Viewpoint Retrieval as a Behavioral Proxy for Episodic Re-experiencing

Episodic autobiographical memory retrieval (EAM) is characterized by the vivid sense of re-experiencing past events. While doing so, different viewpoints over the scene can be taken, often referred to as the field or observer perspectives. However, the precision with which individuals can accurately reconstruct their original viewpoint over an event, within the field perspective, has not yet been characterized. Here we developed a task and continuous implicit measure to quantify this ability (viewpoint retrieval accuracy, VRA) and study its association with explicit measures of re-experienced vividness. Twenty-five participants experienced lifelike events in mixed reality, with five controlled observer–object angles at encoding. After a 24 h delay, they retrieved each event, rated re-experiencing vividness, and indicated their original viewpoint (VRA). Mean VRA decreased with increasing encoding eccentricity (observer–object angles) and was consistently biased toward more central viewpoints. Moreover, VRA significantly explained re-experiencing vividness, with higher re-experiencing ratings being associated with smaller errors. These findings establish VRA as an implicit and continuous proxy for re-experiencing vividness, and a new tool for investigating the spatial and bodily foundations of EAM retrieval.