Abstract
People remember events as a series of interconnected actions organized in time. The ability to perceive, represent and remember events is essential to understanding the world, adapting to changing circumstances and surviving. Extensive research has been conducted to understand memory representations of simple, static ‘events’ that often lack real-world contextual meaning. Although this work lays the foundation of current theories of cognition, it is disconnected from how memory functions in the real world. In this Review, we discuss how events are perceived from a continuous stream of experience, and how perceived events organize memory for real-world experiences. Further, we discuss how cognitive ageing, mental health conditions and neurodegenerative diseases impact event memory. We provide a cohesive overview of event memory for naturalistic stimuli and suggest future directions for the field.
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This work was supported by research grants from the National Institutes of Health under grant numbers T32AG000030 and R01AG075012.
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Bailey, H., Smith, M.E. Event perception and event memory in real-world experience. Nat Rev Psychol 3, 754–766 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44159-024-00367-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s44159-024-00367-0
