People classify event memories in two ways, Beike said.
Closed memories represent issues or events that people have resolved in their minds.
Open memories consist of experiences that have not been put to rest, issues people persist in thinking about long after the fact. To determine how open and closed memories affect people, Beike conducted two experiments. The first divided 50 UA undergraduates into two groups. Beike asked one group to describe a closed experience and the other group to describe an open one. After completing their descriptions, each group received a list of terms and were asked to select the terms they felt best represented them.