republican Party.

By 1958, I.I. Chundrigar and A.Q. Khan had successfully reorganized the Muslim League that was threatening the reelection and the political endorsement for Mirza for his second term of the presidency. Furthermore, the Republican Party presided by prime minister Sir Feroze Khan had been under pressured over the electoral reforms issue at the National Assembly. Upon witnessing these developments, president Mirza ordered the mass mobilization of the military and imposed emergency in the country after declaring the martial law against his own party's administration led by prime minister Feroze Khan by abrogating the writ of the Constitution and dissolving the national and provisional assemblies on the midnight of 7/8 October 1958.

In morning of 8 October 1958, President Mizra announced via national radio that he was introducing a new constitution "more suited to the genius of the Pakistan nation", as he believed democracy was unsuited to Pakistan "with its 15% literacy rate". Upon abdicating, Mirza took the nation into confidence, saying that:

This martial law imposed by country's first Bengali president was the first example of martial law in Pakistan, which would continue until the dissolution of East Pakistan in 1971. Iskander Mirza appointed then-army commander of the Pakistan Army, general Ayub Khan, as the Chief Martial Law Administrator (CMLA), which proved his undoing within three weeks.

Dismissal and end of presidency

The two-person rule political regime was evolved under president Mirza and his appointed chief martial law administration and then-army chief General Ayub Khan. However, the two men had very different point of view on running the government with the new situation, even though they were responsible for bringing about the change.

President Mirza had not envisaged any change in his previous powers; he wanted to retain the ability to maneuver things in keeping with his own whims. Judging from the situation, the things however had changed as the time and situation both were demanding the complete solution. general Ayub Khan came to an understanding that the real political power rested with the support from the military, and within a week of enforcing the martial law, President Mirza realized the delicate position he got himself into. In an interview with Dawn, President Mirza regretted his decision saying: "I did not mean to do it" while offering assurances that the martial law would be for the shortest possible duration.

In 1959, president Mirza accepted the resignation of Vice-Admiral M.S. Choudhri, replacing with vice-admiral A.R. Khan as the new naval chief but the civil-military relations continued to be a dominant factor between President Mirza and General Ayub Khan.

In an attempt to consolidate the powers under his control, President Mirza appointed a new administration cabinet that consisted of bureaucrats and technocrats and unsuccessfully tried by role of the CMLA General Ayub Khan as the Prime Minister on 24 October 1958 but such actions could not implemented due to General Ayub Khan's strong protest and briefly lodged a complain to President Mirza about his "high hand" method.

The new administration did not satisfy CMLA Ayub Khan who had more control in the administration than President Mirza. Ayub dispatched the military unit to enter in presidential palace on the midnight of 26–27 October 1958 and placed him in an airplane to exile in England. Subsequently, Admiral A. R. Khan and four army and air force generals: Azam, Amir, Wajid, and Asghar Khan were instrumental in the demise of President Mirza.

Post-presidency and death

Mirza left the country in 1959 and lived the remainder of his life in London, England willingly where he financially struggled running a small Pakistan cuisine hotel until his death. It was reported widely by Pakistani media that despite hailing from a wealthy Nawab and aristocrat family, Mirza lived in poverty in England and his regular income was based on retired pension of £3,000 as a former military officer and president. Foreign dignitaries such as Ardeshir Zahedi, Shah of Iran, Lord Inchcape, Lord Hume, and Pakistani billionaires in London had made his life in exile tolerable.

At the London hospital where he died, he once said to his wife, Nahid: "We cannot afford medical treatment, so just let me die."

He died of a heart attack on 13 November 1969, his 70th birthday and was buried in Iran. Hundreds of Iranians, including Prime Minister Abbas Hoveyda, and Pakistani expatriates in Iran bade farewell and offered their prayers.

Family
Mirza was married twice: his first marriage took place on 24 November 1922, when he married an Iranian woman, Rifaat Begum (1907–23 March 1967). The couple had two sons and four daughters.

