Krystian Barzykowski

Autobiographical memory serves a foundational role in shaping personal identity, guiding future behaviour, and regulating emotions. Rather than constituting static reproductions of past events, aut...

Autobiographical memory retrieval is commonly investigated using word-cue paradigms in which participants intentionally recall events from their personal past in response to verbal cues. While previous research has extensively examined autobiographical memory retrieval itself, fewer standardized procedures are available for investigating phenomenological experiences accompanying retrieval attempts, including feelings of familiarity and retrieval failures. The present paper describes a structured online and laboratory procedure designed to investigate autobiographical retrieval experiences using high-access and low-access verbal cues. The procedure enables simultaneous assessment of autobiographical memory retrieval, feelings of familiarity, and knowing-not experiences, together with detailed phenomenological ratings and response times. The implementation includes randomized cue presentation, conditional branching logic, attentional control questions, and standardized variable-labelling conventions facilitating adaptation and automated data processing. The protocol is provided in English and French in formats directly compatible with Qualtrics and Gorilla platforms. Validation data obtained from 101 French-speaking participants demonstrated high compliance with attentional-control procedures and successful elicitation of multiple autobiographical retrieval outcomes. The procedure may be adapted for laboratory, online, and cross-cultural autobiographical memory research. • Standardized online and laboratory procedure for investigating autobiographical retrieval, familiarity experiences, and retrieval failures. • Flexible implementation using high-access and low-access autobiographical retrieval cues. • Directly adaptable Qualtrics/Gorilla protocol.

Highly superior autobiographical memory (HSAM) is characterized by an exceptional ability to recall personal past events. Research on HSAM requires reliable procedures to verify subjective claims of superior memory with objectively verifiable performance. However, standardized and accessible screening methods remain limited. The present paper introduces a structured implementation of the screening protocol developed by LePort et al. (2012) for identifying HSAM based on two key tasks: the Public Events Quiz and the Random Dates Quiz. The protocol is designed to assess accuracy and temporal precision of autobiographical recall using both publicly verifiable information and personally generated responses tied to calendar dates. The full procedure is provided as a ready-to-use Qualtrics Survey (.qsf ) file, compatible with Qualtrics survey software (Qualtrics, Provo, UT) and adaptable for implementation in Gorilla. The method enables direct implementation and flexible adaptation across cultural and temporal contexts by modifying task content while preserving the overall structure. This facilitates consistent and reproducible screening of HSAM across research settings and countries.

Mind-wandering and daydreaming are often treated as synonymous in the literature, yet it remains unclear whether they represent the same cognitive phenomenon in everyday experience. Although mind-wandering and daydreaming are used interchangeably, there are reasons to argue that they relate to two different cognitive phenomena. This study aimed to investigate the differences and similarities between mind-wandering and daydreaming. Using an experience sampling method, participants reported episodes of mind-wandering and daydreaming ten times daily at fixed intervals over seven days. We compared these episodes in terms of phenomenological characteristics and their relative frequency of occurrence. The observed differences were consistent across participant-level analyses and episode-level mixed-effects models, supporting the distinction between mind-wandering and daydreaming as related but separable cognitive phenomena. The stage 1 protocol for this Registered Report was accepted in principle on 22/01/25. The protocol, as accepted by the journal, can be found at: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.28945814