Mental Time Travel is not Unique to Episodic Memory

The subjective sense of mentally reliving the past is considered the key distinguishing feature of episodic memory—a neurocognitive system supporting recollection of specific life events. We present data from two pre-registered studies of musically-evoked autobiographical memory demonstrating that this subjective sense of mental reliving accompanies not just memories for specific events, but also more general autobiographical representations. Groups of 35- , 45- , and 55-year-old participants reported memories in response to musical cues that had been popular during their time in high-school, university, and early adulthood. Participants also rated the level of specificity and sense of mental time travel associated with each memory. Cumulative link mixed model analyses revealed that participants endorsed the presence of the subjective sense of mental time travel for specific, general, and lifetime period memories. Implication of reliving broader swaths of the personal past are discussed in relation to theories of episodic and autobiographical memory.