Autobiographical memory triggered by onomatopoeia

Abstract

We investigated whether the characteristics of autobiographical memory recalled by Japanese onomatopoeia are different from those recalled by non-onomatopoetic Japanese words with similar meanings. One hundred twenty participants were instructed to recall an autobiographical memory corresponding to the meaning of word cues, as well as answer a questionnaire containing 11 items associated with the recalled autobiographical memory. The word cues were eight onomatopoetic or non-onomatopoetic words of similar meanings. The results showed that the onomatopoeia-induced autobiographical memories were more recent compared to the non-onomatopoeia-induced memories. This suggests that the image information inherent in onomatopoeia helps people in recalling more recent autobiographical memories.