scholarly journals Episodic memory and autonoetic consciousness: a first–person approach

2001 ◽  
Vol 356 (1413) ◽  
pp. 1351-1361 ◽  
Author(s):  
John M. Gardiner
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Episodic Memory ◽  
Semantic Memory ◽  
Sense Of Self ◽  
First Person ◽  
General Knowledge ◽  
Memory Response ◽  
Independent Variables ◽  
The Past ◽  
Autonoetic Consciousness

Episodic memory is identified with autonoetic consciousness, which gives rise to remembering in the sense of self–recollection in the mental re–enactment of previous events at which one was present. Autonoetic consciousness is distinguished from noetic consciousness, which gives rise to awareness of the past that is limited to feelings of familiarity or knowing. Noetic consciousness is identified not with episodic but with semantic memory, which involves general knowledge. A recently developed approach to episodic memory makes use of ‘first–person’ reports of remembering and knowing. Studies using this approach have revealed many independent variables that selectively affect remembering and others that selectively affect knowing. These studies can also be interpreted in terms of distinctiveness and fluency of processing. Remembering and knowing do not correspond with degrees of confidence in memory. Nor does remembering always control the memory response. There is evidence that remembering is selectively impaired in various populations, including not only amnesic patients and older adults but also adults with Asperger's syndrome. This first–person approach to episodic memory represents one way in which that most elusive aspect of consciousness, its subjectivity, can be investigated scientifically. The two kinds of conscious experiences can be manipulated experimentally in ways that are systematic, replicable and intelligible theoretically.

scholarly journals First-person body view modulates the neural substrates of episodic memory and autonoetic consciousness: A functional connectivity study

NeuroImage ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 223 ◽  
pp. 117370
Author(s):  
Baptiste Gauthier ◽  
Lucie Bréchet ◽  
Florian Lance ◽  
Robin Mange ◽  
Bruno Herbelin ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Functional Connectivity ◽  
Episodic Memory ◽  
Neural Substrates ◽  
First Person ◽  
Autonoetic Consciousness

Remote memory in a patient with amnesia due to hypoxia

1987 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 657-665 ◽  
Author(s):  
William W. Beatty ◽  
David P. Salmon ◽  
Nancy Bernstein ◽  
Nelson Butters
Keyword(s):  
Episodic Memory ◽  
Autobiographical Memory ◽  
Retrograde Amnesia ◽  
Semantic Memory ◽  
Remote Memory ◽  
Accurate Information ◽  
The Past ◽  
Excellent Preservation ◽  
Overall Performance ◽  
Test Of Knowledge

SynopsisIt has been suggested that amnesic patients suffer a selective loss of episodic memory while semantic memory remains well preserved. To assess the validity of this idea we studied remote memory in an amnesic patient, (M.R.L.), using several different measures that differ in the extent which they engage episodic or semantic memory. On two different versions of the Albert et al. (1979) remote memory battery M.R.L. displayed severe retrograde amnesia (RA) extending backwards in time for about 15 years with excellent preservation of older memories. With standard recall instructions his overall performance on the Crovitz test of autobiographical memory was impaired and all of M.R.L.'s specific, temporally dated memories were given from the first half of life. When asked to reconstruct his past residential history in detail, M.R.L. provided specific and generally accurate information for residences occupied from his boyhood until 1970, but thereafter his memory became quite unreliable. On a test of knowledge of terms commonly employed the surveying profession, in which he worked for the past 20 years, M.R.L.'s performance was also impaired. The consistent pattern of RA displayed by this patient on all of the tests of remote memory indicates that both episodic and semantic memory are impaired in amnesia.

scholarly journals From foraging to autonoetic consciousness: The primal self as a consequence of embodied prospective foraging

2015 ◽  
Vol 61 (2) ◽  
pp. 368-381 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas T. Hills ◽  
Stephen Butterfill
Keyword(s):  
Sense Of Self ◽  
Self Awareness ◽  
Cognitive Representation ◽  
Neural Basis ◽  
Selective Force ◽  
Cognitive Representations ◽  
The Past ◽  
Ecological Literature ◽  
Resource Distributions ◽  
Autonoetic Consciousness

