Episodic memory

Episodic memory is the memory of everyday events (such as times, location geography, associated emotions, and other contextual information) that can be explicitly stated or conjured. It is the collection of past personal experiences that occurred at particular times and places; for example, the party on one's 7th birthday.^[1] Along with semantic memory, it comprises the category of explicit memory, one of the two major divisions of long-term memory (the other being implicit memory).^[2]

The term "episodic memory" was coined by Endel Tulving in 1972, referring to the distinction between knowing and remembering: knowing is factual recollection (semantic) whereas remembering is a feeling that is located in the past (episodic).^[3]

One of the main components of episodic memory is the process of recollection, which elicits the retrieval of contextual information pertaining to a specific event or experience that has occurred. Tulving seminally defined three key properties of episodic memory recollection as:

• A subjective sense of time (or mental time travel)
• Connection to the self
• Autonoetic consciousness, a special kind of consciousness that accompanies the act of remembering, which enables an individual to be aware of the self in a subjective time

Aside from Tulving, others named additional aspects of recollection, including visual imagery, narrative structure, retrieval of semantic information and feelings of familiarity.^[4]

Events that are recorded into episodic memory may trigger episodic learning, i.e. a change in behavior that occurs as a result of an event,^[5][6] such as a fear of dogs after being bitten by a dog.