Memory & Cognition - Special Issue: Rethinking the Distinction between Episodic and Semantic Memory

Guest Edited by: Felipe De Brigard, Sharda Umanath & Muireann Irish

Traditionally, episodic and semantic memory have been considered as two independent cognitive systems. Tulving suggested that episodic and semantic memories are governed by a set of distinct principles including mode of references (autobiographical vs. cognitive) and retrieval characteristics (remembering vs. knowing). The functional distinction between episodic and semantic memory gained wide acceptance and has influenced a variety of fields of research. Tulving’s powerful framework guided understanding of age-related decline in memory, memory distortion, categorization, event segmentation, and even language processing. However, in the past two decades, numerous findings have put in doubt the clear-cut nature of this distinction. In fact, a number of recent developments in the science of memory, both empirical and theoretical, strongly suggest that, contrary to the traditional view, episodic and semantic memory may not be as distinct as once thought.

Presented here are articles that explore these ideas:

Rethinking the distinction between episodic and semantic memory – insights from the past, present, and future

Felipe De Brigard

A conceptual space for episodic and semantic memory

David Rubin

The Visual and Semantic Features that Predict Object Memory: Concept Property Norms for 1000 Object Images

Mariam Hovhannisyan

Narratives bridge the divide between distant events in episodic memory

Brendan Cohn-Sheehy

Using the phenomenology of memory for recent events to bridge the gap between episodic and semantic memory

Jennifer Coane

Effects of category learning strategies on recognition memory