This study investigated the idea that when one recalls past episodes, that the content of those memories will activate additional episodic memories with like content, and such memories will then have the potential of surfacing in subsequent acts of involuntary and voluntary recall. We tested the episodic content priming hypothesis in two experiments. In Experiment 1, priming group participants first recalled memories about specific activities or events and then they were subsequently engaged in a word-cue voluntary autobiographical memory task. The results showed that priming group participants produced more episodic memories involving the primed content on this task than control participants occupied in the same task. In Experiment 2, episodic content priming was further tested on a measure of involuntary autobiographical memory (i.e., the vigilance task). The results on this task also revealed support for the episodic content priming hypothesis, including after a delay of 24 h.

这项研究调查了一个想法，即当人们回忆过去的情节时，这些记忆的内容会激活具有类似内容的额外情节记忆，然后这些记忆将有可能在随后的非自愿和自愿回忆行为中浮现。我们在两个实验中测试了情节内容启动假设。在实验 1 中，启动组参与者首先回忆有关特定活动或事件的记忆，然后他们随后进行了单词提示自愿自传记忆任务。结果表明，启动组参与者比在同一任务中占据的控制参与者产生了更多涉及启动内容的情景记忆。在实验 2 中，情节内容启动在非自愿自传体记忆的测量上进行了进一步测试（即，警戒任务）。这项任务的结果还表明支持情节内容启动假设，包括延迟 24 小时之后。