Multi-Boxing Memory Architecture (MBMA): A Hypothetical Structural Model of Memory Access and Psychological Consequences

The Multi-Boxing Memory Architecture (MBMA) is a hypothetical structural model of autobiographical memory access. It proposes that repeated interpretation and narrative processing may create multiple partially overlapping memory representations (“boxes”) around the same event, while earlier representations may remain at least partly accessible. The model focuses on how access to these representations may become easier or more difficult over time. It introduces structural and psychological variables including Box Distance (BD), Emotional Cost (EC), gist-based estimated EC, Decision Cost (DC), Consequence Cost (KC), Self-Image Threat Load (SITL), memory markers, marker direction, and Cumulative Access Resistance (CAR). MBMA proposes that access resistance is position-dependent, time-dependent, and state-dependent. Distant representations may be anticipated through emotional gist, later consequences may add further subjective cost, and changes in present self-image stability may alter the emotional threat associated with the same memory. The model also distinguishes between the formation of a decision marker and the later stabilisation of its directional function, linking this process to the author’s earlier Narrative Rewriting model. MBMA is presented as a testable conceptual framework, not as an established neuroscientific or clinical model.