Narrative processing primes autobiographical memories: Another instance of semantic-to-autobiographical memory priming.

Abstract

Research has shown that the activation of semantic memories leads to the activation of autobiographical memories. Known as semantic-to-autobiographical memory priming, this form of priming has been demonstrated to prime involuntary and voluntary autobiographical memories with a wide variety of different stimuli (e.g., words, pictures, sentences, sounds, tactile stimuli, etc.). Our goal in the current study was to extend semantic-to-autobiographical memory priming to narrative processing. Participants read a short story that contained multiple prime words, and then they were treated to an involuntary autobiographical memory task (the vigilance task). Instead of the short story, control participants were given a task which required them to make judgments about the alphabetical status of letter strings (e.g., ABC, FGH, XTC), and they were subsequently treated to the vigilance task. The results showed that participants primed with the story produced more involuntary autobiographical memories with primed and unprimed content on the vigilance task than the control participants. The results further support the idea that semantic-to-autobiographical memory primes occurs with a diverse set of stimuli. The results also support the idea that semantic-to-autobiographical memory priming may play a significant role in the production of involuntary autobiographical memories in everyday life.