scholarly journals Elements of episodic–like memory in animals

2001 ◽  
Vol 356 (1413) ◽  
pp. 1483-1491 ◽  
Author(s):  
N. S. Clayton ◽  
D. P. Griffiths ◽  
N. J. Emery ◽  
A. Dickinson
Keyword(s):  
Episodic Memory ◽  
Past Experience ◽  
Relative Time ◽  
Perishable Items ◽  
Food Caching

A number of psychologists have suggested that episodic memory is a uniquely human phenomenon and, until recently, there was little evidence that animals could recall a unique past experience and respond appropriately. Experiments on food–caching memory in scrub jays question this assumption. On the basis of a single caching episode, scrub jays can remember when and where they cached a variety of foods that differ in the rate at which they degrade, in a way that is inexplicable by relative familiarity. They can update their memory of the contents of a cache depending on whether or not they have emptied the cache site, and can also remember where another bird has hidden caches, suggesting that they encode rich representations of the caching event. They make temporal generalizations about when perishable items should degrade and also remember the relative time since caching when the same food is cached in distinct sites at different times. These results show that jays form integrated memories for the location, content and time of caching. This memory capability fulfils Tulving's behavioural criteria for episodic memory and is thus termed ‘episodic–like’. We suggest that several features of episodic memory may not be unique to humans.

scholarly journals The evolution of episodic-like memory: the importance of biological and ecological constraints

2021 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Bas van Woerkum
Keyword(s):  
Episodic Memory ◽  
Perceptual Learning ◽  
Alternative Explanation ◽  
Past Experience ◽  
Ecological Niches ◽  
Insufficient Information ◽  
Ecological Constraints ◽  
Animal Minds ◽  
Learning Abilities ◽  
Nonhuman Animals

AbstractA persisting question in the philosophy of animal minds is which nonhuman animals share our capacity for episodic memory (EM). Many authors address this question by primarily defining EM, trying to capture its seemingly unconstrained flexibility and independence from environmental and bodily constraints. EM is therefore often opposed to clearly context-bound capacities like tracking environmental regularities and forming associations. The problem is that conceptualizing EM in humans first, and then reconstructing how humans evolved this capacity, provides little constraints for understanding the evolution of memory abilities in other species: it defines “genuine” EM as independent from animals’ evolved sensorimotor setup and learning abilities. In this paper, I define memory in terms of perceptual learning: remembering means “knowing (better) what to do in later situations because of past experience in similar earlier situations”. After that, I explain how episodic memory can likewise be explained in terms of perceptual learning. For this, we should consider that the information in animals’ ecological niches is much richer than has hitherto been presumed. Accordingly, instead of asking “given that environmental stimuli provide insufficient information about the cache, what kind of representation does the jay need?” we ask “given that the animal performs in this way, what kind of information is available in the environment?” My aim is not to give a complete alternative explanation of EM; rather, it is to provide conceptual and methodological tools for more zoocentric comparative EM-research.

scholarly journals Narratives bridge the divide between distant events in episodic memory

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brendan Cohn-Sheehy ◽  
Angelique Delarazan ◽  
Zachariah Reagh ◽  
Nidhi Mundada ◽  
Andrew P. Yonelinas ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Episodic Memory ◽  
Semantic Similarity ◽  
Higher Order ◽  
Past Experience ◽  
Consolidation Process ◽  
Multiple Events ◽  
Sentence Level ◽  
Post Hoc ◽  
Nighttime Sleep

