Spontaneous or Intentional? Involuntary Versus Voluntary Episodic Memories in Older and Younger Adults

Involuntary episodic memories are memories of past events that come to mind with no preceding attempt of retrieval. Such memories have received little attention in relation to aging compared with voluntary episodic memories (i.e., intentionally retrieved memories of past events). It is well documented that older compared with younger adults have reduced access to episodic memories, when retrieval is voluntary, but little is known about their involuntary episodic recall. Recent evidence suggests that involuntary autobiographical memories are at least as frequent as voluntary autobiographical memories in daily life, but this research has been limited to younger adults. Here older and younger adults recorded involuntary and voluntary episodic memories in relation to a film of a simulated event (Study 1) and during a normal day in their lives (Study 2). Across both studies, no age differences were found regarding the frequency of involuntary episodic memories, whereas older adults showed slower (Study 1) and less frequent (Study 2) voluntary remembering compared with younger adults. The findings suggest that involuntary relative to voluntary episodic remembering is enhanced in older adults, consistent with reduced executive functioning and increased processing of task irrelevant information with aging. Involuntary episodic remembering may provide an adaptive compensation for reductions in strategic retrieval in later adulthood.