To examine the relationship between visual imagery and autobiographical memory, eye position and pupil size were recorded while participants first searched for memories and then reconstructed the retrieved memories (Experiment 1), or only searched for memories (Experiment 2). In Experiment 1, we observed that, although recollective experience was not associated with the number of fixations per minute, memories that took longer to retrieve were linked to increased pupil size. In Experiment 2, we observed that directly retrieved memories were recalled more quickly and were accompanied by smaller pupils than generatively retrieved memories. After correcting for response time, retrieval mode also produced an effect, showing that decreased pupil size is not simply due to directly retrieved memories being recalled more quickly. These findings provide compelling evidence that objective measures, such as pupil size, can be used alongside subjective measures, such as self-reports, to distinguish between directly retrieved and generatively retrieved memories.

Item Type:	Refereed Article
Keywords:	autobiographical memory, fixations, saccades, blinks, pupil size, emotional intensity, recollective experience, retrieval mode, direct retrieval, generative retrieval
Research Division:	Psychology
Research Group:	Cognitive and computational psychology
Research Field:	Memory and attention
Objective Division:	Expanding Knowledge
Objective Group:	Expanding knowledge
Objective Field:	Expanding knowledge in psychology
UTAS Author:	Satel, J (Dr Jason Satel)
ID Code:	142942
Year Published:	2021
Web of Science® Times Cited:	5
Deposited By:	Psychology
Deposited On:	2021-02-17
Last Modified:	2021-05-31
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