Humayun Mirza who died on June 13, 2021 was the only surviving son of Iskander Mirza. He was born in Poona, India, and was educated at Doon School. He also studied in the U.K., before moving to the U.S., where he earned his MBA from Harvard. He married the daughter of Horace Hildreth, the U.S. ambassador to Pakistan. He retired from the World Bank in 1988 and lived in Bethesda, Maryland. He was the author of a book "From Plassey to Pakistan: The Family History of Iskander Mirza." Humayun's younger brother, Enver Mirza, had died in a plane crash in 1953.

In October 1954, while in West Pakistan, Mirza's second marriage took place in Karachi after he fell in love with an Iranian aristocrat, Naheed Amirteymour (1919–2019), daughter of Amirteymour Kalali. She was a close friend of Begum Nusrat Bhutto. It was this friendship that brought Zulfikar Ali Bhutto into the political arena of Pakistan.

Legacy

Iskander Ali Mirza is often criticized for imposing martial law by the Pakistani historians. Historians have noted that Mirza held that Pakistanis "lacked the parliamentary spirit and because of the lack of training in the field of democracy and the low literacy rate among the masses, democratic institutions cannot flourish in Pakistan". He believed that the judicial authorities should be given the same powers which they used to enjoy during the British Indian Empire.

Mirza's political ideology reflected secularism, and an image of internationalism, strongly advocating the religious separation in state matters. Mirza had never had a high opinion of politicians. He was well known for his conviction that the politicians were destroying the country. He felt that to work towards real and responsible democracy, the country must have what he called "controlled democracy".

Historians also asserted that Mirza's role as the head of state led him to play an active part in power politics, building an image of being a kingmaker in the country's politics. Mirza took full advantage of the weaknesses of politicians and played them against each other, first offsetting the influence of the Muslim League by creating the Republican Party.

During his short span of little over three years as the head of state, four prime ministers were changed, three of them were his appointees, while the only popularly elected Bengali prime minister was dismissed. Iskander Mirza is thus widely held responsible for the instability that brought the active role of Pakistan armed forces in politics.

It was reported by Hindustan Times in 2016, that his family home in Murshidabad, West Bengal was left in ruins.

Honours

(ribbon bar, as it would look today)
 India General Service Medal (1909)
 King George V Silver Jubilee Medal – 1935
 King George VI Coronation Medal – 1937
 Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) – 1939
 Companion of the Order of the Indian Empire (CIE) – 1945
 Pakistan Independence Medal – 1948
 Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Medal – 1953
 Grand Collar of the Order of Pahlavi of the Empire of Iran – 1956
 Order of the Supreme Sun, 1st Class of the Kingdom of Afghanistan – 1958

See also
 Conservatism in Pakistan
 Civil-military relations
 Republican Party

References

Notes and External links

 
 

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1899 births
1969 deaths
People from Murshidabad district
20th-century Bengalis
19th-century Bengalis
Bengali Muslims
Nawabs of Bengal
University of Mumbai alumni
Graduates of the Royal Military College, Sandhurst
British Indian Army officers
Indian Political Service officers
Indian people of World War II
Pakistani people of Bengali descent
Pakistani people of Arab descent
Defence Secretaries of Pakistan
People of the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947
People of the insurgency in Balochistan
Pakistani generals
First Pakistani Cabinet
Governors of East Bengal
Bengali politicians
Governors-General of Pakistan
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Bump steer or roll steer is the term for the tendency of the wheel of a car to steer itself as it moves through the suspension stroke. It is typically measured in degrees of steer per metre of upwards motion or degrees per foot.

On modern cars the front suspension and steering links are designed so that during a turning manoeuvre, body roll and suspension motions will not influence the car to turn more sharply than the driver anticipates. On modern cars, the leading edge of the front tyres move outwards as the suspension is compressed, and inwards as the suspension droops (extends). This is known as "toe out" under bump and results in roll understeer. I.e. during a turn, body roll will cause the outside suspension (relative to the curve) to compress and the inside suspension to droop (extend).

Rear suspension can be designed a number of ways. Many modern vehicles have rear suspension designs which are opposite of the front suspension: Toe in under bump, and out under droop. They can also be designed to have very little or no bump steer at all. Cars with rear live axles, also known as solid axles do not exhibit true bump steer, but can still cause some steering over one wheel bumps, see .  If both wheels on a live axle move upwards by the same amount, they tend not to steer.