Abstract The capacity to adapt to resource distributions by modulating the frequency of exploratory and exploitative behaviors is common across metazoans and is arguably a principal selective force in the evolution of cognition. Here we (1) review recent work investigating behavioral and biological commonalities between external foraging in space and internal foraging over environments specified by cognitive representations, and (2) explore the implications of these commonalities for understanding the origins of the self. Behavioural commonalities include the capacity for what is known as area-restricted search in the ecological literature: this is search focussed around locations where resources have been found in the past, but moving away from locations where few resources are found, and capable of producing movement patterns mimicking Lévy flights. Area-restricted search shares a neural basis across metazoans, and these biological commonalities in vertebrates suggest an evolutionary homology between external and internal foraging. Internal foraging, and in particular a form we call embodied prospective foraging, makes available additional capacities for prediction based on search through a cognitive representation of the external environment, and allows predictions about outcomes of possible future actions. We demonstrate that cognitive systems that use embodied prospective foraging require a primitive sense of self, needed to distinguish actual from simulated action. This relationship has implications for understanding the evolution of autonoetic consciousness and self-awareness.

scholarly journals Self-projection in younger and older adults: A study of episodic memory, prospection, and theory of mind

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shoshana N Jarvis ◽  
Jeremy K. Miller
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Episodic Memory ◽  
Older Adult ◽  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Healthy Older Adults ◽  
The Past ◽  
System P ◽  
Adult Participants

Self-projection is the ability to orient the self in different places in time and space. Episodic memory, prospection, and theory of mind (ToM) are all cognitive abilities that share an element of self-projection. Previous research has posited that each of these abilities stem from the same neural network (Buckner & Carroll, 2006). The current study compared performance of cognitively healthy older adults and younger adults on several self-projection tasks to examine the relatedness of these constructs behaviorally. Episodic memory and prospection were measured using an episodic interview task where the participants were asked to remember or imagine events that either had happened in the past or could happen in the future and then gave ratings describing the extent to which they were mentally experiencing the event and from what perspective they viewed it. ToM was measured by asking participants to make judgments regarding the intentions of characters described in stories that involved cognitive, affective, or ironic components. Our results demonstrate that aging influences episodic memory, prospection, and ToM similarly: older adult participants showed declines on each of these measures compared to younger adults. Further, we observed correlations between performance on the measures of episodic memory and prospection as well as between episodic memory and ToM, although no correlation between prospection and ToM was observed after controlling for chronological age. We discuss these results in the light of theories suggesting that each of these abilities is governed by a common brain system.

scholarly journals Lifecourse socioeconomic changes and late-life cognition in a cohort of U.S.-born and U.S. immigrants: findings from the KHANDLE study

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachel L. Peterson ◽  
Kristen M. George ◽  
Paola Gilsanz ◽  
Elizabeth Rose Mayeda ◽  
M. Maria Glymour ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Episodic Memory ◽  
Cultural Capital ◽  
Semantic Memory ◽  
Low Socioeconomic Status ◽  
Late Life ◽  
Financial Capital ◽  
Socioeconomic Changes ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Verbal Episodic Memory

Abstract Background Low socioeconomic status (SES) in early and late life has been associated with lower late-life cognition. Less is known about how changes in SES from childhood to late life are associated with late-life cognition, especially among diverse populations of older adults. Methods In a multi-ethnic sample (n = 1353) of older adults, we used linear regression to test associations of change in comprehensive measures of SES (financial, cultural, and social domains) from childhood to late life with semantic memory, episodic memory, and executive function. We tested whether the association between SES trajectory and late-life cognition differed by populations who resided in the U.S. during childhood or immigrated to the U.S. as adults. Results Participants with low childhood/high late-life financial capital had better semantic memory (β = 0.18; 95% CI: 0.04, 0.32) versus those with low financial capital in both childhood and late life, regardless of childhood residence. We observed a significant interaction in the association of verbal episodic memory and cultural capital by childhood residence (p = 0.08). Participants with a foreign childhood residence had higher verbal episodic memory if they had low childhood/high late-life cultural capital (β = 0.32; 95% CI: 0.01, 0.63), but lower verbal episodic memory if they had high childhood/low late-life cultural capital (β = − 0.40; 95% CI: − 0.94, 0.13). Having high lifecourse social capital was associated with better verbal episodic memory scores among those with a U.S. childhood (β = 0.34; 95% CI: 0.14, 0.55), but lower verbal episodic memory among those with a foreign childhood (β = − 0.10; 95% CI: − 0.51, 0.31). Conclusions High financial and cultural capital in late life is associated with better cognition, regardless of early childhood SES or childhood residence.

