Sleep and retrieval practice both strengthen and distort story recollection.

Over time, memories lose episodic detail and become distorted, a process with serious ramifications for eyewitness identification. What are the processes contributing to such transformations over time? We investigated the roles of post-learning sleep and retrieval practice in memory accuracy and distortion, using a naturalistic story recollection task. Undergraduate students listened to a recording of the "War of the Ghosts," a Native American folktale, and were assigned to either a sleep or wake delay group, and either a retrieval practice or listen-only study condition.

Explicit Memory, Implicit Memory, and the Hippocampus: Insights From Early Neuroimaging Studies.

During the 1980s and 1990s, much memory research focused on the differential role of the hippocampus in various forms of memory. My work on the distinction between explicit and implicit memory led me to become involved in several early neuroimaging studies that made use of cognitive paradigms to investigate the conditions in which hippocampal activity does and does not occur, and to address the theoretical implications of these findings. Here, I summarize two such projects and some of the personal backstory associated with them.

Emotional future simulations: neural and cognitive perspectives.

LeDoux's work on the emotional brain has had broad impact in neuroscience and psychology. Here, we discuss an aspect of the emotional brain that we have examined in our laboratory during the past two decades: emotional future simulations or constructed mental representations of positive and negative future experiences. Specifically, we consider research concerning (i) neural correlates of emotional future simulations, (ii) how emotional future simulations impact subsequent cognition and memory, (iii) the role of emotional future simulations in worry and anxiety, and (iv) individual differences in emotional future simulation related to narcissistic grandiosity.

Episodic recombination and the role of time in mental travel.

Mental time travel is often presented as a singular mechanism, but theoretical and empirical considerations suggest that it is composed of component processes. What are these components? Three hypotheses about the major components of mental time travel are commonly considered: (i) remembering and imagining might, respectively, rely on different processes, (ii) past- and future-directed forms of mental time travel might, respectively, rely on different processes, and (iii) the creation of episodic representations and the determination of their temporal orientation might, respectively, rely on different processes. Here, we flesh out the last of these proposals.

Cortical hubs of highly superior autobiographical memory.

Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory (HSAM) is a rare form of enhanced memory in which individuals demonstrate an extraordinary ability to remember details of their personal lives with high levels of accuracy and vividness. Neuroimaging studies have identified brain regions - specifically, midline areas within the default network - associated with remembering events from one's past. Extending this research on the neural underpinnings of autobiographical memory, the present study utilizes graph theory analyses to compare functional brain connectivity in a cohort of HSAM (n = 12) and control participants (n = 29).

Aiming (too) high: Narcissism and unrealistic goal setting.

It is well established that people scoring high in narcissism fantasize about a grandiose future. However, little research has examined whether narcissism is actually associated with setting unrealistic, grandiose future goals for oneself. In the present study, we pool three independent adult samples (total = 482) to evaluate the relationship between three dimensions of narcissism (agentic extraversion, antagonism, and narcissistic neuroticism) and self-reported likelihood of setting statistically unlikely goals (e.

Constructive Memory and Conscious Experience.

Episodic memory relies on constructive processes that support simulating novel future events by flexibly recombining elements of past experiences, and that can also give rise to memory errors. In recent studies, we have developed methods to characterize the cognitive and neural processes that support conscious experiences linked to this process of episodic recombination, both when people simulate novel future events and commit recombination-related memory errors. In this Perspective, we summarize recent studies that illustrate these phenomena, and discuss broader implications for characterizing the basis of conscious experiences associated with constructive memory from a cognitive neuroscience perspective.

The Language of Creativity: Evidence from Humans and Large Language Models.

Recent developments in computerized scoring via semantic distance have provided automated assessments of verbal creativity. Here, we extend past work, applying computational linguistic approaches to characterize salient features of creative text. We hypothesize that, in addition to semantic diversity, the degree to which a story includes perceptual details, thus transporting the reader to another time and place, would be predictive of creativity.

Eye movements reinstate remembered locations during episodic simulation.

Imagining the future, like recalling the past, relies on the ability to retrieve and imagine a spatial context. Research suggests that eye movements support this process by reactivating spatial contextual details from memory, a process termed gaze reinstatement. While gaze reinstatement has been linked to successful memory retrieval, it remains unclear whether it supports the related process of future simulation.

Peering into the future: Eye movements predict neural repetition effects during episodic simulation.

Imagining future scenarios involves recombining different elements of past experiences into a coherent event, a process broadly supported by the brain's default network. Prior work suggests that distinct brain regions may contribute to the inclusion of different simulation features. Here we examine how activity in these brain regions relates to the vividness of future simulations.

Endel Tulving (1927-2023).

This article presents an obituary for Endel Tulving. Tulving's educational and professional careers are summarized. His work in the field of human memory is detailed.

Automated scoring of the autobiographical interview with natural language processing.

The autobiographical interview has been used in more than 200 studies to assess the content of autobiographical memories. In a typical experiment, participants recall memories, which are then scored manually for internal details (episodic details from the central event) and external details (largely non-episodic details). Scoring these narratives requires a significant amount of time.

Retrieval fluency inflates perceived preparation for difficult problems.

When faced with a difficult problem, people often rely on past experiences. While remembering clearly helps us reach solutions, can retrieval also lead to misperceptions of our abilities? In three experiments, participants encountered "worst case scenarios" they likely had never experienced and that would be difficult to navigate without extensive training (e.g.

Grandiose narcissism influences the phenomenology of remembered past and imagined future events.

Little empirical work has examined future thinking in narcissistic grandiosity. We here extend prior work finding that people scoring high in grandiosity have self-bolstering tendencies in remembering past events, and we consider whether these tendencies extend to imagining future events. Across an initial study ( = 112) and replication ( = 169), participants wrote about remembered past events and imagined future events in which they embodied or would embody either positive or negative traits.

Episodic simulation of helping behavior in younger and older adults during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Imagining helping a person in need increases one's willingness to help beyond levels evoked by passively reading the same stories. We examined whether episodic simulation can increase younger and older adults' willingness to help in novel scenarios posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Across 3 studies we demonstrate that episodic simulation of helping behavior increases younger and older adults' willingness to help during both everyday and COVID-related scenarios.

Creativity at rest: Exploring functional network connectivity of creative experts.

The neuroscience of creativity seeks to disentangle the complex brain processes that underpin the generation of novel ideas. Neuroimaging studies of functional connectivity, particularly functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), have revealed individual differences in brain network organization associated with creative ability; however, much of the extant research is limited to laboratory-based divergent thinking measures. To overcome these limitations, we compare functional brain connectivity in a cohort of creative experts ( = 27) and controls ( = 26) and examine links with creative behavior.

A language of episodic thought?

We propose that episodic thought (i.e., episodic memory and imagination) is a domain where the language-of-thought hypothesis (LoTH) could be fruitfully applied.

Intentionality of Self-Generated Thought: Contributions of Mind Wandering to Creativity.

Studies suggest that internally oriented cognitive processes are central to creativity. Here, we distinguish between intentional and unintentional forms of mind wandering and explore their behavioral and neural correlates. We used a sample of 155 healthy adults from the mind-brain-body dataset, all of whom completed resting-state fMRI scans and trait-level measures of mind wandering.

Bias and constructive processes in a self-memory system.

Martin Conway's influential theorising about the self-memory system (Conway, M. A., & Pleydell-Pearce, C.