The relationship between the fluency of associations within semantic memory and involuntary autobiographical memories

Abstract

Involuntary autobiographical memories (IAMs) refer to memories of personal experiences that spontaneously come to mind. This paper examines the relationship between the fluency of associations in a word association task and the frequencies of IAMs. In Study 1, 197 undergraduate participants reported on IAMs elicited during a word association task and rated the associated words according to their retrieval spontaneity. Participants reported more IAMs when the associated word came to mind spontaneously. In Study 2, 26 undergraduate participants reported on IAMs elicited during controlled field interviews conducted while walking across campus with the experimenter. The Study 2 participants also took part in the word association task in the laboratory. The frequencies of IAMs elicited during the field interviews were significantly correlated with the numbers of associated words in the laboratory-based task (r=.53). These results indicate that IAMs are based on associations within the memory network and share underlying mechanisms with word associations.