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Institut für Mathematik

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Episodic Cognition

8.3386

Dozenten

Beschreibung

Episodic cognition comprises episodic memory and episodic future thinking. (The term “episodic memory” is much more known than the other terms, “episodic future thinking” or “episodic cognition”.) If episodic memory is the memory of daily personal experiences (“things that happened to me yesterday, or 10 years ago”), then episodic future thinking is the prospection of things that may happen to me tomorrow or in 10 years. Importantly, episodes (past or future) carry www information: what, where and when. That is, the content of our memory (what happened) is remembered in its spatio-temporal context (where, when). That’s why this kind of memory is also called “relational” memory. The same holds for episodic future thinking: I am imagining myself experiencing something at a certain place and time. How do I do this? By mental time travel, i.e., I project myself into my personal past or future. Mental time travel is characterized by chronesthesia – a sense of time and autonoesis – a sense of self: knowing that this has happened/will happen to me.
In this course, we will discuss various aspects of episodic cognition:
How episodic memory differs from semantic memory and from autobiographic memory in the memory taxonomy.
How philosophers conceive of episodic cognition: Is it a “natural kind”? – as compared to other forms of memory, in particular when we consider its sequential character. What does it “feel like” to have an episodic memory, how do these past (or future) episodes appear to us (phenomenologically)?
Which (distinct) brain areas support episodic memory and future thinking? Prime candidates are the hippocampus with its place and time cells and the Medial Temporal Lobe (MTL).
How does episodic cognition develop in children? Endel Tulving (who is a big figure in episodic memory research) claimed that children under 4 years of age do not have episodic memory at all! Now we know that episodic memory develops heavily between 3-5 years of age (and episodic future thinking a bit later). We also have an idea which cognitive abilities support it (executive function, language).
When we think of a past or envision a future episode we often detach our eye-gaze from the objects around us or our interlocutor and look into the void (e.g., we stare at the ceiling or into the sky). Do such “non-visual eye-movements” tell us anything about episodic cognition? Do we construct our episodes mentally while we are seemingly “looking at nothing”?
Do non-human animals have episodic cognition? For a long time this was not held possible (mainly because they cannot tell you!). Animals were thought to be “stuck in time”, i.e., not capable of mental time travel. However, with appropriate methodology and concepts we nowadays grant “episodic-like” memory and future thinking to them. Interestingly, also animals in whom you would not suspect it have quite remarkable episodic cognitive abilities, e.g. jays (big-brained birds.)
Lastly, can you also conceive of things in the past that could have been? Certainly, but do such “episodic counter-factuals” resemble true episodic memories in terms of the cognitive processes and brain areas supporting them?
Episodic cognition is obviously highly relevant for us humans, in our daily life and at an existential level: Who would we be without our personal memories and our envisioned future? In our seminar, we will discuss these (and more) questions concerning episodic cognition, in an interdisciplinary cognitive science perspective.

Weitere Angaben

Ort: 93/E07
Zeiten: Mi. 09:00 - 12:00 (wöchentlich)
Erster Termin: Mittwoch, 03.04.2024 09:00 - 12:00, Ort: 93/E07
Veranstaltungsart: Seminar (Offizielle Lehrveranstaltungen)

Studienbereiche

  • Cognitive Science > Bachelor-Programm
  • Cognitive Science > Master-Programm
  • Schnupper Uni > Cognitive Science
  • Human Sciences (e.g. Cognitive Science, Psychology)
  • Cognitive Science

Past and Forthcoming Events

Projects

  • 2024-2026: PI in the project Gaussian Fluctuations in Models of Statistical Mechanics – Fine Asymptotics for the Magnetization im SPP 2265
  • 2020 - 2021: Innovation plus (MWK-Nds.) “MaKe WiWi – Förderung mathematischer Kernkompetenzen in den Wirtschaftswissenschaften“ (jointly with M. Reitzner, A. Salle, J. Wilde)
  • 2016–2019 wissenschaftliches Netzwerk "Kumulanten, Konzentration und Superkonzentration“ der DFG (Projektnummer 318196255)
  • 2015–2018 member of the DFG Graduiertenkolleg 1916 Kombinatorische Strukturen in der Geometrie“

