Retrieval of everyday experiences is fundamental for informing our future decisions. The fine-grained neurophysiological mechanisms that support such memory retrieval are largely unknown. We studied participants who first experienced, without repetition, unique multicomponent 40–80-s episodes. One day later, they engaged in cued retrieval of these episodes while undergoing magnetoencephalography. By decoding individual episode elements, we found that trial-by-trial successful retrieval was supported by the sequential replay of episode elements, with a temporal compression factor of >60. The direction of replay supporting retrieval, either backward or forward, depended on whether the task goal was to retrieve elements of an episode that followed or preceded, respectively, a retrieval cue. This sequential replay was weaker in very-high-performing participants, in whom instead we found evidence for simultaneous clustered reactivation. Our results demonstrate that memory-mediated decisions are supported by a rapid replay mechanism that can flexibly shift in direction in response to task goals.

检索日常经验对于我们未来的决策至关重要。支持这种记忆检索的细粒度神经生理学机制在很大程度上是未知的。我们研究了首次经历过 40-80 秒独特的多成分发作且没有重复的参与者。一天后，他们在接受脑磁图检查时对这些事件进行提示检索。通过解码各个情节元素，我们发现情节元素的顺序重放支持逐次试验的成功检索，时间压缩因子> 60。支持检索的重播方向（向后或向前）取决于任务目标是分别检索检索提示之后还是之前的情节元素。这种顺序重播在表现非常出色的参与者中较弱，相反，我们在他们身上发现了同时集群重新激活的证据。我们的结果表明，记忆介导的决策受到快速重播机制的支持，该机制可以根据任务目标灵活地改变方向。