Episodic memory
Episodic memory is a type of memory system focused on the encoding, storage, and retrieval of personal past events. It is inherently autobiographical, allowing individuals to recall specific experiences along with their associated feelings of time and context. This form of memory is distinct from semantic memory, which relates to general knowledge and facts, and procedural memory, which involves skills and actions. The concept of episodic memory gained prominence through the work of psychologist Endel Tulving in the early 1970s, who highlighted differences in how these memory types function and store information.
Episodic memory is characterized by its reliance on personal experience, making it crucial for one's sense of self and identity. Researchers study this type of memory to understand its formation, retention, and retrieval, which can have significant implications for treating memory-related conditions, such as Alzheimer's disease, dementia, and PTSD. Additionally, neuroimaging research has revealed that episodic and semantic memories are processed in different areas of the brain, further emphasizing their functional distinctions. Studying episodic memory not only contributes to psychological and neurological knowledge but also addresses fundamental questions about human existence and our understanding of the self.
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Subject Terms
Episodic memory
Episodic memory is a system of memory that is concerned with the encoding, storage, and retrieval of discrete past events. It is autobiographical in nature, meaning that it involves an individual’s own experiences and perceptions of what happened where and when, as well as one’s consciousness of remembering and subjective sense of time. Episodic memory is often contrasted with semantic memory, the knowledge of objective facts, and procedural memory, the knowledge of how to do something.
Because one’s sense of self is based in large part on the memory of past life experiences, episodic memory has been the subject of philosophers as well as psychologists and neuroscientists who are interested in the basic questions of human existence: who we are, and why we are the way we are. Scientists also study episodic memory and other types of memory systems to further our understanding of how the brain works. Studies of how episodic memory is formed, retained, and retrieved may help researchers develop treatments for conditions that involve either memory loss, such as Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, or memories of traumatic events, such as post-traumatic stress disorder.
Overview
Estonian Canadian psychologist and neuroscientist Endel Tulving first distinguished episodic memory from semantic memory in 1972 in “Episodic and Semantic Memory,” a chapter in Organization of Memory, which he edited with Wayne Donaldson. At the time, Tulving wrote that he was making the distinction in order to facilitate discussion, not because he necessarily believed that the two systems were structurally or functionally separate.
According to Tulving, episodic and semantic memory differ in terms of the nature of the information they store, whether the reference is autobiographical or cognitive, the conditions and consequences of retrieval, how much they depend on each other, and their susceptibility to transformation and erasure of stored information by interference. Episodic memory is concerned with information about distinct episodes, events that have occurred at a specific time and place, as well as the time-space relationships between such events. Furthermore, episodic memory is autobiographical and perceptual, as opposed to cognitive; it refers to events that an individual has personally experienced or perceived, rather than general knowledge and facts.
Tulving theorized that episodic memory is vulnerable to transformation and loss of information because the act of remembering an episodic memory itself changes the contents of the memory. He also thought that while the registration of an event in the episodic memory can sometimes be influenced by information in one’s semantic memory, the episodic memory is capable of operating independently of semantic memory.
Tulving further expounded on episodic and semantic memory in his much-cited 1983 book Elements of Episodic Memory. In this work, he asserts, among other things, the then-controversial theory that episodic memory and semantic memory are functionally distinct. Since then, neuroimaging models have shown that episodic memory retrieval and semantic memory retrieval involve different parts of the brain.
Bibliography
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