Episodic memory and autonoetic consciousness: a first–person approach

Gardiner, John M.

doi:10.1098/rstb.2001.0955

Cited by 231 publications

(152 citation statements)

References 58 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

138

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Naturally, other modalities than vision also contribute to this mental re-or pre-experience. Such travels, with their Wrst person perspectives, involve a certain form of self-consciousness allegedly limited to human cognition (Tulving 2005;Gardiner 2002;Macphail 1998).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) and orangutan (Pongo abelii) forethought: self-control and pre-experience in the face of future tool use

Osvath¹,

Osvath²

2008

Anim Cogn

309

253

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Planning for future needs has traditionally been considered to be restricted to human cognition. Although recent studies on great ape and corvid cognition challenge this belief, the phylogenesis of human planning remains largely unknown. The complex skill for future planning has not yet been satisfactorily established in any other extant primate species than our own. In humans, planning for future needs rely heavily on two overarching capacities, both of which lie at the heart of our cognition: self-control, often deWned as the suppression of immediate drives in favor of delayed rewards, and mental time travel, which could be described as a detached mental experience of a past or future event. Future planning is linked to additional high complexity cognition such as metacognition and a consciousness usually not attributed to animals. In a series of four experiments based on tool use, we demonstrate that chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and orangutans (Pongo abelii) override immediate drives in favor of future needs, and they do not merely rely on associative learning or semantic prospection when confronted with a planning task. These results suggest that great apes engage in planning for the future by out competing current drives and mentally pre-experiencing an upcoming event. This suggests that the advanced mental capacities utilized in human future planning are shared by phylogenetically more ancient species than previously believed.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) and orangutan (Pongo abelii) forethought: self-control and pre-experience in the face of future tool use

Osvath¹,

Osvath²

2008

Anim Cogn

309

253

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Such explicit ''autonoetic consciousness'' is thought to emerge by retrieval of memory of personally experienced events (episodic memory) (2,3). The cerebral activation pattern of episodic memory retrieval differs from that of semantic retrieval (retrieval of common knowledge by ''familiarity''): e.g., activation of medial parietal cortex is characteristic of the former and activation of left lateral temporal lobe is characteristic of the latter (4).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Parietal cortex and representation of the mental Self

Lou

Luber

Crupain

et al. 2004

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

516

363

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

For a coherent and meaningful life, conscious self-representation is mandatory. Such explicit ''autonoetic consciousness'' is thought to emerge by retrieval of memory of personally experienced events (''episodic memory''). During episodic retrieval, functional imaging studies consistently show differential activity in medial prefrontal and medial parietal cortices. With positron-emission tomography, we here show that these medial regions are functionally connected and interact with lateral regions that are activated according to the degree of self-reference. During retrieval of previous judgments of Oneself, Best Friend, and the Danish Queen, activation increased in the left lateral temporal cortex and decreased in the right inferior parietal region with decreasing self-reference. Functionally, the former region was preferentially connected to medial prefrontal cortex, the latter to medial parietal. The medial parietal region may, then, be conceived of as a nodal structure in self-representation, functionally connected to both the right parietal and the medial prefrontal cortices. To determine whether medial parietal cortex in this network is essential for episodic memory retrieval with self-representation, we used transcranial magnetic stimulation over the region to transiently disturb neuronal circuitry. There was a decrease in the efficiency of retrieval of previous judgment of mental Self compared with retrieval of judgment of Other with transcranial magnetic stimulation at a latency of 160 ms, confirming the hypothesis. This network is strikingly similar to the network of the resting conscious state, suggesting that self-monitoring is a core function in resting consciousness.A ll subjective experience may be seen as self-conscious in the weak sense that there is something it feels like for the subject to have that experience. We may at times be selfconscious in a deep way, for example, when we are engaged in figuring out who we are and what we are going to do with our lives, a distinctly human experience giving organization, meaning, and structure to life. In its absence, our representation of ourselves and our world becomes kaleidoscopic and our life chaotic (1).Such explicit ''autonoetic consciousness'' is thought to emerge by retrieval of memory of personally experienced events (episodic memory) (2, 3). The cerebral activation pattern of episodic memory retrieval differs from that of semantic retrieval (retrieval of common knowledge by ''familiarity''): e.g., activation of medial parietal cortex is characteristic of the former and activation of left lateral temporal lobe is characteristic of the latter (4). First, we hypothesize that the cerebral activity pattern of retrieval of previous judgments of a person is determined not only by the episodic retrieval nature of the task, but also by the degree of self-reference of the judgment to be retrieved. Second, we hypothesize that the regions activated by retrieval of judgment of the mental Self are functionally interacting. This network would give a distinc...

show abstract

“…The content of semantic memory can show considerable intricacy and narrative coherence (for example, knowing the rules for how to behave and what to expect in a restaurant). Conversely, episodic memory can yield content of extreme simplicity (for instance, recollecting a single word from a list; e.g., Gardiner, 2001).…”

Section: The Causal Foundation Of Fmtt: An Argument For Autonoesismentioning

confidence: 99%

“…By contrast, the autonoetic/noetic criterion (and its assessment by "remember/know" tasks; e.g., Gardiner, 2001;Tulving, 1985) captures a fundamental feature of memory phenomenology, providing a rationally sound and empirically grounded means for identifying types of memorial experience. A strong implication of the relational view (see the section "Autonoetic consciousness is not intrinsic to episodic memory") is that prior to (or in the absence of) a concurrent act of autonoesis, retrieved content is system-neutral.…”

Section: Taking Stock: a Brief Synopsis Of Episodic Memory Autonoesimentioning

confidence: 99%

Autonoetic consciousness: Reconsidering the role of episodic memory in future-oriented self-projection

Klein

2016

Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Following the seminal work of Ingvar (1985. “Memory for the future”: An essay on the temporal organization of conscious awareness. Human Neurobiology, 4, 127–136), Suddendorf (1994. The discovery of the fourth dimension: Mental time travel and human evolution. Master's thesis. University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand), and Tulving (1985. Memory and consciousness. Canadian Psychology/PsychologieCanadienne, 26, 1–12), exploration of the ability to anticipate and prepare for future contingencies that cannot be known with certainty has grown into a thriving research enterprise. A fundamental tenet of this line of inquiry is that future-oriented mental time travel, in most of its presentations, is underwritten by a property or an extension of episodic recollection. However, a careful conceptual analysis of exactly how episodic memory functions in this capacity has yet to be undertaken. In this paper I conduct such an analysis. Based on conceptual, phenomenological, and empirical considerations, I conclude that the autonoetic component of episodic memory, not episodic memory per se, is the causally determinative factor enabling an individual to project him or herself into a personal future.

show abstract

Episodic memory and autonoetic consciousness: a first–person approach

Cited by 231 publications

References 58 publications

Chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) and orangutan (Pongo abelii) forethought: self-control and pre-experience in the face of future tool use

Chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) and orangutan (Pongo abelii) forethought: self-control and pre-experience in the face of future tool use

Parietal cortex and representation of the mental Self

Autonoetic consciousness: Reconsidering the role of episodic memory in future-oriented self-projection

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About