Publications

  • Limit theorems for the number of crossings and stress in projections of the random geometric graph, with L. de Jonge, arxiv:2408.03218
  • Asymptotics of a time-bounded cylinder model, with N. Aschenbruck and S. Bussmann, Probability in the Engineering and Informational Sciences, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0269964822000420
  • The method of cumulants for the normal approximation, with S. Jansen and K. Schubert, Probability Surveys 2022, Vol. 19, 185-270, https://doi.org/10.1214/22-PS7
  • Sedentary Random Waypoint, with C. Betken, arXiv:2009.02941
  • The Impact of Bit Errors on Intra-Session Network Coding with Heterogeneous Packet Lengths, with B. Schütz, N. Aschenbruck, S. Bussmann and M. Juhnke-Kubitzke, Proc. of the 45th IEEE LCN Symposium on Emerging Topics in Networking LCN, virtually hosted in Sydney, Australia, Nov. 16–19, 2020.
  • Stationarity for the Small World in Motion Mobility Model, with Nils Aschenbruck, Christian Heiden und Matthias Schwamborn, MSWIM '19: Proceedings of the 22nd International ACM Conference on Modeling, Analysis and Simulation of Wireless and Mobile Systems, Nov 25-29, 2019, https://doi.org/10.1145/3345768.3355935
  • Crossing Numbers and Stress of Random Graphs, with Markus Chimani and Matthias Reitzner, In Proceedings 26th International Symposium, GD 2018, Barcelona, Spain, 255--268, 2018 available here and for an extended journal version here: https://arxiv.org/abs/1808.07558
  • Fluctuations in a general preferential attachment model via Stein's method, with Carina Betken and Marcel Ortgiese, Random Structures & algorithms, vol.55, no.4, 2019 available here
  • Connection times in large ad-hoc mobile networks, Bernoulli, vol.22, no.4, 2143--2176, 2016 available here
    with Gabriel Faraud, Wolfgang König
  • The random disc thrower problem, Proceedings of the 90th European Study Group Mathematics with Industry, 59-78, 2013  available here with T. van der Aalst, D. Denteneer, M. Hong Duong, R. J. Kang, M. Keane, J. Kool, I. Kryven, T. Meyfroyt, T. Müller, G. Regts, J. Tomczyk
  • Edge fluctuations of eigenvalues of Wigner matrices, High Dimensional Probability VI: the Banff volume, Progress in Probability, vol.66, 261-275, Springer, Basel, 2013 available here
    with Peter Eichelsbacher
  • Moderate deviations for the determinant of Wigner matrices, Dedicated to Friedrich Götze on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday, Limit Theorems in Probability, Statistics and Number Theory, Springer Proceedings in Mathematics & Statistics, vol.42, 253-275, 2013, available here
    with Peter Eichelsbacher
  • Moderate deviations for the eigenvalue counting function of Wigner matrices, ALEA, Lat. Am. J. Probab. Math. Stat. 10 (1), 27-44, 2013, available here
    with Peter Eichelsbacher
  • Moderate deviations via cumulants, Journal of Theor. Probability, 2012, available here
    with Peter Eichelsbacher
  • Moments of recurrence times for Markov chains, Electronic Comm. Probab., 16(28), 296-303, 2011, available here
    with Frank Aurzada, Marcel Ortgiese, Michael Scheutzow
  • Moderate deviations in a random graph and for the spectrum of Bernoulli random matrices, Electronic Journal of Probability, Vol. 14, Paper no. 92, 2636-2656, 2009, available here
    with Peter Eichelsbacher
  • Perpendicular transport of charged particles in slab turbulence: recovery of diffusion for realistic wave-spectra?, Journal of Physics G: Nuclear and Particle Physics, 35, 025202, 2008
    with Andreas Shalchi
  • Velocity correlation functions of charged test particles, Journal of Physics G: Nuclear and Particle Physics, 34, 859, 2007
    with Andreas Shalchi

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