Written by the Fiveable Content Team • Last updated September 2025
Verified for the 2026 exam
Verified for the 2026 exam•Written by the Fiveable Content Team • Last updated September 2025
Definition
A specific event refers to a particular occurrence or incident that stands out from others due to its unique characteristics, significance, or emotional impact.
Related terms
Emotional Impact: The emotional impact refers to the intensity and lasting effects that emotions have on an individual. Emotions experienced during a specific event can greatly influence memory recall.
Episodic memory is the ability to recall personal experiences or events along with their associated context, such as time, place, emotions, and sensory details.
Cognitive processing involves mental activities such as attention, perception, encoding (inputting information into memory), storage (retaining information), and retrieval (recalling stored information). The way we process sensory information during a specific event affects our overall memory of it.