Bump steer causes a vehicle to turn itself when one wheel hits a bump or falls down into a hole or rut. Excessive bump steer increases tire wear and makes the vehicle more difficult to handle on rough roads. For example, if the front left wheel rolls over a bump it will compress the suspension on that corner and automatically rotate to the left (toe out), causing the car to turn itself left momentarily without any input from the steering wheel. Another example, is that when most vehicles become airborne their front wheels will noticeably toe in.

Typical values are from two to ten degrees per metre, for the front wheels.

The linearity of the bump steer curve is important and relies on the relationship of the control arms and tie rod pickup points, and the length of each part. As the suspension goes through bump and droop, each part follows an arc resulting in a change of effective length. Whichever parts are longest tend to have less change in effective length because their arc radius is longer. This is the determining factor in designed bump steer. Another factor that affects bump steer is bushing compliance and deflection and arm bending. During a turn, if some or all of the bushings deflect then their pickup points have changed If any of the arms and tie rods bend then their effective length will change resulting in a change of toe.

Roll steer is an important part of the budget used to define a vehicle's understeer, known as a Bundorf analysis.

Bump steer and car ride height

Bump steer can become a problem when cars are modified by lowering or lifting, when a spring has become worn or broken causing a lower ride height, or if the vehicle is heavily loaded.  When a car is lowered or lifted, the wheels' toe setting will change.

When a car is lowered or lifted, it will have to be re-aligned to avoid excessive tire wear. This is accomplished through adjustment of the steering tie rod length. After the tie rod lengths are changed, bump steer values will also change. In some cases, the car will have less toe change, this can make the car exhibit less roll understeer and therefore feel more "twitchy" during a turn. Other vehicles after lowering will exhibit an increase in toe change compared to stock, this results in the car feeling very "twitchy" on straight, bumpy roads, and at the same time feeling unwilling to turn requiring more driver input than normal due to an increase in roll understeer.

When a vehicle is heavily loaded, it lowers the ride height. Typically cars are loaded by having heavy loads in the trunk, many passengers or towing a trailer, thus mainly affecting the rear wheels. When a car has been heavily loaded (if it does not have a live rear axle), the suspension will compress greatly in order to support the load resulting in an extreme amount of toe in on the rear wheels. This causes rapid tire wear, can cause the car to follow cracks in the road and can cause tire temperatures to rise higher than normal due to an increase in friction. Negative Camber will often be greatly increased as well. This results in very heavy inner tire wear on the rear wheels of a car that is heavily loaded or towing. One reason that most trucks have live axle rear suspensions is because it completely avoids toe and camber changes with a load. Cars with multi-link rear suspension should have an alignment while loaded if they are going to be operated under heavy loads for extended periods.

Difference between bump steer and roll steer
During a bump, both wheels rise together. When rolling as the car leans during a curve, the inside suspension extends and the outside suspension compresses. Typically this produces "toe in" on one wheel, and "toe out" on the other, thus producing a steering effect.

Cars with rear live axles, also known as solid axles, tend to not have true bump steer. Since both wheels are connected to a single, rigid member they are incapable of having any toe angles under normal conditions. Rear live axle suspensions are therefore designed to exhibit roll understeer. During a curve, the entire axle will turn slightly to face the inside of the curve so that the car does not turn more sharply than anticipated by the driver, roll understeer. It is possible to design a rear live axle suspension that exhibits roll oversteer but it is highly undesirable for on road use. Roll oversteer is sometimes incorporated on extreme off-road vehicles because it can allow the rear wheels to help turn the vehicle extremely sharply in tight trail conditions.

Roll steer is usually measured in degrees of toe per degree of roll, but can also be measured in degrees of toe per metre of wheel travel.

Method of adjustment
The linearity of the bump steer curve is important and relies on the relationship of the control arms and tie rod pickup points, and the length of each part.

If the wheels are not properly aligned then the length of the tie rod needs to be adjusted. Usually only small adjustments in the range of millimeters or 16ths of an inch are required.

