Memory and Imagination 101

Daniel Schacter
William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Psychology, Harvard
Growing scientific interest in the relationship between memory and imagination has been sparked by the observation of striking similarities in the brain regions recruited when people remember past experiences and imagine future experiences. According to the constructive episodic simulation hypothesis, simulation of future and other hypothetical experiences depends in part on episodic retrieval processes that allow individuals to flexibly recombine elements of previous experiences. However, these processes may also be responsible for some memory errors. This talk will consider cognitive and neural evidence from studies of episodic remembering, future imagining, memory distortion, and creative thinking that reveal the operation of constructive episodic simulation processes and provide clues concerning their nature and function.