Retrospective memory

Retrospective memory refers to remembering information from the past. It is the complement to prospective memory (which refers to remembering to do something in the future). All types of memory other than prospective memory may be deemed to be "retrospective" memory. That is, recognition, episodic memory, procedural memory, declarative memory etc. can all be conceived of as retrospective.

Two nuances to this distinction are that episodic memory can sometimes be a memory of an imagining of a future time (Endel Tulving's "mental time travel"), and that prospective memory is said to have a retrospective component. That is, remembering that one has something to do in the future is prospective, but remembering what it is that one has to do is retrospective.