Bump steer can be adjusted by moving any of the front suspension components pickup points Up, down, in or out.  For example: Say the inner tie rod mounting point is moved up either by moving the rack or modifying the pitman arm mounting point or arm drop.  The result is the tie rod's arc will change. It will then require a change in the tie rod length to be in proper alignment so the radius of the arc will change as well. If the radius arc of the tie rod is longer than stock on a front steer setup then the car will have more toe understeer. If the same scenario was applied to a rear steering design, then the car would exhibit less toe understeer. This is because the effective length of the tie rods is affected by its static length/arc radius, its pickup points and the angle of its arc during each phase of suspension travel in relation to the control arms.

See also
Vehicle dynamics

References
"Tires, Suspension and Handling" by John C Dixon
"Chassis Engineering" by Herb Adams

External links
 2017 article on bump steer using the Suspension Geometry Calculator
 2007 technical paper on bump steer of tractors
 2001 technical paper on tractor steering kinematics, including bump steer

Automotive steering technologies
Automotive suspension technologies
Vehicle dynamics The reminiscence bump is the tendency for older adults (over forty)  to have increased or enhanced  recollection for events that occurred during their adolescence and early adulthood. It was identified through the study of autobiographical memory and the subsequent plotting of the age of encoding of memories to form the lifespan retrieval curve.

The lifespan retrieval curve is a graph that represents the number of autobiographical memories encoded at various ages during the life span. The lifespan retrieval curve contains three different parts. From birth to five years old is a period of childhood amnesia, from 16 to 25 years old is the reminiscence bump and last is a period of forgetting from the end of the reminiscence bump to present time. The reminiscence bump has been observed on the lifespan retrieval curve in multiple studies.

The reminiscence bump occurs because memory storage in autobiographical memory is not consistent through time. Rather, memory storage increases during times of changes in the self and in life goals, such as the changes in identity that occur during adolescence.
Researchers have consistently observed the reminiscence bump, the period of increased memory accessibility in participants' lifespan retrieval curves, and the bump has been reproduced under a range of study conditions.

Theories
Adolescence and early adulthood have been described as important times in memory encoding because individuals typically recall a disproportionate number of autobiographical memories from those periods. The reminiscence bump accounts for this disproportionate number of memories. The reminiscence bump typically occurs between 10 years of age and 30 years of age and is the period that individuals produce the most memories during free recall tasks. Research suggests that memories are easily accessible from the reminiscence bump because they are linked to self-identity. The memories found within the reminiscence bump significantly contribute to an individual's life goals, self-theories, attitudes, and beliefs. Additionally, life events that occur during the period of the reminiscence bump, such as graduation, marriage, or the birth of a child, are often very novel, thus, making them more memorable.

There are three possible hypotheses of the reminiscence bump: a cognitive account, a narrative/identity account, and a biological/maturational account.

The cognitive account suggests that memories are remembered best because they occur during a period of rapid change followed by a period of relative stability. There is an assumed memory advantage for the novel and distinct events that is followed by a period of stability. The novel events are subject to greater elaborative cognitive processing leading to stronger encoding of these memories. Moreover, the period of stability that follows increases the stability of the cues for these memories and increases the chances of recall.

The narrative/identity account suggests that the reminiscence bump occurs because a sense of self-identity develops during adolescence and early adulthood. Research suggests that memories that have more influence and significance to one's self are more frequently rehearsed in defining one's identity, and are therefore better remembered later in life (Ece & Gulgoz, 2014). Self-identity formation provides added motivation for using cognitive processes to ensure recall of these memories. The events from this period are more likely to be organized into a story or view of oneself, and benefits from the advantage of schematic organization in memory.

The biological/maturational account suggests that genetic fitness is improved by having many memories that fall within the reminiscence bump. Cognitive capacities are at their optimum from the ages of 10 to 30 and the reminiscence bump may reflect a peak in cognitive performance. This account is therefore sometimes called the cognitive abilities account. Researchers have suggested that the increase of cognitive ability in early adulthood may cause memories during this time period to be more adequately stored (Ece & Gulgoz, 2014). The reminiscence bump is caused by age-related differences in encoding efficiency, which cause more memories to be stored in adolescence and early adulthood.

