Examining the Influence of Semantic Knowledge on Episodic Memory

Memory is a critical capacity for everyday life. Memory is not one process but consists of different systems (Robertson & Khler, 2007). Semantic memory is memory for general knowledge about the world and episodic memory is memory for a specific event from a particular time and place in the past (Tulving, 1972, 1983). Tulving (1972) referred to these systems as two separated but partially related memory systems. However, relatively little is known about how these two systems relate. Specifically, the influence of semantic memory on episodic memory is not fully understood. This study investigated the influence of semantic memory on memory for events (actions) and their spatial locations. The final sample for this study included 73 participants. Participants were divided into two groups that varied in the delay they experienced between the encoding phase and retrieval phase (immediate group, n=37; delay group, n=36). During the encoding phase, participants were presented with images of cartoon characters completing an action along with an image of a background scene (i.e., locations) that either matched the action (congruent trial), did not match the action (incongruent trial) or an action that could be performed in any location (neutral trial). During the retrieval phase, participants were presented with actions and asked whether the action was old or new (old/new recognition memory) and, if old, asked to choose the background image that went with that action (spatial location) among a group of distractors. Across delay, participants more accurately identified the locations for the congruent actions compared to the locations for the incongruent actions. Across conditions, participants in the immediate group more accurately identified the actions and spatial locations compared to the delay group. Further, different patterns for the types of errors participants made were observed. This study adds to our knowledge about the influence of semantic memory on episodic memory. Future studies can expand the research to different settings (e.g., naturalistic environments) and with more variable samples (e.g., different age groups).