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The Evolution of Episodic-Like Memory: The Importance of Biological and Ecological Constraints

van Woerkum, Bas (2021) The Evolution of Episodic-Like Memory: The Importance of Biological and Ecological Constraints. [Preprint]

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Abstract

A persisting question in the philosophy of animal minds is which nonhuman animals share our capacity for episodic memory (EM). Many authors address this question by primarily defining EM, trying to capture its seemingly unconstrained flexibility and independence from environmental and bodily constraints. EM is therefore often opposed to clearly context-bound capacities like tracking environmental regularities and forming associations. The problem is that conceptualizing EM in humans first, and then reconstructing how humans evolved this capacity, provides little constraints for understanding the evolution of memory abilities in other species: it defines “genuine” EM as independent from animals’ evolved sensorimotor setup and learning abilities. In this paper, I define memory in terms of perceptual learning: remembering means “knowing (better) what to do in later situations because of past experience in similar earlier situations”. After that, I explain how episodic memory can likewise be explained in terms of perceptual learning. For this, we should consider that the information in animals’ ecological niches is much richer than has hitherto been presumed. Accordingly, instead of asking “given that environmental stimuli provide insufficient information about the cache, what kind of representation does the jay need?” we ask “given that the animal performs in this way, what kind of information is available in the environment?” My aim is not to give a complete alternative explanation of EM; rather, it is to provide conceptual and methodological tools for more zoocentric comparative EM-research.


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Item Type: Preprint
Creators:
CreatorsEmailORCID
van Woerkum, Basbas.vanwoerkum@ru.nl0000-0001-6684-014X
Keywords: animal cognition; episodic-like memory; anthropogenic; biogenic; anthropocentrism; zoocentrism; affordances; ecological information; scrub jays
Subjects: Specific Sciences > Biology
Specific Sciences > Psychology > Evolutionary Psychology
Specific Sciences > Biology > Evolutionary Theory
Specific Sciences > Psychology > Comparative Psychology and Ethology
General Issues > Natural Kinds
Depositing User: Mr. Bas van Woerkum
Date Deposited: 02 Feb 2021 03:00
Last Modified: 02 Feb 2021 03:00
Item ID: 18665
Subjects: Specific Sciences > Biology
Specific Sciences > Psychology > Evolutionary Psychology
Specific Sciences > Biology > Evolutionary Theory
Specific Sciences > Psychology > Comparative Psychology and Ethology
General Issues > Natural Kinds
Date: 2021
URI: https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/18665

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