There is one additional theory that explains the occurrence of the reminiscence bump: the life script account. A life script refers to the series of culturally important transitional events that are expected to occur in a certain order at various points during the life span. During early adulthood one starts to make important decisions and have influencing experiences on his or her identity. The memories during this time period are therefore more significantly remembered because they are what has essentially determined and influenced their life script (Habernas & Bluck, 2000). A life script typically has the majority of expected transitional experiences occur during early adulthood (Gluck & Bluck, 2007), and usually includes positive experiences such as marriage, the birth of a baby, or buying a house. Events that deviate from the life script are typically sad and traumatic. These events, such as the death of a child, are not culturally expected and often do not show a peak of recall at any specific point during the life span. Life scripts act as a way to structure memory and lead to the expectation that the happiest and the most important life events form the reminiscence bump. Contrary to the recall of happy events, the recall of sad events remains stable across the life span and does not exhibit a bump in recall.

Methodology

Galton cue-word technique
Used objects from his environment to cue memories from his life. Galton created lists of cue-words to stimulate memory recall. He recorded the amount of time required to recall an autobiographical memory related to the cue- word and note the distribution of memories over the life span.

Crovitz-Schiffman cue-word technique
Mimicked Galton's technique and had participants recall and date autobiographical memories in response to the cue- words. Participants were encouraged to share the first memory they thought of. This technique is consistent and reproducible under different conditions, such as using different participants or cue- words. There is a consistent peak of recalled memories within the reminiscence bump. However, different types of cue words, such as nouns and adjectives, elicited memories from different time periods and with different phenomenology.

Conway and Haque cue-word technique
These researchers presented cue-words in the form of common locations (restaurants, markets, parks), objects (chair, table, television), positive emotions (happy, joy, cheerful), negative emotions (frustration, pain, sad), and significant others (father, mother, friend). Participants were asked to retrieve a memory that reminded them of the cue- word, recall memories from across their lifespan, and recall memories that were at least a year old. Then participants were asked to date the memory to the nearest month and year. The results were graphed on a lifespan retrieval curve, and the reminiscence bump was observed.

Fluency tests
Have participants indicate important personal events on a timeline. Participants are given a timeline with intervals (e.g., 5 years per interval) and asked to fill in events that come to mind and indicate age during the event. This gives the participant the ability to recall freely rather than be limited to artificial cue- words. The time intervals focus the participant on certain periods and control the amount of time spent searching for memories.

Participants are given a time period and asked to recall as many personal events as possible from that period. It assesses the ability to generate both personal semantic and personal incident memories. Recalling the personal semantic memories, participants try to produce as many examples of name of people known to them in a 90-second period. This is repeated for three lifetime periods: childhood, early adulthood, and recent adult life. Recalling personal incident memories, participants try to produce as many personally experienced events as possible in a 90-second period, and it is also repeated for three lifetime periods.

Free recall method
Subjects share personal events and researchers compare involuntary and voluntary memories of young and older children. Participants read ten words and are asked to recall as many of the words as they can in no particular order. Then participants were asked to keep a diary on their memory process between two one-hour experimental sessions. They were asked to record autobiographical memories as soon as possible, using a two-page questionnaire for each memory. Allowed researchers to keep track of personal thoughts and events.

Twenty Statements Test (TST)
Participants provide 20 self-concepts that start with "I am..." This enables the collection of concepts and roles that are important to the definition of self. There is no unitary structure to self, it is a combination of self-schemata such as "I am a mother". These self-concepts, or self-images, are then used as autobiographical memory cues, enabling the distribution of highly self-relevant memories to be plotted across the lifespan.

Social and cultural influences

Literature, cinema and music
The reminiscence bump can be observed in the distributions of people's favorite books, movies and records.

Generation identity
Generation identity occurs when an individual recognises that they are part of a particular social subgroup, a cultural generation, and concern themselves with the internalization of external features of the world. The reminiscence bump occurs during a period of life where people form their individual and generational identity. The earlier years of the reminiscence bump coincide with the formation of generation identity, while the later years coincide with the formation of adult identity.

The influence of generation identity on the reminiscence bump can be attributed to the idea that all members of the subgroup are likely to have memories of similar types of experiences. Evidence attesting to the influence of generation identity on the reminiscence bump has been witnessed in populations that have experience with traumatic events. In 1999, researchers compared younger and older groups of Bangladeshis. The younger group (ages 20–42) showed the usual increase in memories during the reminiscence bump while the older group (ages 46–86) showed a second increase in memories between the ages of 35 and 55. The second bump experienced by the older group corresponded to the period of the Bangladesh Liberation War. The two generations showed similar patterns and timing of memory recall within their own subgroup, suggesting that they did have similar experiences, either living or not living through the war. This finding may suggests that each generation remember personal events and generational events.