Many studies suggest that information about past experience, or episodic memory, is divided into discrete units called “events.” Paradoxically, we can often remember experiences that span multiple events. Events that occur in close succession might simply be bridged because of their proximity to one another, but many events occur farther apart in time. Intuitively, some kind of organizing principle should enable these temporally-distant events to become bridged in memory. We tested the hypothesis that episodic memory exhibits a narrative-level organization, enabling temporally-distant events to be better remembered if they form a coherent narrative. Furthermore, we tested whether a post-encoding consolidation process is necessary to integrate temporally-distant events. Participants learned and subsequently recalled events from fictional stories, in which pairs of temporally-distant events involving side-characters (“sideplots”) either formed one coherent narrative or two unrelated narratives. In three experiments, participants were cued to recall the stories either immediately, after a 24-hour delay, or after a 12-hour delay which elapsed during daytime (“wake”) versus nighttime (“sleep”). Participants recalled more information about coherent than unrelated narrative events, in most delay conditions, and the delay and sleep manipulations indicated that post-encoding consolidation was not necessary to integrate temporally-distant narrative events. Post-hoc modeling across experiments suggested that sentence-level semantic similarity could not solely account for the coherence benefit. This reliable memory benefit for coherent narrative events supports theoretical accounts which propose that higher-order semantic structures scaffold episodic memory.

Mental time travel sickness and a Bayesian remedy

2007 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 323-324 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jay Hegdé
Keyword(s):  
Episodic Memory ◽  
Bayesian Estimation ◽  
Estimation Theory ◽  
Time Travel ◽  
Past Experience ◽  
Mental Time Travel ◽  
The Past ◽  
Future Events ◽  
Combining Information

AbstractMental time travel is a principled, but a narrow and computationally limiting, implementation of foresight. Future events can be predicted with sufficient specificity without having to have episodic memory of specific past events. Bayesian estimation theory provides a framework by which one can make predictions about specific future events by combining information about various generic patterns in the past experience.

scholarly journals Past Experience Modulates the Neural Mechanisms of Episodic Memory Formation

2010 ◽  
Vol 30 (13) ◽  
pp. 4707-4716 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Poppenk ◽  
A. R. McIntosh ◽  
F. I. M. Craik ◽  
M. Moscovitch
Keyword(s):  
Episodic Memory ◽  
Memory Formation ◽  
Past Experience ◽  
Neural Mechanisms

Une défense de l’approche simulationniste du souvenir épisodique

Dialogue ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-76
Author(s):  
Denis Perrin
Keyword(s):  
Episodic Memory ◽  
Past Experience ◽  
Theory Theory ◽  
Specific Kind ◽  
De Se ◽  
The Relationship

ABSTRACT: In this paper, I carry out an application of the debate between simulationism and theory theory to the issue of episodic memory. I first criticize the approach favored by the theory theory. Then I advance a simulationist conception of the relationship between the phenomenology of episodic memory and its specific kind of self-consciousness. On my view, subjectivity belongs to the very content of episodic memory, not as an element of its content, but as the perspective it gives to the content that makes the simulation of past experience possible. In support of that view, I provide an analysis inspired by J. Perry of the semantics of de se thought. It gives the remembering subject a non-representational presence in the mnesic content.

Imagining the Past

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Hopkins
Keyword(s):  
Episodic Memory ◽  
Mental State ◽  
Past Experience ◽  
The Past

What kind of mental state is episodic memory? This chapter defends the claim that it is, in key part, imagining the past, where the imagining in question is experiential imagining. To remember a past episode is to experientially imagine how things were, in a way controlled by one’s past experience of that episode. This view is motivated by appeal both to patterns of compatibilities and incompatibilities between various states, and to phenomenology. The bulk of the chapter defends the account against four objections. Imagining and remembering seem to differ in whether they are active or passive, in the forms of singular content they involve, in their relations to observation, and in their relations to belief. The chapter argues that these differences can be accommodated, and some even explained, once we flesh out what else is involved in episodic memory, in addition to imagining the past.

scholarly journals Une théorie réflexive du souvenir épisodique

Dialogue ◽  
1997 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 527-554 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jérôme Dokic
Keyword(s):  
Episodic Memory ◽  
Past Experience ◽  
The Past ◽  
Episodic Memories

