Episodic Representation: A Mental Models Account

Overview

Journal Front Psychol

Date 2022 Aug 8

PMID 35936308

Authors

Nikola Andonovski

Affiliations

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Abstract

This paper offers a modeling account of episodic representation. I argue that the episodic system constructs : representations that preserve the spatiotemporal structure of represented domains. In prototypical cases, these domains are events: occurrences taken by subjects to have characteristic structures, dynamics and relatively determinate beginnings and ends. Due to their simplicity and manipulability, mental event models can be used in a variety of cognitive contexts: in remembering the personal past, but also in future-oriented and counterfactual imagination. As structural representations, they allow surrogative reasoning, supporting inferences about their constituents which can be used in reasoning about the represented events.

Citing Articles

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Mahr J, Schacter D Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2024; 379(1913):20230409.

PMID: 39278249 PMC: 11496720. DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2023.0409.

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