maybe a better perspective is one of worthwhile memories. when we do something that harnesses the emotional response, it creates lasting impressions. these impressions are like caches in our brain. the allow instant recall and also defer to long term storage.

there are several times when we are able to recall even when there has been no impression made. i guess you call it neutral or subliminal memory. we tend to forget positive things very quickly while we remember negative things for a long time.