Memory for public events and private events
Researchers have studied different types of memories in order to find some clues into how the reminiscence bump works and how memories are stored and retrieved. Participants were asked to retrieve memories that were classified as either public or private to try to find differences in terms of when these memories were stored. Public events are events that everyone living at the time know about and are exposed to (political, war/murder, sports/entertainment or news events), but private events are only experienced by the individual (relationships, births/deaths, work/education, home/leisure, illness and religion). When recalling public events, participants were between ages 10 and 19; and when recalling private events, participants were between 20 and 29. Researchers suggest that public events are recalled at an earlier age because individuals are gaining a sense of generational identity. People are starting to create their own beliefs and their individual identity, so these experiences are being rehearsed, practiced and stored in long-term memory. Private events are recalled later because this is when individuals are developing intimate relationship. Private events are more easily stored and recalled because they are unique to each person and are likely occurring without any outside influence.

Gender differences
Studies suggest gender differences in the reminiscence bump. Researchers found that men have more positive life events in their thirties and that women have more positive life events in their twenties. This finding suggests that the timing of important positive life events, such as marriage or employment, differ for men and women. Most of the major life events start between the age of 15 and 30 but there is a small gender difference shown here with respect to when the event takes place. Researchers found that women have a slightly earlier bump than men. The earlier age of the bump in women may be attributed to earlier hormonal changes in adolescence.

Cross-cultural studies
The reminiscence bump has been studied cross-culturally and has been observed in various cultural backgrounds and experiences. It is important to consider that the process of remembering occurs in the context of culture, and memories found within the reminiscence bump are congruent with the culture's goals, values, and belief systems. The age of occurrence of the reminiscence bump is culturally influenced and reflects the age at which a culture identifies individuals as adults. In Western societies the reminiscence bump corresponds with adolescence and early adulthood, approximately from the ages of 10 to 30. In Asian cultures the reminiscence bump appears later than in Western cultures because adulthood may not be reached until 30.

Culture not only influences the age at which the reminiscence bump appears but also the content of the memories found within the bump. Western cultures often value individuality, agency, and distinctiveness, where individuals are encouraged to develop and maintain their private beliefs, attitudes, and personality traits. Alternatively, Asian cultures often value group solidarity, communion, and interconnectedness, where individuals are encouraged to develop a sense of self that is aligned with social roles, duties, and responsibilities. The differences in societal norms expressed by Western and Asian cultures influence the focus of memories. Individuals from Western cultures have memories that cast the individual as the central character and often have self-focused autobiographical memories. Individuals from Asian cultures have memories that express a strong group orientation and often have relation-centered autobiographical memories.

A study done in 2005 showed more accurate age results that were dependent on culture and gender. American women and men showed reminiscence bumps at age 13 and 17, respectively, while Dutch participants show a more progressive development of encoding strength around age 15. Studies with an identical methodology found peaks in the same period with Polish  and Japanese participants. Supporting this study, there was research done that compared the distribution of memories of participants from Bangladesh, China, England, Japan, and the United States. The research found a greater number of childhood memories among American participants than in other cultural groups. While the timing of the reminiscence bump is generally thought to be culturally universal, with some minor difference in the period of life from which memories are recalled, there are studies that offer support for the notion that similar life scripts, at least for positive events, might also be found across different cultures.

Age factor
Research suggests that people younger than 40 years also show a reminiscence bump. It was initially hidden because of the possibility of the recency effect. When researchers examined the encoding values, it showed a progressive increase with participant age around the reminiscence bump for participants older than 50. This proves that the reminiscence bump is stronger for older adults than younger adults.

These findings suggest that two processes affect the reminiscence bump phenomenon: (1) Events in adolescence are encoded more strongly than events that occur in other periods of life. (2) Because these events are initially stored more intensely, they will be retrieved more frequently.

