Role of Selective Attention and Action on Episodic Memory

In 1972, Endel Tulving coined the term ‘episodic memory,’ with reference to the
process used to link the many different types of information constituting an event into a spatio-temporal context, which can be retrieved later. In the present talk, I investigate what type of information is encoded in episodic memory while performing selective attention and action tasks. Results across several experimental conditions strongly indicate that memory superiority under passive mode could be related to the incidental encoding of irrelevant information. This effect is mostly found when memory is immediately tested (short delay) and disappears some time later following a retroactive interference task. Distractors competing for an action receive a stronger suppression than those who are not, the results are in agreement with negative priming endogenous studies to prevent them to be become the target of the action. The results highlight the role of the action on episodic encoding demonstrating that using an active state of encoding does not increase the amount of information to encode, but reduces the incident of non-relevant information stored in this trace.