Autonoetic consciousness: Reconsidering the role of episodic memory in future-oriented self-projection

Abstract

Following the seminal work of Ingvar (1985. “Memory for the future”: An essay on the temporal organization of conscious awareness. Human Neurobiology, 4, 127–136), Suddendorf (1994. The discovery of the fourth dimension: Mental time travel and human evolution. Master's thesis. University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand), and Tulving (1985. Memory and consciousness. Canadian Psychology/PsychologieCanadienne, 26, 1–12), exploration of the ability to anticipate and prepare for future contingencies that cannot be known with certainty has grown into a thriving research enterprise. A fundamental tenet of this line of inquiry is that future-oriented mental time travel, in most of its presentations, is underwritten by a property or an extension of episodic recollection. However, a careful conceptual analysis of exactly how episodic memory functions in this capacity has yet to be undertaken. In this paper I conduct such an analysis. Based on conceptual, phenomenological, and empirical considerations, I conclude that the autonoetic component of episodic memory, not episodic memory per se, is the causally determinative factor enabling an individual to project him or herself into a personal future.

Keywords:

• Episodic memory
• Autonoetic awareness
• Future-oriented mental time travel

Notes

¹However, review papers published toward the end the first decade of the 21st century voiced concern over the possibility that episodic exclusivity might be an unnecessary constraint on the memorial underpinnings of FMTT (e.g., Addis & Schacter, 2012; Klein, 2013a; Irish et al., 2012; Kwan et al., 2012). In fact, a considerable number of recent publications (reviewed in Klein, 2013a) provide clear support for Klein, Loftus, and Kihlstrom's (2002) demonstration that semantic memory also underwrites certain forms (mostly nonpersonal) of FMTT.

²Theoretical and investigative attention remains largely trained on the contributions of episodic memory to future-oriented thought and behavior—despite increasing evidence for the role played by a range of recently evolved and late-developing cognitive capacities (e.g., systems of knowledge, executive function, scene construction, temporal self-projection, imagination; e.g., Arzy, Collette, Ionata, Fornari, & Blanke, 2009; Craver, Kwan, Steindam, & Rosenbaum, 2014; Irish, Addis, Hodges, & Piguet, 2012; Irish & Piguet, 2013; Kwan et al., 2012; Maguire & Mullally, 2013; Manning, Denkova, & Unterberger, 2013; Mullaley, Vargha-Khadem, & Maguire, 2014; Schacter et al., 2012, Suddendorf, 2010; Zeithamova, Schlichting, & Preston, 2012).

³It might be objected that other hallmarks presumed to characterize episodic memory (e.g., complexity and coherence) regularly are found when individuals describe memory experience. However, as is discussed in the sections “The system-neutrality of stored content” and “The causal foundation of FMTT: An argument for autonoesis”, there is no rational or evidential basis for the expectation that episodic memory necessarily provides more complex and coherent content than semantic memory. As such, studies attempting to identify the contributions of episodic memory exclusively from an analysis of reported content suffer from the logical error of assuming in advance (e.g., contextual detail = episodic recollection) what they are attempting to demonstrate (e.g., episodic recollection = contextual detail).

⁴To fully appreciate the temporal commitments of FMTT and the diversity of its manifestations, one must recognize the difference between temporal experience conceived as a constant flow from future to present to past, with temporal designators continually changing ontological status (e.g., what once was future now is present, what once was present now is past, etc.), and temporal experience as a fixed, earlier–later (or before–after) chronology in which temporal placement of an event is invariant (e.g., 4th April 1982 is, and always will be, prior to 4th April 1983). These two modes of temporal conceptualization are not logically reducible, one to the other (e.g., Loizou, 1986; McTaggart, 1908; for an opposing view, see Cornish, 2011). Moreover, they map reasonably well onto the types of FMTT assumed to depend on autonoetic and noetic consciousness, respectively. Fuller discussion can be found in Klein (2013a) and Klein, Loftus, and Kihlstrom (2002) as well as Dalla Barba (2002).