Life scripts
A life script is a schema that outlines cultural appropriate events that individuals should experience during a specific time period. (Berntsen & Rubin, 2004). The life script account argues that the reminiscence bump occurs because individuals use life script memories to provide a basis of recalling important memories. The life script events often contain more memories during early adulthood, or the reminiscence bump, than any other age period (Berntsen & Rubin, 2004).The life script account emphasizes norms and expectations typical of a given culture with regard to the timing of major life events. The order and timing of the major events may differ depending on the culture. The life script is a representation of the sequence of normative and major life events. Individuals know the culturally shared expectations of the order and timing of life events in a prototypical life, and are also aware of their own timing in relations to those norms. It assumes that people have an internalized culturally-aware script of the events that make up an expected, skeletal life course; this script acts as a template for the recall of life events in association with each life phase.

A script has two parts: slots and requirements. In the life script, slots are culturally important transitional events that are expected to occur within a circumscribed age span in the life course of an individual; and, the requirement is the prescribed appropriate age for the culturally expected event that leads to causal sequencing, in a series of succeeding events.

The events in a life script are often positive, celebrated, and normative. It represents and idealized life story. An average life would also include negative events and people would learn from experience. But the life script is handed down from older generations, through stories, and observations of the behavior of others, typically older, people within the same culture. Individuals should also remember more during their young adulthood because that era is the time of biological maturation, new experiences, adult identity formation, and major events in life scripts.

Life scripts have the following ten properties:

(1) A life script is semantic knowledge about the expectations in a given culture about life events, not a form of episodic memory for those events.

(2) A life scripts is a series of temporally ordered events.

(3) A life script can be described in terms of slots and their requirements.

(4) Life scripts form a hierarchical arrangement, with transitional events forming a higher order "scene" in which a series of subordinate actions or episodes are nested.

(5) Life scripts are used to process stories—here, life stories.

(6) The slots and their requirements for life scripts are culturally important transitional events and their culturally sanctioned timing.

(7) Because life scripts represent a normative life course, life scripts are not extracted from personal actions in recurrent contexts but are transmitted by tradition. Young people who have lived through only a small part of their lives know the life script of their culture.

(8) Life scripts do not represent an average life but instead represent an idealized life, in that many common and important events are left out.

(9) Life scripts are distorted from actual lives to favor positive events.

(10) Life scripts are distorted from actual lives to favor events expected to occur in the period covered by the bump.

Results
Studies confirmed the hypothesis:

(1) a high overlap among the events generated by the participants, supporting the assumption of a shared cognitive structure

(2) a correlation between the order in which events were generated and their estimated dates, consistent with life scripts having a temporal structure

(3) a dominance of positive events, consistent with the assumption of an idealized version of life

(4) the age estimates for negative events had higher standard deviation than age estimates for positive and neutral events, consistent with the assumption that negative events have more poorly specified temporal slots than the positive events

(5) the frequency by which events were recorded was predicted strongly by valence and by whether the event fell during the period of the bump

(6) a dominance of culturally sanctioned transitional events, rather than purely biological events, consistent with the claim that mainly culturally sanctioned transitional events go into the life script

(7) the majority of positive events were estimated to occur between the ages of 15 and 30 years, whereas the life span for negative events was relatively flat.

Improvements
Modification of the cultural life script theory include: (1) the theory may benefit from explicitly distinguishing between specific transitional events and extended periods of stability (2) life script theory proposes that requests for negative events should rarely active the cultural life script, because negative events are often unexpected. Their study was based on the individual's unique chapters and specific memories, whereas the cultural life script is a de-personalized and culturally shared knowledge structure. Finally, the cultural life script theory seems unable to explain the reminiscence bump for public events.

Personality

Dependence vs. independence
There is preferential access to memories of experiences that corresponds with an individual's sense of self especially in relation to the mechanisms critical to someone's sense of independence or dependence.

Power vs. intimacy
It has been identified that individuals with either a strong intimacy motivation or with a distinctive power motivation, and found that the intimacy-motivation group recalled peak experiences with a much higher percentage of intimacy themes, while the power-motivation group tended to recall peak experiences with strong themes of power and satisfaction.

Generativity
Generativity refers to nurturing and caring for those things, products, and people that have the potential to outlast the self. Individuals who were judged high in generativity, (i.e. who had a commitment story) were found to recall a higher proportion of events related to aspects of generativity. In contrast, those participants without a prominent disposition towards generativity showed no such bias.

