Altering access to autobiographical episodes with prior semantic knowledge

Sheldon, Signy, Peters, Sarah and Renoult, Louis (2020) Altering access to autobiographical episodes with prior semantic knowledge. Consciousness and Cognition, 86. ISSN 1053-8100

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Abstract

Within autobiographical knowledge, semantic and episodic memory are traditionally considered separate, but newer models place them along a continuum, which raises the possibility of an intermediate form of knowledge - personal semantics. This study tested how different types of semantics – general semantics and two forms of personal semantics – impact access to personal episodic memories. In two experiments, participants made a series of true/false judgments about a prime statement, which reflected a general semantic fact, a context-dependent (e.g., repeated event) or context-independent (e.g., trait), personal semantic fact and then retrieved a specific past episodic memory. There was a significantly stronger priming effect for accessing specific episodic memories after judging personal semantic facts versus general facts. We also found that context-dependent and -independent personal semantic facts had separable priming effects on episodic memory. These findings support a continuum model of memory and verifies that there are multiple forms of personal knowledge.

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: autobiographical memory,episodic memory,personal semantics,priming,semantic memory,experimental and cognitive psychology,developmental and educational psychology ,/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/3200/3205
Faculty \ School: Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Psychology
UEA Research Groups: Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Cognition, Action and Perception
Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Research Groups > UEA Experimental Philosophy Group
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Depositing User: LivePure Connector
Date Deposited: 25 Nov 2020 00:50
Last Modified: 06 Feb 2025 09:31
URI: https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/77789
DOI: 10.1016/j.concog.2020.103039

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