ABSTRACT
A central function of episodic memory is to form and utilize associations between items experienced at nearby times. In addition to these newly formed episodic associations, subjects enter the laboratory with a great deal of knowledge about verbal stimuli. Studying the relation between episodic and preexisting, or semantic, associations can help shed light on the processes that lead to episodic retrieval. One prominent view is that episodic memory and semantic memory are separate memory systems (Tulving, 1983, 2002), and that semantic and episodic cues compete during memory retrieval. This competition would predict a reciprocal relation between the efficacy of episodic and semantic cues in predicting episodic retrieval.
