The dynamics of memory retrieval for internal mentation

Arnaud D’Argembeau,David Stawarczyk

doi:10.1038/s41598-019-50439-y

Abstract

Daily life situations often require people to remember internal mentation, such as their future plans or interpretations of events. Little is known, however, about the principles that govern memory for thoughts experienced during real-world events. In particular, it remains unknown whether factors that structure the retrieval of external stimuli also apply to thought recall, and whether some thought features affect their accessibility in memory. To examine these questions, we asked participants to undertake a walk on a university campus while wearing a lifelogging camera. They then received unexpected recall tasks about the thoughts they experienced during the walk, rated the phenomenological features of retrieved thoughts, and indicated the moment when they were experienced. Results showed that thought retrieval demonstrates primacy, recency, and temporal contiguity effects, and is also influenced by event boundaries. In addition, thoughts that involved planning and that were recurrent during the walk were more accessible in memory. Together, these results shed new light on the principles that govern memory for internal mentation and suggest that at least partially similar processes structure the retrieval of thoughts and stimuli from the external environment.

Highlights

Life situations often require people to remember internal mentation, such as their future plans or interpretations of events
You need to remember the reflections you had while reading the book. These daily life situations illustrate that long-term memory is used to retain information about the external world and internal mentation
While memory for internal mentation plays a key role in guiding decisions and actions, surprisingly little is known about the principles that govern memory for thoughts experienced during real-world events

Summary

Introduction

Life situations often require people to remember internal mentation, such as their future plans or interpretations of events. It remains unknown whether factors that structure the retrieval of external stimuli apply to thought recall, and whether some thought features affect their accessibility in memory To examine these questions, we asked participants to undertake a walk on a university campus while wearing a lifelogging camera. Thoughts that involved planning and that were recurrent during the walk were more accessible in memory Together, these results shed new light on the principles that govern memory for internal mentation and suggest that at least partially similar processes structure the retrieval of thoughts and stimuli from the external environment. Www.nature.com/scientificreports participants to remember a real event (a social occasion, a trip to the library, or a visit to the dentist) and an imagined event (a dream, a fantasy, or an unfulfilled intention), and to rate their memories on a wide range of characteristics (e.g., visual details, spatial and temporal information, emotional intensity). Similar differences in the perceptual and contextual details of memories were observed when participants perceived or imagined a series of events in laboratory conditions (e.g., having a cup of coffee with some cookies), and the perceptual characteristics of memories decreased more over time for imagined than perceived events[7]

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