Studying the phenomenological features and memory of spontaneous thought

A hallmark of the human mind is its tendency to generate spontaneous thoughts, whether during task performance or in idle moments. In many situations, the plans, ideas, and interpretations of events that compose these spontaneous thoughts must be stored in memory to be recalled later. Yet the principles underlying memory for spontaneous thoughts remain largely unexplored. In particular, it is unclear whether the mechanisms that organize the retrieval of external stimuli also govern the recall of spontaneous thoughts, whether intrinsic features of thoughts modulate their accessibility in memory, and whether the recall of perceived stimuli and internally generated thoughts recruits similar brain regions. In this talk, I will present the results of preliminary studies examining memory for spontaneous thoughts generated using the think-aloud protocol and in naturalistic contexts. Our results show that spontaneous thought retrieval exhibits primacy and recency effects, and that several thought features predict their accessibility in memory. Although the neural correlates of memory for thoughts and perceived events partially overlap, they also appear to recruit distinct brain regions. Together, these findings provide new insights into the mechanisms underlying memory for internal mentation and suggest that the retrieval of internally generated thoughts and externally presented stimuli is supported by partially overlapping processes.