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Episodic Memory as Re-Experiential Memory: Kantian, Developmental, and Neuroscientific Currents

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Abstract

Recent work on the early development of episodic memory in my laboratory has been fuelled by the following assumption: if episodic memory is re-experiential memory then Kant’s analysis of the spatiotemporal nature of experience should constrain and positively influence theories of episodic memory development. The idea is that re-experiential memory will “inherit” these spatiotemporal features. On the basis of this assumption, Russell and Hanna (Mind and Language 27(1):29–54, 2012) proposed that (a) the spatial element of re-experience is egocentric and (b) that the temporal element of re-experiencing involves order/simultaneity. The first of these assumptions is immediately problematic for two reasons. In the first place, if we assume that early episodic recall mediated by processing in the hippocampus, then (a) is clearly in tension with the fact that spatial coding in the hippocampus is allocentric/environment-centred. Second, two of our own recent experiments (described here) show that when only egocentric cues are available in a What/When/Where episodic memory task it is not possible to distinguish young children’s performance from semantic memory. I argue that this tension should be resolved by recognising that the egocentric coding of the original experience as being of an objective scene relies upon allocentric representations and these are preserved in re-experiential memory, allowing a recollection of the objective nature of the scene on which one takes a subjective view.

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Notes

  1. This is a strange position, as it tacitly assumes that in the human case verbal reports provide us with a reliable dip-stick-like report on a subject’s phenomenology.

  2. In the What-When-Where task, there was ½ chance of picking the correct icon animal initially, then a ¼ chance of moving it to the correct corner, then another ½ chance of picking the second animal correctly, followed by a ¼ chance of moving it to the correct corner. In the What-What-What task there was a ½ chance of picking one of the two correct hats, followed by a ½ chance of putting this on the correct animal, followed by a ½ chance of putting this in the correct box; after this a ¼ chance of picking the other correct hat. As there was now only one animal remaining this was followed by a ½ chance of putting the hat-wearing animal in the correct box.

  3. Because it was not possible to calculate the probability of performing one of the correct actions ‘by chance’ (in contrast to choosing one of the animals previously) we computed chance only for those children who had performed both of the actions. The overwhelming majority of the children did so, in fact.

  4. I do not wish to give the impression that episodic memory can be simply reduced to a visuospatial perspective. This oversells the visual and undersells the emotional, evaluative, and kinaesthetic. That said, the points that need making in what follows can be made by taking “perspectival-egocentric” as the synecdoche for this full set.

  5. Some readers may balk at the addition of this representational layer; but the issue is out of the mainstream of the paper.

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Russell, J. Episodic Memory as Re-Experiential Memory: Kantian, Developmental, and Neuroscientific Currents. Rev.Phil.Psych. 5, 391–411 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13164-014-0194-3

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