Agentic vs. communion
Two groups of individuals were investigated, those concerned with personal power, achievement, and independence (agentic group) or those concerned with relationships, interdependence, and others (communion group). Agentic types consistently recalled emotional memories of events that involved issues of agency such as those involving mastery, dominance, and humiliation. In contrast, communal types showed a recollection bias for emotional memories featuring others, often significant others, in acts of love and friendship.

Memory for happy and sad events
Different emotions have been shown to affect memory. Life events that have stronger emotions attached will be remembered more vividly. In studies looking at emotional events and the reminiscence bump, older adults tend to remember more positive events than younger adults. Typically, during the reminiscence bump only happy memories and memories of important events are recalled. It is postulated that sad events are easier to forget because there may be an increased motivation to forget them. Conversely, individuals are more likely to recall and relive happy events because they produced pleasurable memories. A second explanation suggests that remembering positive events can help regulate emotions and even enhance moods. It is also possible to regulate emotions through remembering negative events and comparing these events to present positive events. Positive or negative events can also be used to share life experiences with others and compare life events.

Flashbulb memory
Flashbulb memory occurs when a very vivid memory of a traumatic, emotional, or significant event is recalled. Researchers typically use public events such as the John F. Kennedy assassination and 9/11 as cues when studying flashbulb memories. Participants are asked to recall very specific information such as where they were, how they felt, and what they were doing when the event was taking place. Memories of these events are easily recalled and the individual believes their account of the event to be perfectly accurate.

These memories have been tested in different ways, including measuring the ability to recall details of the event and the impact of additional cues on the recall of the event. Denver, Lane and Cherry found that flashbulb memories that took place in the reminiscence bump were exceptionally vivid and easily accessible. It is suggested that the flashbulb memories encoded during the reminiscence bump are so vivid because the events happened during a time of identity formation and peak brain function. Additionally, these events are recalled well because they undergo more rehearsal due to their serious nature and frequent discussion.

Brain damage
The impaired functioning of autobiographical memory due to damage or disease can have profound effects on an individual's episodic memory. This can skew an individual's lifespan retrieval curve and influence the presentation of the reminiscence bump. Memories an individual has for personal life events can show a different pattern than the average individual if they have brain damage caused by an event like an accident, a blow to the head or disease. For these individuals with brain damage, the lifespan retrieval curve can look different. An example of this is an individual having the reminiscence bump between the age of 5 and 13 rather than 10 to 30, which is the pattern for the average individual.

Brain injury in the frontal lobes can obscure memories and lead to the loss of details. In more extreme cases patients may even construct available autobiographical knowledge into plausible but false memories.

The effect of temporal lobe damage on the reminiscence bump is highly variable as a function of age at the time of injury. This is because patients with damage to the temporal lobes or underlying structures in the limbic system may lose the ability to form new memories, especially if the damage is within the hippocampal formation, while retaining access to at least some memories from before the injury. Individuals with this type of brain damage are not able to form new memories after the incident that caused the brain damage, but they still have access to memories that happened before the brain damage occurred. If the brain damage was present at the age of 10, the individual may not remember anything from between the age of 10 and 30 and have no reminiscence bump.

Those with damage to regions of the brain involved in visual processing, such as the occipital lobes, may develop amnesia. The episodic content of autobiographical memories is predominantly encoded in the form of visual images. If the ability to generate visual images is compromised or lost then access to specific details of the past held in episodic images is lost as well. When life events or episodic memories are encoded in the brain, they are in the form of pictures or visual images. They develop amnesia since they can no longer bring these visual images of the past to mind.

A common psychological phenomenon is the severe clouding of autobiographical memory, which results in the overgeneralization of memories. For instance, clinically depressed individuals, schizophrenic individuals, and those suffering from obsessive compulsive disorder tend to recall many memories that lack detail (clouded) and are much more schematic than typical autobiographical memories. In these instances, a patient asked to recall specific memories of his father could only recall general events such as "walks in the park after Sunday lunch" and was unable to generate a single specific memory of a single walk.

See also
Serial position effect

References

External links
Human Memory - University of Amsterdam website with autobiographical memory test

Memory biases
Memory