In this chapter we examine the tendency to view future-oriented mental time travel as a unitary faculty that, despite task-driven surface variation, ultimately reduces to a common phenomenological state. We review evidence that FMTT is neither unitary nor beholden to episodic memory: Rather, it is varied both in its memorial underpinnings and experiential realization. We conclude that the phenomenological diversity characterizing FMTT is dependent not on the type of memory activated during task performance, but on the kind of subjective temporality (...) associated with the memory in play. (shrink)

This introductory chapter reviews research on future-oriented mental time travel to date (the past), provides an overview of the contents of the book (the present), and enumerates some possible research directions suggested by the latter (the future).

Spatial models dominated memory research throughout much of the 20th century, but in recent decades, the concept of memory as a form of mental time travel (MTT) to the past has gained prominence. Initially introduced as a metaphor, the MTT perspective shifted the focus from internal memory processes to the subjective conscious experience of remembering. Despite its significant impact on empirical and theoretical memory research, there has been limited discussion regarding the meaning and adequacy of the MTT metaphor in accounting (...) for memory. While previous work has addressed the general limitations of the MTT metaphor in explaining memory (Trakas, 2022), the objective of this article is more focused and modest: to gain a better understanding of what constitutes MTT to the past. To achieve this objective, a detailed analysis of the characteristics of MTT to the past is presented through a comparison with time travel (TT) to the past. Although acknowledging that TT does not refer to an existing physical phenomenon, it is an older concept extensively discussed in the philosophical literature and provides commonly accepted grounds, particularly within orthodox theories of time, that can offer insights into the nature of MTT. Six specific characteristics serve as points of comparison: (1) a destination distinct from the present, (2) the distinction between subjective time and objective time, (3) the subjective experience of the time traveler, (4) their differentiation from the past self, (5) the existence of the past, and (6) its unchangeability. Through this research, a detailed exploration of the phenomenal and metaphysical aspects of MTT to the past is undertaken, shedding light on the distinct features that mental time travel to the past acquires when it occurs within the realm of the mind rather than as a physical phenomenon. By examining these characteristics, a deeper understanding of the nature of mental time travel is achieved, offering insights into how it operates in relation to memory and the past. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn joint episodic memory—or joint reminiscing—two or more individuals retrieve together an experience that they had previously encoded while socially engaged with one another. In this commentary, I focus on the question of how Ganeri's [2018] analysis of individual episodic memory might be applicable to joint reminiscing. I explore three topics that are of relevance for answering this question: intersubjectivity, attention, and the phenomenology of reminiscing.

Does the self exist? If so, what is its nature? How long do selves last? Galen Strawson draws on literature and psychology as well as philosophy to discuss various ways we experience having or being a self. He argues that it is legitimate to say that there is such a thing as the self, distinct from the human being.

In the philosophy of memory there is a tension between a preservationist and a constructivist view of memory reflected in the debate between causalism and simulationism. Causalism is not only committed to the claim that there must be an appropriate causal connection between the remembered event and the content represented at retrieval but also that such connection is possible because of a content-preserving memory trace. Simulationism, by contrast, rejects the need for an appropriate causal condition and, thereby, makes the appeal (...) to memory traces unnecessary. In this paper I argue that while the are strong conceptual arguments and empirical evidence to support a constructivist view of memory, the empirical evidence also suggest that the initial formulation of simulationism needs to be revised. In particular, I argue, first, that simulationism’s commitment to a single cognitive system for mental time travel is likely wrong, and second, that simulationism cannot get rid of memory traces altogether, as they are still explanatorily indispensable when it comes to explaining a large number of memory-related phenomena. At the end, I end up suggesting a way of thinking about memory traces that, I think, is compatible with simulationism and a constructivist view of memory. If the view I put forth is on the right track, then an updated version of simulationism can help to dispel the dichotomy between causalism and simulationism as a false one. (shrink)

Previous studies have found that reward effect is stronger for more difficult to retrieve items, but whether this effect holds true for the associative memory remains unclear too. We investigated the effects and neural mechanisms of the different unitization depths and reward sets on encoding associative memory using event-related potentials, which were recorded through a Neuroscan system with a 64-channel electrode cap according to the international 10–20 system, and five electrodes were selected for analysis. Thirty healthy college students took part (...) in this study. During encoding, participants were carried out two encoding tasks, a congruity-judgment task with high unitization and a color-judgment task with low unitization, with half of the items rewarded. The test phase was conducted immediately after the encoding phase. The results for false alarm rates and Prs in relational retrieval revealed that the reward differences in the color-judgment task were greater than those in the congruity-judgment task. The ERP results further showed significant reward effects at P300 and LPP in the color-judgment task both for intact and rearranged items, and the reward effects at LPP were distributed more widely than the reward effects at P300 in the color-judgment task. These results suggest that reward provided a greater boost when retrieving associative memory of low unitized items. (shrink)

