Investigating the representational structure of episodic simulation: a behavioral, neuro-cognitive, and developmental approach.
Biological Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience
Final Report Abstract
One of the most striking features of human cognition is how much of it is dedicated to circumstances that are unrelated to what is happening to us at any given moment: we routinely ‘mentally travel’ to circumstances currently not perceptually available to us. We can think of past events, future events, event kinds, possible events, and even events as they are experienced by someone else. These capacities do not just support a large range of human cognitive functioning, they also constitute a large chunk of our everyday cognitive activity. Evidence from a variety of disciplines within the cognitive sciences suggests that our capacities to mentally travel through time and space in this way rely on a single, integrated neuro-cognitive mechanism: episodic simulation. However, if all the diverse ways we can mentally leave the present moment are the product of a single underlying mechanism, the question emerges what explains the differences between our manifold mental event simulations? If what we remember and what we imagine are the products of the same neurocognitive system, what distinguishes different kinds of mental travels from each other? This project started to answer these questions. In particular, we focused on two salient aspects of mental event simulations: their differing temporal orientations and the distinction between memory and imagination (an event’s ‘mnemicity’). In two experimental projects and several theoretical contributions, we asked (1) whether an event’s temporal orientation is represented separately from its contents, (2) whether temporal orientation and mnemicity rely on separable representations , (3) what distinguishes mnemicity from an event’s ‘reality’ (i.e., whether it really happened or not), and (4) what the evolutionary and developmental origins of mnemicity might be. Regarding (1), Mahr, Greene, and Schacter (2021) found that people tended to recall a previously imagined event’s temporal orientation independently from the event’s contents. Further, regarding (2), Mahr and Schacter (2022) showed that differences along temporal orientation and mnemicity lead to separable error patterns in event recall suggesting that these aspects are represented separately in event simulation. Finally, regarding (3) and (4), building on these results as well as literature from developmental and cross-cultural psychology, Mahr (2023) and Mahr et al. (2023) proposed an account on which mnemicity should be distinguished from episodic reality monitoring. We argue that mnemicity is likely a distinctly human metacognitive capacity that develops as a result of social and cultural learning processes. The results of this work therefore importantly contribute to answering long-standing questions about the nature of the relationship between memory and imagination and their origin in human cognition, development, and evolution.
Publications
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A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away: How temporal are episodic contents?. Consciousness and Cognition, 96, 103224.
Mahr, Johannes B.; Greene, Joshua D. & Schacter, Daniel L.
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Mnemicity versus temporality: Distinguishing between components of episodic representations.. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 151(10), 2448-2465.
Mahr, Johannes B. & Schacter, Daniel L.
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A language of episodic thought? (commentary on Quilty-Dunn et al.). Center for Open Science.
Mahr, Johannes & Schacter, Daniel L.
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How to Become a Memory: The Individual and Collective Aspects of Mnemicity. Topics in Cognitive Science, 16(2), 225-240.
Mahr, Johannes B.
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Mnemicity: A Cognitive Gadget?. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 18(5), 1160-1177.
Mahr, Johannes B.; van Bergen, Penny; Sutton, John; Schacter, Daniel L. & Heyes, Cecilia
