Isn't memory also improved by novelty? For instance, your memories before and after a major life event (say, a surgery) are likely going to be more vivid than y

Isn't memory also improved by novelty? For instance, your memories before and after a major life event (say, a surgery) are likely going to be more vivid than your memories around an average day (say, day 4000 sitting in a cage). This makes evolutionary sense--novel events should take up more of your limited memory resources than events you've encountered thousands of times before. It also makes me wonder about the methodology behind this paper.