Mental time travel is the capacity to imagine the autobiographical past and future. Schizotypy is a dimensional measure of psychosis-like traits found to be associated with creativity and imagination. Here, we examine the phenomenological qualities of mental time travel in highly schizotypal individuals. After recollecting past episodes and imagining future events , those scoring highly on positive schizotypy reported a greater sense of ‘autonoetic awareness,’ defined as a greater feeling of mental time travel and re-living/‘pre-living’ imagined events. Furthermore, in contrast (...) to other sensory domains, imagery of the past and future episodes contained more olfactory detail in these high scorers. The results are discussed in relation to previous reports of anomalous olfactory experiences in schizotypy and heightened vividness of olfactory imagery in post-traumatic stress disorder, for which schizotypy is a risk factor. (shrink)

The Remember–Know paradigm is commonly used to examine experiential states during recognition. In this paradigm, whether a Know response is defined as a high-confidence state of certainty or a low-confidence state based on familiarity varies across researchers, and differences in definitions and instructions have been shown to influence participants’ responding. Using a novel approach, in three internet-based questionnaires participants were placed in the role of ‘memory expert’ and classified others’ justifications of recognition decisions. Results demonstrated that participants reliably differentiated between (...) others’ memory experiences – both in terms of confidence and other inherent differences in the justifications. Furthermore, under certain conditions, manipulations of confidence were found to shift how items were assigned to subjective experience categories . Findings are discussed in relation to the relationship between subjective experience and confidence, and the separation of Know and Familiar response categories within the Remember–Know paradigm. (shrink)

In three experiments, picture quality between test items was manipulated to examine whether subjects’ expectations about the fluency normally associated with these different stimuli might influence the effects of fluency on preference or familiarity-based recognition responses. The results showed that fluency due to pre-exposure influenced responses less when objects were presented with high picture quality, suggesting that attributions of fluency to preference and familiarity are adjusted according to expectations about the different test pictures. However, this expectations influence depended on subjects’ (...) awareness of these different quality levels. Indeed, imperceptible differences seemed not to induce expectations about the test item fluency. In this context, fluency due to both picture quality and pre-exposure influenced direct responses. Conversely, obvious, and noticed, differences in test picture quality did no affect responses, suggesting that expectations moderated attributions of fluency only when fluency normally associated with these different stimuli was perceptible but difficult to assess. (shrink)

The paper develops an account of minimal traces devoid of representational content and exploits an analogy to a predictive processing framework of perception. As perception can be regarded as a prediction of the present on the basis of sparse sensory inputs without any representational content, episodic memory can be conceived of as a “prediction of the past” on the basis of a minimal trace, i.e., an informationally sparse, merely causal link to a previous experience. The resulting notion of episodic memory (...) will be validated as a natural kind distinct from imagination. This trace minimalist view contrasts with two theory camps dominating the philosophical debate on memory. On one side, we face versions of the Causal Theory that hold on to the idea that episodic remembering requires a memory trace that causally links the event of remembering to the event of experience and carries over representational content from the content of experience to the content of remembering. The Causal Theory, however, fails to account for the epistemic generativity of episodic memory and is psychologically and information-theoretically implausible. On the other side, a new camp of simulationists is currently forming up. Motivated by empirical and conceptual deficits of the Causal Theory, they reject not only the necessity of preserving representational content, but also the necessity of a causal link between experience and memory. They argue that remembering is nothing but a peculiar form of imagination, peculiar only in that it has been reliably produced and is directed towards an episode of one’s personal past. Albeit sharing their criticism of the Causal Theory and, in particular, rejecting its demand for an intermediary carrier of representational content, the paper argues that a causal connection to experience is still necessary to fulfill even the minimal requirements of past-directedness and reliability. (shrink)

