Evidence that an episodic mode of thinking facilitates encoding of perceptually rich memories for naturalistic events relative to a gist-based mode of thinking

ABSTRACT

Several studies have demonstrated that an episodic specificity induction (ESI) can influence cognitive abilities that involve episodic processes at retrieval. To better understand the downstream implications of an “episodic mode of thinking,” we investigate whether an ESI influences encoding of new events. In a between-subjects design, participants were given an ESI or gist (control) induction. In an ostensibly unrelated task, participants then were shown film clips of naturalistic events. After a filled delay, participants were given a surprise memory test, which required narrative recollection of the film clips. Participants who received the ESI generated narratives that contained more perceptual details specifically. Relative to gist thinking, an episodic mode of thinking appears to facilitate encoding of perceptually rich memories for naturalistic events.

KEYWORDS:

• Episodic specificity induction
• episodic memory
• event memory
• autobiographical interview
• autobiographical memory

Acknowledgements

MDG is supported by the Arizona Alzheimer’s Consortium. We thank M. St-Laurent and collaborators for sharing the film clips used in the present study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Including only semantic details in the free and cued recall results did not alter the outcomes.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Arizona Alzheimer’s Consortium.