Abstract
Each of us has a rich set of autobiographical memories that provides us with a coherent story of our lives. These memories are known to be highly structured both thematically and temporally. However, it is not known how we naturally tend to explore the mental timeline of our memories. Here we developed a novel cued retrieval paradigm in order to investigate the temporal element of memory search. We found that, when asked to search for memories in the days immediately surrounding a salient cued event, participants displayed a marked set of temporal biases in their search patterns. Specifically, participants first tended to jump back in time and retrieve memories from the day prior to the cued event. Following this they then transitioned forward in time, and retrieved memories from the day after the cued event. This pattern of results replicated in a second experiment with a much larger group of participants, and a different method of cueing the memories. We argue that this set of temporal biases is consistent with memory search conforming to a temporally ordered narrative structure.
Highlights
Humans may be unique in their ability to vividly and richly re-experience the important events from their past, an ability which has been referred to as “mental time travel” (Tulving, 2002)
Subjects showed a bias toward initially recalling an event in the day before the Cued Event and subsequently, if they recalled a second event, they showed a bias to recalling an event occurring the day after the Cued Event
In summary, we find that when people search their memory for events on the days around a cued event they show a bias in the direction of memory search, exploring backward in time to the day Methods Participants We were able to collect data from 60 male and 60 female participants
Summary
Humans may be unique in their ability to vividly and richly re-experience the important events from their past, an ability which has been referred to as “mental time travel” (Tulving, 2002). In order to allow travel through our own mental past, our autobiographical memories must have some kind of temporal structure or organizing principle, and several studies have demonstrated that we have access to such temporal information when retrieving memories (Burt et al, 2000, 2008; Janssen et al, 2006; Schulkind et al, 2012). Most studies investigating memory exploration in autobiographical memory tend to find that people “move” from one memory to another based on shared thematic content rather than temporal proximity (Brown and Schopflocher, 1998; Burt et al, 2003; Lam and Buehler, 2009; Mace et al, 2013). Given the clear temporal structure found among autobiographical memories, it should be possible to explore memories using that temporal information, rather than content-based information, effectively moving along our mental timeline. We aimed to investigate the nature of explicitly temporal exploration amongst autobiographical memories, with particular reference to the direction of exploration
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
