Are episodic memory and episodic simulation different in kind?

2025/01/16 by Arieh Schwartz · 1 voice · 2 citations
Neuroscience · Psychology · #Child and Animal Learning Development #Memory Processes and Influences #Memory and Neural Mechanisms

paper · doi:10.1080/09515089.2025.2451819

openalex publication_date 2025/01/16 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/23

Abstract

Simulation theory is a radical and yet increasingly popular view about episodic memory. It is the view that episodic memory and episodic simulation are the same natural kind. I argue that while simulation theory offers an important insight, it also makes an overreach. While episodic memory and episodic simulation likely reflect a common natural kind, they also differ in natural kind. They differ in natural kind because episodic memory is partly defined by projectible properties and memory trace mechanisms that episodic simulation lacks.

Citations

• What is episodic memory if it is a natural kind?
• Is memory for remembering? Recollection as a form of episodic hypothetical thinking
• Multiple trace theory of human memory: Computational, neuroimaging, and neuropsychological results

Cited by

• Memory and imagination: toward discontinuist simulationism
• Varieties of memory, varieties of reconstruction, varieties of memory trace

Discussions

• Latest papers: Arieh Schwartz argues that while simulation theory offers an important insight into episodic memory, it also makes an overreach in this open access article doi.org/10.1080/0951... [bsky, 6 points, 0 comments]

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