Autobiographical memory is memory for personally experienced events from one's own life—first day of school, a family trip, a difficult conversation. It typically contains both episodic content (specific events, scenes, sensory detail) and semantic content (factual self-knowledge: where you lived, what you studied). Researchers like Martin Conway have proposed multi-layered models in which autobiographical memory integrates lifetime periods, general events, and event-specific detail.
Variation in mental imagery vividness affects how autobiographical memory feels. Hyperphantasic people often describe rich, scene-based recollection with sensory detail; aphantasic people more often describe memory as fact-based and conceptual—knowing what happened without re-watching it. Some research (Dawes et al., 2020) suggests aphantasic autobiographical memory shows reduced episodic richness on certain measures while semantic memory remains intact. Imagination Index helps you understand which channels you have available for encoding and retrieving life memories.