Remembering without awareness.

Abstract

Amnesics reveal savings in their objective performance of a task even though they are not aware of remembering. Experiments that are described reveal a dissociation of memory and awareness for normals as well as amnesics. The episodic-semanitc memory distinction has been em- ployed by others as an account of the dissociation of memory and aware- ness. An account of this sort leads one to expect remembering without awareness to be relatively context free. In contrast, several experiments are reviewed to show that remembering without awareness can be specific to memory for a particular episode. RESUME Mejme s'ils ne prennent pas conscience du fait qu'ils se souvien- nent, les amnesiques demontrent neanmoins une economie dans leur rendement objectif a une tache donnee. Les experiences decrites font etat d'une dissociation entre memoire et conscience autant chez les sujets nor- maux que chez les sujets amnesiques. La distinction entre memoire semantique et episodique a ete utilisee pour rendre compte de cette disso- ciation entre memoire et conscience. Si tel etait le cas, les souvenirs sans conscience devraient etre relativement libres de tout effet contextuel. Au contraire, la revue de plusieurs experiences permet de montrer que le sou- venir sans conscience peut etre specifique a la memoire d'un episode particulier. Webster's New World Dictionary defines the word 'remember' as meaning: 'to bring back to mind by an effort.' In line with this definition, the majority of research on human memory has employed tasks that require remembering to be deliberate. In an experiment in which a person is asked to recall a pre- viously studied list of words, for example, remembering is intentional so that the person is necessarily aware that he is remembering. Although deliberate remembering obviously does occur, many functions of memory may operate without intention or awareness. Memory for a prior event may influence the interpretation and encoding of a later event without a person being aware of remembering the prior event. It is this remembering without awareness that has served as a focus for our research program. In this paper, we explore the relationship between memory and awareness for normal people as well as for amnesics. The amnesic, by definition, is less able to reflect on memory for prior epi- sodes or to recognize items as being familiar. By several reports, however,