Memory as mental time travel

Perrin, Denis; Michaelian, Kourken

doi:10.4324/9781315687315-19

Cited by 49 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 54 publications

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“…In developing their account, Hutto and Peeters appeal to three distinct bodies of theory, invoking treatments of remembering as, first, extended and embodied (Clark and Chalmers, 1998;Sutton and Williamson, 2014), second, reconstructive, simulative, or imaginative (Perrin and Michaelian, 2017;Sant'Anna, 2018;Michaelian et al, 201x), and, third, nonrepresentational or contentless (Loader, 2013;De Brigard, 2014). 3 The aspects of remembering on which the first two of these focus would seem, on the face of it, to pair naturally with an account of remembering as involving the retrieval of stored content, but Hutto and Peeters argue that they are in fact best accommodated by an enactivist version of the sort of contentless account suggested by the third.…”

Section: Radical Enactivism Meets the Philosophy Of Memorymentioning

confidence: 99%

Memory without content? Radical enactivism and (post)causal theories of memory

Michaelian

Sant’Anna

2019

Synthese

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Radical enactivism, an increasingly influential approach to cognition in general, has recently been applied to memory in particular, with Hutto and Peeters (2018) providing the first systematic discussion of the implications of the approach for mainstream philosophical theories of memory. Hutto and Peeters argue that radical enactivism, which entails a conception of memory traces as contentless, is fundamentally at odds with current causal and postcausal theories, which remain committed to a conception of traces as contentful: on their view, if radical enactivism is right, then the relevant theories are wrong. Partisans of the theories in question might respond to Hutto and Peeters' argument in two ways. First, they might challenge radical enactivism itself. Second, they might challenge the conditional claim that, if radical enactivism is right, then their theories are wrong. In this paper, we develop the latter response, arguing that, appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, radical enactivism in fact aligns neatly with an emerging tendency in the philosophy of memory: radical enactivists and causal and postcausal theorists of memory have begun to converge, for distinct but compatible reasons, on a contentless conception of memory traces. * Thanks for feedback to audiences at the Naturally Evolving Minds conference at the University of Wollongong in February 2018 and the Memory and Perception: Fishing for Connections workshop at the University of Otago in May 2018. Thanks also for written comments to Carl Craver and John Sutton and for extremely interesting reports to two referees.

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Section: Radical Enactivism Meets the Philosophy Of Memorymentioning

confidence: 99%

Memory without content? Radical enactivism and (post)causal theories of memory

Michaelian

Sant’Anna

2019

Synthese

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“…This finding corroborates theoretical and empirical work highlighting the high degree of similarity between episodic memory and episodic simulation (e.g., Addis, 2018;Buckner & Carroll, 2007;D'Argembeau & Van der Linden, 2004;Ingvar, 1985;McDermott & Gilmore, 2015;Spreng et al, 2009;Suddendorf & Corballis, 2007;Tulving, 1985), consistent with the view that episodic memory and episodic simulation are instantiations of one simulation system or a general faculty of mental time travel, as well as with philosophical positions of continuism, which argue that-apart from temporal orientation-there is no fundamental difference between episodic memory and episodic simulation (see e.g., Perrin & Michaelian, 2017). In line with this, Addis (2018) suggests a reconceptualisation of past-future differences as differences in 'associative history' (i.e., how often the details comprising the event have been temporally co-activated).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 54%

Relational processing demands and the role of spatial context in the construction of episodic simulations

Wiebels¹,

Addis²,

Moreau³

et al. 2019

Preprint

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Reports on differences between remembering the past and imagining the future have led to the hypothesis that constructing future events is a more cognitively demanding process.However, factors that influence these increased demands, such as whether the event has been previously constructed and the types of details comprising the event, have remained relatively unexplored. Across two experiments, we examined how these factors influence the process of constructing event representations by having participants repeatedly construct events and measuring how construction times and a range of phenomenological ratings changed across time points. In Experiment 1, we contrasted the construction of past and future events and found that, relative to past events, the constructive demands associated with future events are particularly heightened when these events are imagined for the first time. Across repeated simulations, future events became increasingly similar to past events in terms of construction times and incorporated detail. In Experiment 2, participants imagined future events involving two memory details (person, location) and then reimagined the event either i) exactly the same, ii) with a different person, or iii) in a different location. We predicted that if generating spatial information is particularly important for event construction, a change in location will have the greatest impact on constructive demands. Results showed that spatial context contributed to these heightened constructive demands more so than person details, consistent with theories highlighting the central role of spatial processing in episodic simulation. We discuss the findings from both studies in the light of relational processing demands and consider implications for current theoretical frameworks.

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“…The debate about the metaphysics of mental time travel is sti l very recent and, as with some of the other questions above, there are not we l-e a lished views in the literature. Despite this fact, I wi l fo low Per in and Michaelian (2017) here and distin uish between continuist and discontinuist metaphysical views of mental time travel. Continuists accept that the similarities between memory and other forms of mental time travel sup ort the more general view that they are occur ences of the same kind.…”

Section: The Metaphysics Of Mental Time Travelmentioning

confidence: 91%

“…A third and more general question refers to the relationship between memory and other forms of mental time travel, such as imagining future events. Because both are a result of similar cognitive capacities, the question of whether they belong to the same metaphysical kind becomes central (see Per in and Michaelian, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Mental time travel and the philosophy of memory

Sant’Anna

2018

Filosofia Unisinos

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The idea that episodic memory is a form of mental time travel has played an important role in the development of memory research in the last couple of decades. Despite its growing importance in psychology, philosophers have only begun to develop an interest in philosophical questions pertaining to the relationship between memory and mental time travel. Thus, this paper proposes a more systematic discussion of the relationship between memory and mental time travel from the point of view of philosophy. I start by discussing some of the motivations to take memory to be a form of mental time travel. I call the resulting view of memory the mental time travel view. I then proceed to consider important philosophical questions pertaining to memory and develop them in the context of the mental time travel view. I conclude by suggesting that the intersection of the philosophy of memory and research on mental time travel not only provides new perspectives to think about traditional philosophical questions, but also new questions that have not been explored before.

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Memory as mental time travel

Cited by 49 publications

References 54 publications

Memory without content? Radical enactivism and (post)causal theories of memory

Memory without content? Radical enactivism and (post)causal theories of memory

Relational processing demands and the role of spatial context in the construction of episodic simulations

Mental time travel and the philosophy of memory

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