Memory and Temporal Experience: the Effects of Episodic Memory Loss on an Amnesic Patient's Ability to Remember the Past and Imagine the Future

2002 ◽  
Vol 20 (5) ◽  
pp. 353-379 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stanley B. Klein ◽  
Judith Loftus ◽  
John F. Kihlstrom
Keyword(s):  
Episodic Memory ◽  
Memory Loss ◽  
Temporal Experience ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Future

The Role of Past in the Simulation of Autobiographical Future Episodes

2010 ◽  
Vol 57 (6) ◽  
pp. 419-428 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nadia Gamboz ◽  
Maria A. Brandimonte ◽  
Stefania De Vito
Keyword(s):  
Young Adults ◽  
Episodic Memory ◽  
Recognition Task ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Future ◽  
Future Events ◽  
Delayed Recognition

Human beings’ ability to envisage the future has been recently assumed to rely on the reconstructive nature of episodic memory ( Schacter & Addis, 2007 ). In the present research, young adults mentally reexperienced and preexperienced temporally close and distant autobiographical episodes, and rated their phenomenal characteristics as well as their novelty. Additionally, they performed a delayed recognition task including remember-know judgments on new, old-remember, and old-imagine words. Results showed that past and future temporally close episodes included more phenomenal details than distant episodes, in line with earlier studies. However, future events were occasionally rated as already occurred in the past. Furthermore, in the recognition task, participants falsely attributed old-imagine words to remembered episodes. While partially in line with previous results, these findings call for a more subtle analysis in order to discriminate representations of past episodes from true future events simulations.

The meaning of “time” in episodic memory and mental time travel

2007 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 323-323 ◽  
Author(s):  
William J. Friedman
Keyword(s):  
Episodic Memory ◽  
Time Travel ◽  
Mental Time Travel ◽  
Temporal Memory ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Future ◽  
Anticipation Time

AbstractThe role of time in episodic memory and mental time travel is considered in light of findings on humans' temporal memory and anticipation. Time is not integral or uniform in memory for the past or anticipation of the future. The commonalities of episodic memory and anticipation require further study.

Prospection, well-being and memory

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 266-274 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew K MacLeod
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Episodic Memory ◽  
Mental Representation ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Focus Of Attention ◽  
Future Thinking ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Future ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
Episodic Memories

Prospection (mental representation of the future) is an aspect of imagination that has recently become a focus of attention for researchers on memory. Evidence from a variety of sources points to episodic memory and future-thinking as being very closely linked and both are connected to well-being and mental health. This article provides an overview of some key findings linking episodic memory, future-thinking and well-being. Similarities and differences between episodic memories for the past and thoughts about the future are reviewed. It is suggested that the uncertainty inherent in future-thinking implies a greater role for semantic memory in how people think about the future compared to how they remember the past. Understanding how semantic and episodic knowledge combine to create representations about the future has the potential to help elucidate ways in which people experiencing psychological distress think about the future.

scholarly journals Statistical prediction of the future impairs episodic encoding of the present

2020 ◽  
Vol 117 (37) ◽  
pp. 22760-22770 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brynn E. Sherman ◽  
Nicholas B. Turk-Browne
Keyword(s):  
Episodic Memory ◽  
Predictive Model ◽  
Statistical Learning ◽  
Statistical Prediction ◽  
Behavioral Tests ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Future ◽  
Episodic Encoding ◽  
Past Experiences ◽  
The Brain

Memory is typically thought of as enabling reminiscence about past experiences. However, memory also informs and guides processing of future experiences. These two functions of memory are often at odds: Remembering specific experiences from the past requires storing idiosyncratic properties that define particular moments in space and time, but by definition such properties will not be shared with similar situations in the future and thus may not be applicable to future situations. We discovered that, when faced with this conflict, the brain prioritizes prediction over encoding. Behavioral tests of recognition and source recall showed that items allowing for prediction of what will appear next based on learned regularities were less likely to be encoded into memory. Brain imaging revealed that the hippocampus was responsible for this interference between statistical learning and episodic memory. The more that the hippocampus predicted the category of an upcoming item, the worse the current item was encoded. This competition may serve an adaptive purpose, focusing encoding on experiences for which we do not yet have a predictive model.

A unique role for the hippocampus in recollecting the past and remembering the future

2007 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 319-320
Author(s):  
Valerie A. Carr ◽  
Indre V. Viskontas
Keyword(s):  
Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Episodic Memory ◽  
Human Evolution ◽  
Brain Region ◽  
Memory System ◽  
Future Event ◽  
Unique Role ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Future ◽  
Episodic Memories

AbstractSuddendorf & Corballis (S&C) argue that episodic memory is the most flexible and recently evolved memory system, and point to the reorganization of prefrontal cortex throughout human evolution as the neuroanatomical substrate. Their approach, however, fails to address the unique role that the hippocampus, a primitive brain region, plays in creating and recalling episodic memories, as well as future event construction.

scholarly journals Is mental time travel real time travel?

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-27
Author(s):  
Michael Barkasi ◽  
Melanie G. Rosen
Keyword(s):  
Episodic Memory ◽  
Real Time ◽  
Time Travel ◽  
Mental Time Travel ◽  
Alternative View ◽  
Direct Realism ◽  
Similar Argument ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Future ◽  
Future Events

Episodic memory (memories of the personal past) and prospecting the future (anticipating events) are often described as mental time travel (MTT). While most use this description metaphorically, we argue that episodic memory may allow for MTT in at least some robust sense. While episodic memory experiences may not allow us to literally travel through time, they do afford genuine awareness of past-perceived events. This is in contrast to an alternative view on which episodic memory experiences present past-perceived events as mere intentional contents. Hence, episodic memory is a way of coming into experiential contact with, or being again aware of, what happened in the past. We argue that episodic memory experiences depend on a causal-informational link with the past events being remembered, and that, assuming direct realism about episodic memory experiences, this link suffices for genuine awareness. Since there is no such link in future prospection, a similar argument cannot be used to show that it also affords genuine awareness of future events. Constructivist views of memory might challenge the idea of memory as genuine awareness of remembered events. We explain how our view is consistent with both constructivist and anti-causalist conceptions of memory. There is still room for an interpretation of episodic memory as enabling genuine awareness of past events, even if it involves reconstruction.

scholarly journals Statistical prediction of the future impairs episodic encoding of the present

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brynn E. Sherman ◽  
Nicholas B. Turk-Browne
Keyword(s):  
Episodic Memory ◽  
Predictive Model ◽  
Statistical Learning ◽  
Statistical Prediction ◽  
Behavioral Tests ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Future ◽  
Episodic Encoding ◽  
Past Experiences ◽  
The Brain

AbstractMemory is typically thought of as enabling reminiscence about past experiences. However, memory also informs and guides processing of future experiences. These two functions of memory are often at odds: remembering specific experiences from the past requires storing idiosyncratic properties that define particular moments in space and time, but by definition such properties will not be shared with similar situations in the future and thus may not be applicable to future situations. We discovered that, when faced with this conflict, the brain prioritizes prediction over encoding. Behavioral tests of recognition and source recall showed that items allowing for prediction of what will appear next based on learned regularities were less likely to be encoded into memory. Brain imaging revealed that the hippocampus was responsible for this interference between statistical learning and episodic memory. The more that the hippocampus predicted the category of an upcoming item, the worse the current item was encoded. This competition may serve an adaptive purpose, focusing encoding on experiences for which we do not yet have a predictive model.

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