Presidential Program: What makes mental time travel possible?

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bridget Murray
Keyword(s):  
Time Travel ◽  
Mental Time Travel

Mental time travel? A neurocognitive model of event simulation

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donna Rose Addis
Keyword(s):  
Predictive Coding ◽  
Time Travel ◽  
Simulation System ◽  
Mental Time Travel ◽  
Event Representation ◽  
Conceptual Information ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Future ◽  
General Capacity

Mental time travel (MTT) is defined as projecting the self into the past and the future. Despite growing evidence of the similarities of remembering past and imagining future events, dominant theories conceive of these as distinct capacities. I propose that memory and imagination are fundamentally the same process – constructive episodic simulation – and demonstrate that the ‘simulation system’ meets the three criteria of a neurocognitive system. Irrespective of whether one is remembering or imagining, the simulation system: (1) acts on the same information, drawing on elements of experience ranging from fine-grained perceptual details to coarser-grained conceptual information and schemas about the world; (2) is governed by the same rules of operation, including associative processes that facilitate construction of a schematic scaffold, the event representation itself, and the dynamic interplay between the two (cf. predictive coding); and (3) is subserved by the same brain system. I also propose that by forming associations between schemas, the simulation system constructs multi-dimensional cognitive spaces, within which any given simulation is mapped by the hippocampus. Finally, I suggest that simulation is a general capacity that underpins other domains of cognition, such as the perception of ongoing experience. This proposal has some important implications for the construct of ‘MTT’, suggesting that ‘time’ and ‘travel’ may not be defining, or even essential, features. Rather, it is the ‘mental’ rendering of experience that is the most fundamental function of this simulation system, enabling humans to re-experience the past, pre-experience the future, and also comprehend the complexities of the present.

An Evolutionary Perspective on Mental Time Travel

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Suddendorf
Keyword(s):  
Episodic Memory ◽  
Deliberate Practice ◽  
Time Travel ◽  
Mental Time Travel ◽  
Evolutionary Perspective ◽  
Scenario Building ◽  
Memory Traces ◽  
Fitness Consequences ◽  
Nonhuman Animals ◽  
Archeological Evidence

This article examines the nature and evolution of mental time travel. Evidence for capacities in other animals is reviewed and evaluated in terms of which components of the human faculty appear to be shared and which are unique. While some nonhuman animals store episodic memory traces and can display a range of future-directed capacities, they do not appear to share the open-ended ability to construct mental scenarios, to embed them into larger narratives, nor to reflect and communicate on what they entail. Nested scenario building and the urge to exchange mental experiences seem to set human minds apart in this context as in many others. The article ends with a discussion of the archeological evidence for mental time travel, focusing on deliberate practice as an example of its tremendous fitness consequences.

An adaptive function of mental time travel: Motivating farsighted decisions

2018 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roland G. Benoit ◽  
Ruud M. W. J. Berkers ◽  
Philipp C. Paulus
Keyword(s):  
Episodic Memory ◽  
Memory System ◽  
Time Travel ◽  
Mental Time Travel ◽  
Adaptive Function ◽  
Central Function ◽  
Phenomenological Experience

AbstractThe episodic memory system allows us to experience the emotions of past, counterfactual, and prospective events. We outline how this phenomenological experience can convey motivational incentives for farsighted decisions. In this way, we challenge important arguments for Mahr & Csibra's (M&C's) conclusion that future-oriented mental time travel is unlikely to be a central function of episodic memory.

scholarly journals St. Augustine’s Reflections on Memory and Time and the Current Concept of Subjective Time in Mental Time Travel

2013 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 232-243 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liliann Manning ◽  
Daniel Cassel ◽  
Jean-Christophe Cassel
Keyword(s):  
Time Travel ◽  
Current Concept ◽  
Mental Time Travel ◽  
Subjective Time

Mental time travel and functional daily life activities in neglect patients: Recovery effects of rehabilitation by prism adaptation

Cortex ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 113 ◽  
pp. 141-155 ◽  
Author(s):  
Filomena Anelli ◽  
Stefano Avanzi ◽  
Alessio Damora ◽  
Mauro Mancuso ◽  
Francesca Frassinetti
Keyword(s):  
Daily Life ◽  
Time Travel ◽  
Prism Adaptation ◽  
Mental Time Travel ◽  
Daily Life Activities
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