AbstractThis paper deals with the distinction between factual and episodic memory (memory that p vs. memory of particular x). The following theses are defended, (i) Episodic memory is internally related to a particular past experience. (ii) Factual memory about x does not imply episodic memory ofx. (iii) Episodic and factual memory may carry the same kind of information about the past. Finally, (iv) episodic memories are reflexive factual memories. When I remember x in the episodic sense, I have a collection of factual memories not only about x, but equally and simultaneously about the fact that this same collection comes directly from my past experience.

scholarly journals Construction, Preservation, and the Presence of Self in Observer Memory

2020 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Jude McCarroll
Keyword(s):  
Episodic Memory ◽  
Past Experience ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The Self ◽  
Memory Image ◽  
External Point ◽  
Key Points ◽  
Critical Notice

Observer memories involve a representation of the self in the memory image, which is presented from a detached or external point of view. That such an image is an obvious departure from how one initially experienced the event seems relatively straightforward. However, in my book on this type of imagery, I suggested that such memories can in fact, at least in some cases, accurately represent one’s past experience of an event. During these past events there is a sense in which we adopt an external perspective on ourselves. In the present paper, I respond to a critical notice of my book by Marina Trakas. Trakas argues that my account of observer memory unfolded against the background of a problematic preservationist account of episodic memory, and that I failed to adequately account for the presence of self in observer memory. I respond these worries here, and I try to clarify key points that were underdeveloped in the book.

scholarly journals Narratives bridge the divide between distant events in episodic memory

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brendan I. Cohn-Sheehy ◽  
Angelique I. Delarazan ◽  
Jordan E. Crivelli-Decker ◽  
Zachariah M. Reagh ◽  
Nidhi S. Mundada ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Episodic Memory ◽  
Semantic Similarity ◽  
Memory Consolidation ◽  
Past Experience ◽  
Narrative Coherence ◽  
High Level Architecture ◽  
Immediate Recall ◽  
Sentence Level ◽  
High Level ◽  
Post Hoc

AbstractMany studies suggest that information about past experience, or episodic memory, is divided into discrete units called “events.” Yet we can often remember experiences that span multiple events. Events that occur in close succession might simply be linked because of their proximity to one another, but we can also build links between events that occur farther apart in time. Intuitively, some kind of organizing principle should enable temporally distant events to become bridged in memory. We tested the hypothesis that episodic memory exhibits a narrative-level organization, enabling temporally distant events to be better remembered if they form a coherent narrative. Furthermore, we tested whether post-encoding memory consolidation is necessary to integrate temporally distant events. In three experiments, participants learned and subsequently recalled events from fictional stories, in which pairs of temporally distant events involving side characters (“sideplots”) either formed one coherent narrative or two unrelated narratives. Across participants, we varied whether recall was assessed immediately after learning, or after a delay: 24 hours, 12 hours between morning and evening (“wake”), or 12 hours between evening and morning (“sleep”). Participants recalled more information about coherent than unrelated narrative events, in most delay conditions, including immediate recall and wake conditions, suggesting that post-encoding consolidation was not necessary to integrate temporally distant events into a larger narrative. Furthermore, post hoc modeling across experiments suggested that narrative coherence facilitated recall over and above any effects of sentence-level semantic similarity. This reliable memory benefit for coherent narrative events supports theoretical accounts which propose that narratives provide a high-level architecture for episodic memory.

Above and beyond the content: Feelings influence mental simulations

2020 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kellen Mrkva ◽  
Luca Cian ◽  
Leaf Van Boven
Keyword(s):  
Mental Representation ◽  
Mental Simulation ◽  
Past Experience ◽  
Prediction Errors

Abstract Gilead et al. present a rich account of abstraction. Though the account describes several elements which influence mental representation, it is worth also delineating how feelings, such as fluency and emotion, influence mental simulation. Additionally, though past experience can sometimes make simulations more accurate and worthwhile (as Gilead et al. suggest), many systematic prediction errors persist despite substantial experience.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document