ABSTRACTGaneri's [2018] article considers three distinct Buddhist accounts of episodic memory to see whether they are able to give a coherent conception of memory while defusing the weight of the self-implication requirement, which he associates most strongly with Endel Tulving's work on episodic memory and autonoetic consciousness. The aim of this commentary is not to consider whether they are successful in this task, but rather to argue that the task itself is unnecessary. Despite the undeniable strengths of Tulving's position, not (...) only does it appear to offer a far too literal account of episodic memory as a form of mental time travel, but the specific version of the self-implication requirement that Tulving appears to affirm confuses the fact that a self is implicated in episodic memory with the idea that episodic memory always implicates myself, in the sense of the one who is having the memory. (shrink)

Autobiographical memory (AM) is closely linked to the self-concept, and fulfills directive, identity, social, and adaptive functions. Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are now known to have atypical AM, which may be closely associated with social communication difficulties. This may result in qualitatively different autobiographical narratives, notably regarding social identity. In the present study, we sought to investigate this concept and develop a cognitive intervention targeting individuals with ASD. First, 13 adolescents with ASD and 13 typically developing adolescents underwent (...) an AM interview featuring an original coding system designed to analyze the social self. We observed that the narratives produced by the ASD group focused more on the family than on extended social spheres, compared with those of the comparison group. Moreover, participants with ASD did not include themselves in the social groups they mentioned, and produced more references to others, compared with typically developing participants. Second, we designed a cognitive intervention program consisting of individual and group sessions that targeted AM. We conducted a pilot study among three adolescents with ASD aged 12, 16, and 17 years. Preliminary results showed that the program increased extra-family narrative references by the two youngest adolescents, who produced more social integration markers. Our study of autobiographical narratives yielded interesting findings about social positioning in ASD and showed how AM can be targeted in rehabilitation programs as a vector of social interaction. (shrink)

ABSTRACTAlthough the concept of mental time travel refers to autonoetic consciousness, I argue that it should prove worthwhile to analyse the apparent similarities between mental time travel and historical operations undertaken by historians in their attempt to understand the autonoetic consciousness of historical agents. I, therefore, analyse arguments presented by R.G. Collingwood as well as by Paul Ricœur, and then reconsider the result hereof within the context of Jonardon Ganeri's [2018] analysis of mental time travel, thereby intending to further outline (...) the scope and the limits of the concept of mental time travel. (shrink)

A commentary on a target article by Alison Gopnik (1993) How we know our minds: the illusion of first-person knowledge of intentionality. Focusing on evidence of how children acquire a theory of mind, this commentary argues that there are internal inconsistencies in theories that both argue for the functional role of conscious experiences and the irreducibility of those experiences to third-person viewable information processing.

The broad spectrum revolution brought greater dependence on skill and knowledge, and more demanding, often social, choices. We adopt Sterelny's account of how cooperative foraging paid the costs associated with longer dependency, and transformed the problem of skill learning. Scaffolded learning can facilitate cognitive control including suppression, whereas scaffolded exchange and trade, including inter-temporal exchange, can help develop resolve.

The binary remember/know task requires participants to dichotomize their subjective recognition experiences into those with recollection and those only with familiarity. Many variables have produced dissociative effects on remember/know judgments. In contrast, having participants make independent recollection/familiarity ratings has consistently produced parallel effects, suggesting the dissociations may be artifacts of using binary judgments. Bodner and Lindsay reported a test-list context effect with binary judgments: Increased remembering but decreased knowing for a set of critical items tested with a set of less-memorable (...) items. Here we report a parallel effect of test-list context on recollection and familiarity ratings, induced by a shift in response bias. We argue that independent ratings are preferable to binary judgments because they allow participants to directly report the co-occurrence of recollection and familiarity for each item. Implications for the measurement of self-reported recognition experiences, and for accounts of recognition memory, are discussed. (shrink)

