Using the phenomenology of memory for recent events to bridge the gap between episodic and semantic memory

Abstract

Public events such as celebrity news, tragedies, and political events are widely experienced. Initially at least, memories of these events are “episodic” in nature; however, these events are also stored in associative networks similar to the semantic organization of knowledge (N. R. Brown, 1990, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 119[3], 297–314). Thus, these memories provide a novel way of examining how episodically experienced events might become semanticized and integrated into the knowledge base. Younger and older adults rated their subjective memory strength for and answered questions about details of events occurring over the previous 12 years. Participants also rated their phenomenological experience using a modified remember/know paradigm, in which no instructions about usage of the terms were provided. Interestingly, remembered and known items were equal in terms of subjective strength. Know responses were highly accurate, and more so than remember responses. Older and younger adults performed similarly. Participants’ own definitions of remember, know, and just familiar revealed that knowing is associated with retrieval from semantic memory, whereas remembering and just familiarity are more associated with event/episodic memory. These results suggest that memory for public events shares phenomenological features with both episodic/event memory and semantic memory. Public events thus allow researchers to examine the complex ways in which storage of novel information can be jointly maintained in both episodic and semantic memory.