ABSTRACT

Tulving’s (1972) distinction between episodic and semantic memory has been highly influential in shaping research on long-term memory over the last 30 years. However, the basis of this distinction remains controversial, particularly in the light of Tulving’s more recent attempts to characterize it in terms of the phenomenology (i.e., subjective experience) associated with each type of memory (Tulving, 1985). Thus, although both episodic and semantic memory are described as species of conscious memory (as opposed to unconscious or implicit memory), episodic remembering involves a distinctive kind of subjective experience whose “phenomenal quality is not mistaken for any other kind of conscious awareness” (Tulving & Markowitsch, 1998, p. 202). This subjective experience is described as that of “re-experiencing something that has happened before in one’s life” (Wheeler et al., 1997, p. 349).