It will be the first project to bring these three disciplines together to inform accounts of episodic memory’s function, and to give significant philosophical attention to episodic memory in AI.Īs part of the research, the project team – which will include two Post-Doctoral and one PhD Researcher – will collaborate with colleagues at the University of Cambridge to implement tests of episodic memory in a 3D simulated environment: the Animal-AI Testbed. This project takes an integrative approach, aiming to advance our understanding of both issues by bringing them together with a third important strand of episodic memory research: artificial implementations of episodic memory, which have led to significant recent developments in AI.ĭrawing on evidence and tools from philosophy, comparative cognitive science and AI, the project will develop a new account of episodic memory's function, using this to advance debates about episodic memory in animals and suggest new applications for episodic memory in AI. And although they’re often tackled separately, they’re importantly connected: we can’t detect episodic memory in animals without an account of its function, and an account of episodic memory’s function ought to be informed by both its human and non-human manifestations. Perhaps surprisingly, these are both subjects of intense debate in the science and philosophy of memory. Second, how widespread is episodic memory? Do other animals remember past events, or is this a uniquely human cognitive achievement? The Episodic Memory: Uniquely Human? project, a four-year UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship led by Dr Ali Boyle, addresses two of them.įirst, what is episodic memory’s function? That is, what precisely does it do, and why is it useful for us to have episodic memory, in addition to memory for facts and skills? But episodic memory research is a relatively young field, home to several outstanding puzzles. Its loss, as in conditions like Alzheimer’s disease, can be devastating. This kind of memory is called episodic memory.Įpisodic memory is absolutely central to our mental lives. Most of us find we can ‘mentally replay’ these past events in our mind’s eye. We remember many events from our past, from the momentous to the mundane. Duration: September 2022 - September 2026
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