Preserved Recognition in a Case of Developmental Amnesia: Implications for the Acaquisition of Semantic Memory?

2001 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 357-369 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Baddeley ◽  
Faraneh Vargha-Khadem ◽  
Mortimer Mishkin
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Recognition Memory ◽  
Episodic Memory ◽  
Semantic Memory ◽  
Semantic Knowledge ◽  
General Knowledge ◽  
Normal Range ◽  
Memory Tests ◽  
Phenomenological Experience ◽  
Developmental Amnesia

We report the performance on recognition memory tests of Jon, who, despite amnesia from early childhood, has developed normal levels of performance on tests of intelligence, language, and general knowledge. Despite impaired recall, he performed within the normal range on each of six recognition tests, but he appears to lack the recollective phenomenological experience normally associated with episodic memory. His recall of previously unfamiliar newsreel event was impaired, but gained substantially from repetition over a 2-day period. Our results are consistent with the hypothesis that the recollective process of episodic memory is not necessary either for recognition or for the acquisition of semantic knowledge.

scholarly journals Influence of Aging on the Neural Correlates of Autobiographical, Episodic, and Semantic Memory Retrieval

2011 ◽  
Vol 23 (12) ◽  
pp. 4150-4163 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marie St-Laurent ◽  
Hervé Abdi ◽  
Hana Burianová ◽  
Cheryl L. Grady
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Episodic Memory ◽  
Semantic Memory ◽  
Memory Retrieval ◽  
Memory Task ◽  
Neural Correlates ◽  
Partial Least Square ◽  
Least Square ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Age Related

We used fMRI to assess the neural correlates of autobiographical, semantic, and episodic memory retrieval in healthy young and older adults. Participants were tested with an event-related paradigm in which retrieval demand was the only factor varying between trials. A spatio-temporal partial least square analysis was conducted to identify the main patterns of activity characterizing the groups across conditions. We identified brain regions activated by all three memory conditions relative to a control condition. This pattern was expressed equally in both age groups and replicated previous findings obtained in a separate group of younger adults. We also identified regions whose activity differentiated among the different memory conditions. These patterns of differentiation were expressed less strongly in the older adults than in the young adults, a finding that was further confirmed by a barycentric discriminant analysis. This analysis showed an age-related dedifferentiation in autobiographical and episodic memory tasks but not in the semantic memory task or the control condition. These findings suggest that the activation of a common memory retrieval network is maintained with age, whereas the specific aspects of brain activity that differ with memory content are more vulnerable and less selectively engaged in older adults. Our results provide a potential neural mechanism for the well-known age differences in episodic/autobiographical memory, and preserved semantic memory, observed when older adults are compared with younger adults.

Blast from the Past

2019 ◽  
pp. 316-329
Author(s):  
Patrik N. Juslin
Keyword(s):  
Episodic Memory ◽  
Physiological Response ◽  
Sense Of Self ◽  
External World ◽  
Personal Memory ◽  
The Past ◽  
Psychological Mechanism ◽  
Experiential Content ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Original Event

This chapter considers the psychological mechanism known as episodic memory. Episodic memory is defined as a process whereby an emotion is induced in a listener because the music evokes a personal memory of a specific event in the person's life; when the memory is evoked, so is also the emotion associated with the event. The emotion can be intense, perhaps because the physiological response pattern to the original event is stored in memory, together with the experiential content. Episodic memory requires detached mental representations (i.e. representations of events or objects that are not currently sensed in the external world) and a sense of self, which ties together the individual episodes. Episodic memory is also an important aspect of what it means to be human.

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