Richard Addante, who has spent more than a decade researching episodic memory–the cognitive process that involves processing and retrieving long-term memory–has identified a new kind of human memory process.
According to Addante, associate professor of psychology at Florida Institute of Technology, the current framework in the psychology field for this process divides episodic memory into two different branches: recollection, which is our ability to recall a memory in its entirety; and familiarity, which is the partial recollection of a memory–remembering specific details, but not remembering broader, contextual elements.
In his recently published research, Addante is challenging this framework with his evidence of a third, distinct episodic memory process which he calls “context familiarity.” This process accounts for instances where we can retrieve just the contextual elements of a memory, while forgetting the specific details, a process which is not well-accounted for in the existing framework.
The Florida Tech professor is proposing a new model for episodic memory that divides it into three branches: recollection (remembering all of a memory); item familiarity (remembering details/forgetting context); and context familiarity (remembering context/forgetting details).
The implications of this research not only change how human memory is learned and studied, but Addante says it may also improve how memory deficits are diagnosed clinically, such as patients with types of amnesia, dementia, and traumatic brain injury. Addante says he believes a more accurate model for memory will lead to better diagnostic tools and more accurate diagnoses.