The relation between conscious recollection and source memory for perceptual details was investigated in three experiments that combined the remember–know paradigm with a multidimensional source monitoring test. Experiment 1 replicated that source memory for perceptual details is better in the case of “remember” than “know” judgments. Experiment 2 showed that the relation between “remember” judgments and source memory for perceptual details is diminished by a semantic orienting task during encoding. Experiment 3 demonstrated that “remember” judgments are related to enhanced source (...) memory for specific and unique kinds of perceptual source information, whereas memory for incomplete and global perceptual source information does not differentiate between “remember” and “know” judgments. The results show that the attentional focus during encoding and the specificity of retrieved source information form boundary conditions for the use of source memory for perceptual details as a basis of “remember” judgments. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn my response to Ganeri's [2018] paper, I take Buddhagosha's deflationary account of episodic memory one step further through the analysis of the Madhyamaka philosopher Candrakīrti who, like Buddhagosha, explicitly defends episodic memory as a recollection of the objects experienced in the past, rather than subjective experience. However, unlike Buddhagosha, Candrakīrti deflates episodic memory by showing the incoherence of the Sautrāntika-Yogācāra's thesis that episodic memory requires the admission of reflexive awareness. Also unlike Buddhagosha, Candrakīrti shows the incoherence of the Mimāṁsāka-Naiyāyika's (...) self-implication requirement thesis, therefore directly countering Tulving's challenge to the Buddhist philosophers, by arguing that episodic memory is capable of mental time travel without any reference to the operation of enduring self. I will thus suggest that Candrakīrti may have even greater success in deflating the self-implication requirement of episodic memory. (shrink)

In three experiments, picture quality between test items was manipulated to examine whether subjects’ expectations about the fluency normally associated with these different stimuli might influence the effects of fluency on preference or familiarity-based recognition responses. The results showed that fluency due to pre-exposure influenced responses less when objects were presented with high picture quality, suggesting that attributions of fluency to preference and familiarity are adjusted according to expectations about the different test pictures. However, this expectations influence depended on subjects’ (...) awareness of these different quality levels. Indeed, imperceptible differences seemed not to induce expectations about the test item fluency. In this context, fluency due to both picture quality and pre-exposure influenced direct responses. Conversely, obvious, and noticed, differences in test picture quality did no affect responses, suggesting that expectations moderated attributions of fluency only when fluency normally associated with these different stimuli was perceptible but difficult to assess. (shrink)

In a dynamic world, mechanisms allowing prediction of future situations can provide a selective advantage. We suggest that memory systems differ in the degree of flexibility they offer for anticipatory behavior and put forward a corresponding taxonomy of prospection. The adaptive advantage of any memory system can only lie in what it contributes for future survival. The most flexible is episodic memory, which we suggest is part of a more general faculty of mental time travel that allows us not only (...) to go back in time, but also to foresee, plan, and shape virtually any specific future event. We review comparative studies and find that, in spite of increased research in the area, there is as yet no convincing evidence for mental time travel in nonhuman animals. We submit that mental time travel is not an encapsulated cognitive system, but instead comprises several subsidiary mechanisms. A theater metaphor serves as an analogy for the kind of mechanisms required for effective mental time travel. We propose that future research should consider these mechanisms in addition to direct evidence of future-directed action. We maintain that the emergence of mental time travel in evolution was a crucial step towards our current success. (shrink)

Are humans alone in their ability to reminisce about the past and imagine the future? Recent evidence suggests that food-storing birds (scrub jays) have access to information about what they have stored where and when. This has raised the possibility of mental time travel (MTT) in animals and sparked similar research with other species. Here we caution that such data do not provide convincing evidence for MTT. Examination of characteristics of human MTT (e.g. non-verbal declaration, generativity, developmental prerequisites) points to (...) other avenues as to how a case for animal MTT could be made. In light of the current lack of evidence, however, we maintain that MTT is a uniquely human characteristic. (shrink)

Hilary Kornblith argues that many traditional philosophical accounts involve problematic views of reflection. According to Kornblith, reflection does not add reliability, which makes it unfit to underlie a separate form of knowledge. We show that a broader understanding of reflection, encompassing Type 2 processes, working memory, and episodic long-term memory, can provide philosophy with elucidating input that a restricted view misses. We further argue that reflection in fact often does add reliability, through generalizability, flexibility, and creativity that is helpful in (...) newly encountered situations, even if the restricted sense of both reflection and knowledge is accepted. And so, a division of knowledge into one reflexive form and one reflective form remains a plausible, and possibly fruitful, option. (shrink)

Hilary Kornblith argues that many traditional philosophical accounts involve problematic views of reflection (understood as second-order mental states). According to Kornblith, reflection does not add reliability, which makes it unfit to underlie a separate form of knowledge. We show that a broader understanding of reflection, encompassing Type 2 processes, working memory, and episodic long-term memory, can provide philosophy with elucidating input that a restricted view misses. We further argue that reflection in fact often does add reliability, through generalizability, flexibility, and (...) creativity that is helpful in newly encountered situations, even if the restricted sense of both reflection and knowledge is accepted. And so, a division of knowledge into one reflexive (animal) form and one reflective form remains a plausible, and possibly fruitful, option. (shrink)