I mean, yeah, that's what I feel like is going on. I think it's more like when somebody says the word "January", I pick up that it's a tag in many contexts, one being time, and start picking information associated with that tag. If the "active context" is time, then I'd start thinking about what happened around that time, what's coming up next January, etc.

The same happens, for instance, if somebody says "the park"; I don't get a mental image of the park, I just start thinking about things associated with it (typically things that happened there).

I can do the whole "visual memory" thing, but it's a conscious process that I have to focus on, rather than something that comes automatically. That's not to say my visual memory is bad, just not default.

I always figured this was how nearly everyone thought, but after reading this thread I'm questioning it now.

EDIT: also there's some kind of search tree balancing going on, I think. Because sometimes you may ask me what happened in January, I feel like I sort of mentally go over everything and do a quicksort type of process? But only if there's a lot of past events that aren't already associated with the January tag? I don't know it's hard to explain.