Memory retrieval

Access to retained information in response to internal or external cues. Cue reinstatement can alter test performance without changing the original episode, but controls are needed to distinguish retrieval from new learning.

Reactivation during retrieval of neural patterns or cells associated with a previous experience. It can be selective without reproducing every detail of the original sensory response. Correlated reinstatement and successful recall are not automatically a proof of causation.

Memory for the context in which information was acquired, such as the task performed when a word was encountered. Accurate item recognition can coexist with an incorrect source judgment. Source accuracy must be distinguished from confidence and from a stronger recognition signal.

An involuntarily occurring memory or memory-like impression. Frequency, sensory content, distress and sense of present occurrence should be assessed separately; an intrusion is not automatically a literal replay.

An experimental analogue using distressing film material to study later involuntary memories. It permits controlled manipulations and prospective diaries but is not equivalent to clinical trauma exposure or a diagnosis of PTSD.^[ref]

The proposal that sensory impressions preceding the worst moments of a trauma acquire predictive significance and are later reexperienced as warning signals. Descriptive clinical content supports investigation of the account, while causal conditioning and retrospective reconstruction require separate tests.^[ref]

Attributing a remembered or experienced representation to its source, such as an external event or an internally generated action. A source-monitoring account of voice hearing is a mechanistic hypothesis, not a definition or a uniquely established cause.

Restoration of a measurable response through cues related to an earlier experience. Reactivation does not by itself imply spontaneous retrieval, conscious recollection or unchanged retention of every original detail.^[ref]

Re-presenting a cue previously associated with learning, often during sleep, to bias subsequent reactivation. Unpaired-cue, waking-cue and sleep-stage controls help distinguish a memory-specific effect from sensory stimulation or arousal.

Re-expression of the temporal or sequential structure of a previously experienced activity pattern. Evidence should compare the observed sequence with appropriate shuffled or pre-experience baselines, rather than label any increased firing as replay.