COMMENTARY

Two types of event memory

Henry L. Roediger III1 and Kathleen B. McDermott
time and location). Tulving noted that epi-
Department of Psychology, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO 63130
sodic memories are autobiographical in na-
ture: “Most, if not all, episodic memory
Psychologists and neuroscientists have long tinction between semantic memory (general claims a person makes can be translated into
debated the nature of memory: How many knowledge) and episodic memory (personal the form ‘I did such and such, in such and
types are there? Tulving (1, 2) proposed a dis- experiences that carry information about such a place, and in such and such a time’”
(1, p 389). He also provided examples of ep-
isodic memory (1, pp 386–387) to indicate
that he had in mind both events from the
laboratory (remembering words in a list en-
countered in a laboratory setting) and those
from life (remembering meeting a sea captain
who knew many jokes) as indicative of epi-
sodic memory. No distinction was made be-
tween retrieval of the two types of events. The
interesting results of Patihis et al. (3) and
previous papers on people with highly supe-
rior autobiographical memory (HSAM) (4, 5)
call into question part of Tulving’s (1, 2)
claims. Memory for laboratory events may
be fundamentally different from memory
for events of one’s life. A person can excel
at one type of retrieval but not the other.
Specifically, Patihis et al. (3) show that peo-
ple with HSAM, who demonstrate remark-
able capabilities of accurate remembering of
events from their past (e.g., what they had for
lunch on a particular date many years ago),
are average in remembering laboratory events.
People with HSAM tend to recall or recognize
about the same number of laboratory events
(e.g., words in a list) as age- and education-
matched controls (4). This study (3) builds on
that work and demonstrates that in several
paradigms widely used to study illusory mem-
ories (6, 7), people with HSAM are just as
susceptible to false memories as are control
subjects. At some level, this result is not sur-
prising. That is, the processes that give rise to
false memories include semantic elaboration
and associations at encoding, accompanied
by reconstruction during retrieval. These same
processes give rise to accurate and false mem-
ories (8), so if HSAM subjects show normal
performance in accurate memory in labora-
tory tasks (4), it is not too surprising that their
false memory results are also normal.
Perhaps the bigger puzzle, one noted by
Patihis et al., is that these findings raise a

Author contributions: H.L.R. and K.B.M. wrote the paper.

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Fig. 1. The regions underlying memory retrieval critically depend on whether a laboratory-based recognition See companion article on page 20947.
memory task is used (regions shown in blue) or whether an autobiographical memory task is used (regions in orange). 1
To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: roediger@
Left lateral (Upper) and medial (Lower) views. Adapted from McDermott et al. (14). wustl.edu.

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 COMMENTARY
fundamental question as to “why HSAM brain networks contribute to the two tasks. has been to study various deficiencies in mem-
individuals remember some trivial details, Using only one or the other approach for ory (e.g., types of amnesia, or the deleterious
such as what they had for lunch 10 y ago, understanding memory retrieval would offer effects of certain drugs or psychiatric con-
but not others, such as words on a list or an incomplete picture. ditions on remembering). The Patihis et al.
photographs in a slide show” (3, p 5). The That people with HSAM excel at autobio- study and others (15) suggest that another
solution they pose—that HSAM individuals graphical remembering but not at laboratory profitable avenue may be to examine groups
weave “lunch events” but not “lab events” remembering suggests the differences seen in of people with remarkably superior forms of
into their daily narrative and remember this this meta-analysis are tapping two funda- memory, such as mnemonists who excel in
narrative—may be right, but one problem is mentally different types of memory retrieval memory competitions (using tests like labo-
that narrative forms are driven by schemas, that might both be considered episodic in ratory-based memory tasks) and in general
and schematic processing often leads to (rather knowledge (people who excel at games like
than prevents) false memories (9, 10). Why People with HSAM excel Jeopardy, Quiz Bowl, and Trivial Pursuit). Do
are lunch events considered worth remem- at autobiographical any of these groups excel in other tasks or are
bering and woven into a narrative, whereas
laboratory events are not? We offer a different remembering but their abilities limited like people with HSAM?
Examining individuals with pockets of highly
path to understanding this puzzle. not at laboratory superior memory in certain tasks (but normal
Research on memory for artificial events in remembering. performance in other memory tasks) may
the laboratory and for events from life has
provide converging evidence for theories clas-
historically taken separate courses. A typical that they are about episodes (or events) in
sifying memory into various types. This en-
task for the latter, first tried by Galton (11) one’s life. That is, a dissociation exists such
that people can excel at one (in this case, terprise is just beginning.
but later developed by Crovitz and Schiffman
autobiographical memory of life events) but In sum, we suggest that brain networks
(12), provides subjects with a cue (chair,
not the other (learning of minievents within and cognitive processes underlying standard
strawberry, or puppy, as examples), and the
the laboratory). Other individuals (mne- laboratory memory tasks differ fundamen-
task is to retrieve an event from one’s life
using the cue (“I remember the morning monists or memory athletes) demonstrate tally from those used in remembering events
my family adopted a Welsh Terrier named excellent performance in laboratory-like tasks from one’s life. This claim arose from a meta-
Toby”). A large literature has built up around (encode and retrieve large numbers of digits, analysis of functional neuroimaging studies
the use of this task (and a few others), as well names and faces, random words), but no of healthy young adults, but the Patihis
as around laboratory-based episodic memory evidence exists that they have abilities like et al. data (3) are fully consistent with it.
tasks such as those used by Patihis et al. (see HSAM individuals (15, 16). We note that we The Patihis et al. paper extends this under-
ref. 13 for a review). The standard assump- are using the terms autobiographical and standing by showing that HSAM people excel
tion made by researchers using the Galton/ laboratory to refer to the two types of task, at one type of memory but show average
Crovitz task is the same as that made by but the key dimensions that differentiate the performance on the other type of memory
Tulving (1, 3), viz., that retrieval of the two two and the most precise classification of and show normal levels of errors relative to
types of events (those encoded in the labora- these types of memory awaits further work. subjects without HSAM. We believe the
tory and those experienced in everyday life) is One tactic neuroscientists and psycholo- implications of this observation are far-
similar and that the neural processes under- gists have used in debating types of memory reaching.
lying these tasks are the same (or at least
highly similar). Laboratory-based tasks are
considered convenient proxies for under- 1 Tulving E (1972) Episodic and semantic memory. Organization of 9 Sulin RA, Dooling DJ (1974) Intrusion of a thematic idea in
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et al. identified regions that tend to activate autobiographical memory individuals. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA as a function of their age. Bull Psychon Soc 4(5B):517–518.
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used (Fig. 1, blue). Using the same methodol- 5 Parker ES, Cahill L, McGaugh JL (2006) A case of unusual based and autobiographical retrieval tasks differ substantially
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