On the nature of episodic memory: two views from Tulving César Schirmer dos Santos [email protected] https://mnem.xyz/ Nov. 11, 2019
episodic memory store. (Tulving 1972, Introduction 385–386)
This handout is a very short introduction to This is the so-called www view of episodic the debate about the nature of episodic memory, according to which to remember memory. It presents two views proposed by episodically is to remember what, where and Tulving, and a criticism. when something happened.
Semantic, episodic A problem The distinction between episodic and This view has a problem: it includes some semantic memory comes from Tulving instances of semantic memory as cases of (1972). Semantic memory is a “mental episodic memory. Example: remembering that [ thesaurus” (Tulving 1972, 385). Episodic what memory: Uruguay] was [where the Cisplatine Province] [when at the beginning of the nineteenth Episodic memory receives and stores century]. information about temporally dated For this reason, this view is replaced episodes and events, and by the autonoetic view of episodic memory. temporal-spatial relations among these events. A perceptual event can be stored in the episodic system solely in Autonoesis terms of its perceptible properties and attributes, and it is always stored in Autonoesis is a kind of consciousness terms of its autobiographical reference (Tulving 1985, 3): to the already existing | contents of the episodic memory store. The act of retrieval of information from the episodic memory store, in addition to making the retrieval contents accessible to inspection, also serves as a special type of input into episodic memory and thus changes the contents of the
1 processing, whereas episodic memory is based on narratives, which bind event memories into a retrievable whole that is temporally and causally organized around subject’s goals. (Keven 2016, 2497)
Event memory: remembering an event from the personal past with no mental time travel.
Thanks to Guilherme Moraes Corrêa, Matheus Werberich Diesel, Marcos Panciera, Bruna
Natália Richter, Farid Zahnoun.
To be in an autonoetic conscious state is to put oneself in subjective time: References
A normal healthy person who possesses Keven, Nazim. 2016. “Events, Narratives and Memory.” Synthese 193 (8): 2497–2517. autonoetic consciousness is capable of https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-015-0862-6. becoming aware of her own past as well as her own future: she is capable of Tulving, Endel. 1972. “Episodic and Semantic Memory.” In Organization of Memory, edited by mental time travel, roaming at will over what has happened as readily as over Endel Tulving and Thomas Donaldson, what might happen, independently of 381–402. New York: Academic Press. physical laws that govern the universe. http://web.media.mit.edu/~jorkin/generals/ papers/Tulving_memory.pdf. (Tulving 1985, 5) Tulving, Endel. 1985. “Memory and Consciousness.” Canadian Psychology/Psychologie Autonoetic consciousness “[e]ncompasses Canadienne 26 (1): 1–12. personal time” and is a “[n]ecessary https://doi.org/10.1037/h0080017. component of remembering of events” (Tulving 1985, 5).
Event memory This view of episodic memory is contested in many ways. For instance, it seems plausible to distinguish between event memory (very similar to www episodic memory, with no mental time travel) and episodic memory:
Event memory is a perceptual system that evolved to support adaptive short-term goal
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