In everyday life, however, there are many cases in which memories come to us, so to speak, without any intentional effort on our part. Such memories are generally referred to as involuntary (or “mind-blowing,” “thoughts that come naturally,” “involuntary memories,” etc.) memories. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay This essay is prepared with the aim of explaining in detail the difference between involuntary memory and voluntary memory. I will begin our article by providing precise definitions of our key concepts from which I will continue into the main body of the discussion. Finally, I will draw a comprehensive conclusion. Involuntary memory, also known as involuntary explicit memory, involuntary conscious memory, involuntary conscious memory, and, more commonly, involuntary memory, is a subcomponent of memory that occurs when signals encountered in daily life evoke memories of the past. passed without conscious effort. Voluntary memory, its binary opposite, is characterized by a deliberate effort to remember the past (Tulving, E., & Donaldson, W. (1972). We can further define the two key terms by stating that, involuntary memories are explicit memories of personal events that come to mind without any prior retrieval attempt (Berntsen, 2009). Their counterpart is voluntary memories, that is, personal memories that follow a strategic and controlled retrieval process. Memory studies have focused on these ultimate ability to remember our personal past and imagine our potential future. Sometimes this happens as a result of a deliberate and consciously initiated process. However, just as frequently, memories of past events and images of possible future events emerge involuntarily, i.e without prior attempt to produce them (Berntsen, 1996). Most “formal” situations in which memory is involved involve voluntary and controlled retrieval. The best examples are achievement tests, in which students have to probe their memories for a required piece of information. Indeed, most laboratory studies of memory, such as those involving free recall tasks, paired tasks, and general information questions, attempt to exploit voluntary retrieval. In terms of the path metaphor, voluntary memories involve building a path to our memories. Even in everyday life, controlled recall is common, but it can also be private, as when one thinks back to previous experiences without intending to provide an account of the memory. An example is when you walk alone or reflect on your past before going to sleep. Each memory is presumably colored by previous memories and influences subsequent memories. Important episodes are certainly remembered several times. Frequently remembered episodes are summarized. Schematization presumably involves a dilution of the distinction between experienced and inferred information (Neisser, 1967). As will be discussed later, voluntary retrieval involves a variety of metacognitive processes that monitor and control the course of memory, evaluating the truth value of the retrieved information. , regulating memory, filling gaps and engaging in reconstructive processes. Voluntary recovery generally serves a certain function. Obviously, in achievement tests the person's goal is to provide the correct answer. The same goes for many game shows. The personal and private search for one's memory is often also driven by the desire to ascertain what "really" happened(Kvavilashvili, L. and Mandler, G. (2004). Involuntary memories, compared to voluntary memories, more frequently concern specific episodes and tend to have a greater impact on mood at the time of retrieval (e.G., Berntsen and Hall, 2004 Furthermore, they are often considered less central to life history and identity (Berntsen, 2009). Most likely, these differences are caused by the fact that the retrieval of involuntary memories generally requires a distinct cue-item correspondence , Staugaard and Sørensen, 2012) which may favor specific episodes over more abstract knowledge of events, as well as the fact that rapid and uncontrollable retrieval of involuntary memories leaves little room for regulation of antecedent emotions. In summary, involuntary memories are common in daily life, their activation is facilitated by situational cues and typically occur in situations with diffuse attention. They share many characteristics with voluntary memories, such as the predominance of emotionally positive events, but are the result of a more associative form of retrieval. and context sensitive which requires less effort. Involuntary memories are at least as frequent in everyday life as voluntary memories that are deliberately Berntsen, Staugaard, & Sørensen, 2012. Involuntary memories and future thoughts can be seen as related to notions of mind wandering (eG, Smallwood, & Schooler, 2006 ), daydreams, and task-unrelated images and thoughts, all of which refer to thought processes that arise in the absence of specific situational demands. The notions of daydreaming, mind wandering, and task-unrelated thoughts are conceptually and empirically very similar in that they are all broadly defined as the mental contents that occur when attention shifts from a primary task and the person instead engages in private, internal thought processes. (Goldstein