Beyond instantaneous spontaneity: advancing the conceptual landscape of involuntary autobiographical memory retrieval

Autobiographical memories can sometimes come to mind spontaneously only after a temporal delay, raising the question of whether involuntary remembering is necessarily immediate. While involuntary autobiographical memories (IAMs) are typically described as rapidly triggered by internal or external cues, it remains unclear whether they may also emerge more gradually. Building on a dimensional framework that distinguishes retrieval intentionality from accessibility, the present study examined whether IAMs vary as a function of the timing of their retrieval and whether such variation is reflected in their phenomenology. We reanalyzed 1,006 IAMs reported during a laboratory vigilance task in which retrieval latencies were recorded. Memories were classified as immediate if they emerged while the cue was still visible and as subsequent if they arose after the cue had disappeared. Nearly half of all IAMs (45%) were subsequent. Immediately retrieved memories were experienced as more vivid, clearer, more detailed, and more emotionally intense than subsequent memories. Although most effects attenuated under conservative multilevel modelling, differences in clarity remained robust. Moreover, retrieval latency was negatively associated with vividness, clarity, detail, and emotional intensity, indicating that longer retrieval times were linked to reduced subjective accessibility. These findings suggest that involuntary remembering is not a unitary, instantaneous process but varies along a temporal-accessibility dimension. By demonstrating that spontaneity does not necessarily imply immediacy, the present study expands the conceptual landscape of autobiographical memory retrieval and highlights the importance of distinguishing intentionality from accessibility in models of remembering.