Episodic memory is the memory of everyday occasions (akin to occasions, location geography, related emotions, and different contextual info) that may be explicitly stated or conjured. It is the collection of past personal experiences that occurred at specific occasions and places; for instance, the party on one's 7th birthday. Along with semantic memory, it includes the class of express memory, considered one of the 2 main divisions of lengthy-time period memory (the opposite being implicit memory). The time period "episodic memory" was coined by Endel Tulving in 1972, referring to the distinction between understanding and remembering: realizing is factual recollection (semantic) whereas remembering is a feeling that is situated in the past (episodic). Considered one of the principle parts of episodic memory is the process of recollection, which elicits the retrieval of contextual info pertaining to a particular event or experience that has occurred. Other than Tulving, others named further elements of recollection, together with visual imagery, narrative construction, retrieval of semantic data and Memory Wave emotions of familiarity.

There are basically nine properties of episodic memory that collectively distinguish it from other kinds of memory. 1. Contain summary records of sensory-perceptual-conceptual-affective processing. 2. Retain patterns of activation/inhibition over long durations. 3. Usually represented within the form of (visual) images. 4. They at all times have a perspective (subject or observer). 5. Symbolize short time slices of expertise. 6. They're represented on a temporal dimension roughly so as of prevalence. 7. They're subject to speedy forgetting. 8. They make autobiographical remembering specific. 9. They're recollectively skilled when accessed. The formation of new episodic reminiscences requires the medial temporal lobe, a construction that includes the hippocampus. Without the medial temporal lobe, one is ready to type new procedural recollections (comparable to playing the piano) however cannot remember the events throughout which they happened (See the hippocampus and memory). The prefrontal cortex (and particularly the fitting hemisphere) can be involved within the formation of latest episodic recollections (also referred to as episodic encoding).

Patients with damage to the prefrontal cortex can be taught new info, however have a tendency to take action in a disordered fashion. For example, they might show normal recognition of an object they'd seen prior to now, however fail to remember when or the place it had been seen. Some researchers imagine that the prefrontal cortex helps organize info for more efficient storage, drawing upon its role in government operate. Others consider that the prefrontal cortex underlies semantic strategies which improve neural plasticity encoding, equivalent to thinking concerning the that means of the examine material or rehearsing it in working memory. Different work has proven that parts of the inferior parietal lobe play a task in episodic memory, potentially acting as an accumulator to assist the subjective feeling that something is "old", or perhaps supporting mental imagery which permits you a way of the vividness of reminiscences. Researchers don't agree about how long episodic recollections are stored within the hippocampus.

Some researchers consider that episodic reminiscences all the time rely on the hippocampus. Others consider the hippocampus solely stores episodic recollections for Memory Wave a short time, after which the memories are consolidated to the neocortex. The latter view is strengthened by current proof that neurogenesis in the adult hippocampus may ease the removal of old memories and improve the efficiency of forming new recollections. Endel Tulving initially described episodic memory as a record of a person's experience that held temporally dated information and spatio-temporal relations. A characteristic of episodic memory that Tulving later elaborates on is that it permits an agent to imagine touring again in time. A current scenario might cue retrieval of a earlier episode, in order that context that colours the earlier episode is experienced on the fast second. The agent is supplied with a means of associating earlier emotions with present situations. Semantic memory, then again, is a structured file of details, concepts, and expertise that we have now acquired.