Experimental research about reliability, emotional expression, and possible fantasy and illusion in memories of NDEs is a new field of study. NDEs are stored as episodic memory and constitute an important part of the self-defining memory. NDE memories appear as real as memories of real events, and may contain even more detail and vividness than memories of real events. NED memories also seem to include illusions that may help a person to interpret their extraordinary experience. EEG data suggest that NDE memories reproduce illusions that were encoded as if they were real events. Studies on the encoding, storage, and retrieval of memories built in altered states of consciousness, such as states of dreaming or generation of hallucinations, can be used to model the encoding, storage, and retrieval of NDE memories.

This chapter argues that beliefs are causally effective representational states. They admit of two main kinds: episodic and semantic forms of memory. These are argued to be distinct, although they have overlapping origins. The chapter also discusses the states often described as beliefs that result from one making up one’s mind (forming a judgment), but many of which are really commitments (a type of intention). The relations between episodic memory and imagination are also discussed. The chapter then examines the idea that moral judgments can be directly motivating, showing that it contains an element of truth. Finally, the chapter critiques a claim that has become popular among armchair-philosophers, that knowledge is a basic kind of intrinsically factive mental state.

This chapter focuses on long-term memory in animals, which relates to the research conducted with humans. Section 11.1 shows that rats, cats, and monkeys have the same medial temporal lobe organization as humans. The perirhinal cortex is associated with item memory, the parahippocampal cortex is associated with context memory, and the hippocampus is associated with binding item information and context information. In Section 11.2, long-term potentiation in the hippocampus is discussed. Section 11.3 reviews evidence for memory replay in rats, which refers to reactivation of the same brain regions in the same or the reverse temporal sequence that were activated during a previous event. In Section 11.4, time cells in the rat hippocampus are discussed. Section 11.5 considers the behavioral evidence and the brain evidence that indicates animals have episodic memory. This has proven to be a controversial topic because animals cannot tell us whether or not they “remember.”

This chapter considers the brain regions associated with long-term memory, a type of explicit memory. Long-term memory can be broken down into episodic memory and semantic memory. Episodic memory refers to the detailed retrieval of a previous episode. Semantic memory refers to the retrieval of factual information. The first two sections of the chapter consider the brain regions associated with episodic memory and semantic memory. Section 3.3 considers long-term memory consolidation (i.e., the process of creating more permanent memory representations in the brain). In Section 3.4, the role of sleep in long-term memory consolidation is examined. Long-term memory consolidation requires the interaction between multiple brain regions in which activity oscillates at specific frequencies. Section 3.5 reviews the brain regions associated with memory encoding. In Section 3.6, the brain regions associated with event boundaries (e.g., transitions between scenes in a movie) are discussed, and it is argued that the reported effects reflect the processing of novel information.

In this chapter, we delve into the intriguing world of memory development, from infancy to adulthood. We begin by emphasizing the fundamental role memory plays in learning. We explore two distinct memory systems: one we are conscious of and another that operates behind the scenes. We examine various memory types, their testing methods, and the brain regions responsible for them. Our focus then shifts to episodic memory, questioning its exclusivity to humans. We dissect the brain structures involved in memory formation and their developmental changes. Additionally, we explore the interconnectedness of memory, thinking processes, and decision-making. Our goal in this chapter is to provide a comprehensive understanding of memory development across different life stages, laying the groundwork for a deeper grasp of this intricate cognitive process.

Computational models of episodic memory provide tools to better understand the latent neurocognitive processes underlying retention of information about specific events from one’s life. This chapter discusses the representations, associations, and dynamics of influential models of episodic memory, with particular emphasis on models of recognition and free recall tasks. In-depth discussion and model-fitting results of four models – the retrieving effectively from memory (REM) model, the bind cue decide model of episodic memory (BCDMEM), the search of associative memory (SAM) model, and the temporal context model (TCM) – are provided to facilitate understanding of these models, as well as similarities and differences between them. Alternative modeling frameworks, including neural network models, are discussed. Throughout, the importance of context in models of episodic memory is emphasized, particularly for free recall tasks.

The idea that memory behavior relies on a gradually changing internal state has a long history in mathematical psychology. This chapter traces this line of thought from statistical learning theory in the 1950s, through distributed memory models in the latter part of the twentieth century and early part of the twenty-first century through to modern models based on a scale-invariant temporal history. We discuss the neural phenomena consistent with this form of representation and sketch the kinds of cognitive models that can be constructed and connections with formal models of various memory tasks.

This chapter discusses the kind, episodic memory, which has recently garnered a great deal of attention from philosophers. In light of current empirical work, it has become increasingly challenging to accept an influential and intuitively plausible philosophical account of memory, namely the “causal theory of memory.” It is unlikely that each episodic memory can be associated with a trace or “engram” that can be shown to be linked by an uninterrupted causal chain to an episode in the thinker’s past. Some philosophers and psychologists have responded by effectively abandoning the category of episodic memory and assimilating memory to imagination or hypothetical thinking. But I argue that there is still room for a distinct cognitive kind, episodic memory, a cognitive capacity whose function it is to generate representational states that are connected to past episodes in the experience of the thinker, which bear traces of these episodes that are individuated not at the neural level but at the “computational level.”

Metacognition, or awareness of one’s cognition, involves several different but overlapping cognitive abilities, such as working memory, explicit memory, monitoring, and control. These processes are guided by multiple internal or external signals, including memory signals in the case of metamemory. Primate species including apes and rhesus monkeys have demonstrated that they can respond to both internal and external signals, and like humans, these signals can be additive and fallible. In the past few decades, there have been about five dozen studies published on nonhuman animal metacognition and while robust results have been obtained, rigorous experimental paradigms have been employed, and general progress has been made, there is a still a lot we do not know. For example, there are only a few species whose metacognitive abilities have been relatively well characterized, and even in those species significant open questions remain. After an introduction, what is known and what is not known will be explored. Similarities and differences among different primate species will be highlighted. As the chapter is comparative in nature, disparities in behavioral findings across apes and monkeys, New World and Old World monkeys, as well as primates and non-primate species will be explored. The extent to which methods can or cannot be standardized across species will be discussed, with special consideration of species’ ecological niches and experimental methods typically employed. Limitations in nonhuman metacognition research will also be considered, including the fact that most metacognition studies focus on just one species. Finally, possibilities for promising future directions in research will be offered.