Episodic Memory

Episodic memory circumscribes the ability to remember events, occurrences, and situations embedded in their temporal and spatial context —in other words, the memory of “what,” “where,” and “when” (Tulving 2002 ). It is the unique ability of humans to travel back in time and re-experience past events. To achieve this, elements belonging to the same event need to be associated with each other while being separated from other elements belonging to other events (Tulving 2002 ). Throughout the lifespan , episodic memory functioning continuously undergoes extensive change, with rapid increases during childhood, decreases in adulthood, and accelerated decline in very old age (Shing et al. 2010 ). Given the important role that episodic memory plays in our daily lives, the prospect of potential trainability of episodic memory is a highly attractive idea. This applies to younger adults hoping to optimize their episodic memory ability, but probably even more to older adults, who generally experience a profound decline in episodic memory functioning that can seriously affect their well-being and quality of life. Therefore, it makes sense to incorporate studies of older adults into our consideration of episodic memory and training. In the following, we fi rst provide a brief account of the defi nition and processes that are involved in episodic memory. We then discuss two theoretical frameworks , one concerning the components of episodic memory across the lifespan