Memory Mistakes: Procedural Memory and beyond

• Applicant: Urim Retkoceri, Ph.D.
• Subject Area: Theoretical Philosophy
• Term: since 2025
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 569936982

Modern memory research has shown that memories are not simply copies of the past. Instead, every time we remember something, memories are reconstructed over and over again, and each time a bit differently. However, if memories are different every time we remember, what distinguishes genuine memories from false memories? Likewise, nowadays, it is uncontested that there are different types of memory. Roughly speaking, there are declarative memories (verbally expressible, e.g., the memory of a bike tour) and nondeclarative memories (practically expressible, e.g., actually riding a bike as such). Philosophical theories accept this plurality of memory types but, surprisingly, disregard it almost completely in their analyses of memory. This research project investigates the intersection between false memories and nondeclarative memories and with that distinguishes different types of memory mistakes. Insights from that approach are then applied to a number of different practical fields and the contemporary debates on declarative memory in general. Therefore, the project strives to establish a systematic analysis of memory mistakes. Step 1: Procedural memory mistakes. Current philosophical theories of declarative memory are not readily applicable to procedural memory (a subgroup of non-declarative memories). Therefore, in a first step, this project conceptualizes a theory of different procedural memory mistakes. In philosophy, this opens up new areas of philosophical research on other forms of nondeclarative memory. In psychology, classical research paradigms (such as interference theory) are refined. Finally, practical applications in different fields (such as in machine design) are improved. Step 2: Affective memory mistakes. The theory of procedural memory mistakes developed in step 1 serves as the basis for a description of affective memory mistakes. Memory of emotions (or affective associations) suggests itself well for such an endeavor due to its similarities to procedural memories. On a theoretical level, such an approach illuminates similarities and differences between procedural memory and affective associative memory. On a practical level, it enables new ways of viewing, and with that also treating, psychiatric disorders which are characterized by dysfunctional interactions between emotions and memories (such as in posttraumatic stress disorders). Step 3: What can be learned from this for declarative memory? In a final step, the account developed here is applied to declarative types of memory and declarative memory mistakes. In this way, differences and commonalities between nondeclarative and declarative types of memory are described. This enables to show that what characterizes memory mistakes is that either something is correctly remembered but it was not what was tried to be remembered, or the alleged memory is accompanied by a false belief. In this way, novel approaches are developed in the contemporary philosophy of memory.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: France
• Co-Investigators: Professor Dr. Sven Bernecker; Professor Dr. Martin Korte
• Cooperation Partner: Professor Kourken Michaelian, Ph.D.