and Fortgang, 1970). However, these notions differ from the concepts of involuntary memories and involuntary future thoughts in several important ways. First, the mental contents of daydreaming or mind-wandering need not be episodic or. In contrast, involuntary memories and involuntary future thoughts by definition involve a mental experience of a personal event. Second, daydreaming and mind wandering can be volitional as the person may intentionally choose to disengage from an external task to pursue an internal stream of thought (McMillan et al., 2013). Cognitive theorists have considered involuntary memories rare. For example, a scientist who wants to study them “can only sit and wait, hoping for the unlikely” (Miller, 1962). Tulving (1983) argued that successful recall from the episodic memory system depends on being in a retrieval mode. Only rarely would stimuli in the environment trigger conscious episodic memories through purely associative mechanisms outside of the retrieval mode. “Accessing or actualizing information in the episodic system tends to be deliberate and usually requires conscious effort” (p. 46). “Few things we perceive make us think of earlier events in our lives…many stimuli that could potentially serve as reminders or signals, even if displayed visibly to the person, will have no such effect” (p. 169). Although Mandler (1989) recognized that "much of everyday memory experiences are actually unintentional" (pp. 102-103), he also noted that episodic knowledge is generally "deliberate and consciously accessed, context-dependent and remembered'" while semantic knowledge “is oftenautomatically available, free from context and 'known'” (p. 94). In contrast to this view, it has been argued that involuntary and voluntary memories reflect the operations of the same underlying episodic memory system (Rubin, Boals, & Berntsen, 2008). In this view, the two types of memories differ only with regard to the mechanisms that recall them at a particular moment, while their encoding and long-term maintenance are expected to be supported by the same mechanisms. For example, emotion at the time of encoding is expected to increase the likelihood of subsequent recall, regardless of whether retrieval is involuntary or voluntary. The distinction between voluntary and involuntary memories is not clear-cut. Memory processes typically involve a combination of the two retrieval modes. Even during a controlled inspection of our memory, initiated in response to a question from an acquaintance (“What did you do when you were in Norway?” “What did you do on the last evening before you returned home?”), some aspects of memorized episodes may suggest themselves more readily than others, and new memory associations are opened. Therefore, the controlled journey through one's memories can be diverted by involuntary memories, despite our attempt to stay on the same memory path. Of course, controlled search can also be guided by general knowledge of the event (for example, that it got dark early; that we were with our friends) and also by abstract semantic knowledge (we know that it is the end of the year at midnight, we know that snow is frequent in the Scandinavian winter, etc.). Controlled and voluntary memoirs typically undergo an editing process to ensure they meet certain criteria such as accuracy. The editing process becomes more stringent when a public relationship is involved. Involuntary memories, in contrast, spring to mind as raw “unedited” data. Of course, changes are likely to occur as we tell them (Jones, GV 1989). The distinction between voluntary and involuntary memory was made, in fact, by Ebbinghaus (1885). He distinguished between memories that manifest themselves “with apparent spontaneity and without any act of will” and memories that are recalled “to consciousness through an effort of will.” Thus, involuntary memories are those that emerge spontaneously, sometimes unexpectedly, without any intention to evoke them. Voluntary memories, in contrast, emerge in response to controlled, goal-directed search, typically stimulated by some requirement and driven by the need to meet some general criteria (Goldsmith, M., & Koriat, A. 1999). Involuntary memories are typically associated with some phenomenological properties: a richer preservation of the original emotional and sensory characteristics, a strong perception of the vividness of the event, and a feeling of “reliving” the event. Memory sometimes has a perceptual quality (Goldsmith, M. and Koriat, A. 1999). We relive an event or episode rather than recovering its verbal content or essence. Therefore, spontaneous retrieval may produce memories more closely matching the original experience. This is different from voluntary memories, which tend to be more selective and more focused. Another distinguishing feature concerns the retention interval: Berntsen found that involuntary memories tend to be more recent than voluntary memories. Most of the reported involuntary memories were of events that occurred in the previous year (and at most in the last 3 years), whereas the majority of voluntary memories were of events that happened in the last 4 years (Burke, MacKay Worthley, Jand Wade, E . 1991). Involuntary memories, 17, 161-175.