Memory and Memories: An Interdisciplinary Approach

Only humans seem to have the ability to project themselves into their past or future. This mental phenomenon, called autonoetic consciousness, proves the interrelation of memory, imagination, emotion, intelligence and consciousness as a way of creating self-images. The current paper constitutes an integrative study on memory from a theoretical perspective. The first part presents the most known neuroscientific viewpoints on the memory process, along with the pathological case of patient HM, who lost his memory following the removal of his hippocampus. The second part provides a humanistic perspective on recollection to demonstrate its compatibility with the neurological processes of storing information and forming memories. The final part conveys the phenomenon of recollection from the perspective of identity crisis in Kazuo Ishiguro’s novels, as a case study in memory literature. According to memory theories to date, identity cannot exist outside the process of recording and recalling past experiences. Despite the fallible nature of recollection, human beings return to their past in order to give a healthy meaning to their present.

Finding a positive me: Affective and neural insights into the challenges of positive autobiographical memory reliving in borderline personality disorder

Background:This study aimed to investigate whether people with BPD can benefit from reliving positive autobiographical memories in terms of mood and state self-esteem and elucidate the neural processes supporting optimal memory reliving. Particularly the role of vividness and brain areas involved in autonoetic consciousness were studied, as key factors involved in improving mood and state self-esteem by positive memory reliving. Methods:People with BPD (BPD, N = 25), Healthy Controls (HC, N = 33) and controls with Low Self-Esteem (LSE, N = 22) relived four neutral and four positive autobiographical memories in an MRI scanner. After reliving each memory mood and vividness was rated. State self-esteem was assessed before and after the Reliving Autobiographical Memories (RAM) task. Results:Overall, mood and state self-esteem were lower in BPD compared to HC and LSE, but improved significantly after positive memory reliving. Moreover, participants with BPD indicated that they relived their memories with less vividness than HC, regardless of valence. When reliving (vs reading) memories, participants with BPD showed increased precuneus and lingual gyrus activation compared to HC, which was inversely related to vividness. Discussion:People with BPD seem less immersed in reliving neutral and positive autobiographical memories with increased precuneus activation potentially indicating more distant autonoetic consciousness. Nevertheless, participants with BPD do benefit in mood and self-esteem from reliving positive memories. These findings underline the potential of positive autobiographical memory reliving and suggest that interventions may be further shaped to improvet mood and strengthen self-views in BPD.

Mental representation of autobiographical memories along the sagittal mental timeline: Evidence from spatiotemporal interference

Time is usually conceived of in terms of space: many natural languages refer to time according to a back-to-front axis. Indeed, whereas the past is usually conceived to be “behind us”, the future is considered to be “in front of us.” Despite temporal coding is pivotal for the development of autonoetic consciousness, little is known about the organization of autobiographical memories along this axis. Here we developed a spatial compatibility task (SCT) to test the organization of autobiographical memories along the sagittal plane, using spatiotemporal interference. Twenty-one participants were asked to recall both episodic and semantic autobiographical memories (EAM and SAM, respectively) to be used in the SCT. Then, during the SCT, they were asked to decide whether each event occurred before or after the event presented right before, using a response code that could be compatible with the back-to-front axis (future in front) or not (future at back). We found that performance was significantly worse during the non-compatible condition, especially for EAM. The results are discussed in light of the evidence for spatiotemporal encoding of episodic autobiographical memories, taking into account possible mechanisms explaining compatibility effects.

Foraging in Mind

People and other animals can search for information inside their heads. Where does this ability come from, and what does it enable cognitive systems to do? In this article, we address the behavioral and cognitive similarities between search in external environments and internal environments (e.g., memory). These require both maplike representations and the means to navigate them, and the latter involves modulation between exploitation and exploration analogous to a foraging process called area-restricted search. These findings have implications for understanding a number of cognitive abilities commonly considered to be hallmarks of the human species, such as well-developed executive control and goal-directed cognition, autonoetic consciousness (i.e., self-awareness), deliberation, and free will. Moreover, this research extends our conception of what organisms may share these abilities and how they evolved.

Autobiographical Memory and Identities in Organizations

Current theories of identity in organizations assume and valorize stability of identity over time. In this chapter the authors challenge this assumption by introducing contemporary understandings of the fluidity of time in the construction of autobiographical memory. They argue that, both in individual and organizational memory, narrative constructions of the self fluidly incorporate episodes from the past, present, and future in an ongoing effort to create a coherent autobiography. They elaborate the construct of autobiographical memory as constituted by autonoetic consciousness, life narrative, and collective memory and discuss the implications for identities in organizations.

The Neural Basis of Autobiographical Memory

Recent advances in neuroimaging techniques have led to significant progress in our understanding of how the personal past is represented in the brain. A key insight has been the degree to which autobiographical memory (AM) is structured according to self-related processes. This chapter addresses the role of the self in organizing AM in three key areas: (1) processing of self-related information, (2) awareness of the self in time (i.e. autonoetic consciousness), and (3) the centrality of egocentric visual perspective. There are exciting areas for future research that capitalize on the benefits of recent advances in fully immersive virtual reality technologies.