Numerous experiments have demonstrated ways in which imagining events can lead to the development of false memories for those events.57-64 During the past several years, neuroimaging studies have revealed striking overlap in the neural processes that are engaged when people remember past events and imagine future events or novel scenes,65-70 and behavioral studies have documented similarly striking similarities in the corresponding cognitive processes.18,19,71-79 The similarities documented in these studies can help to understand why memory and imagination can be easily confused: they share common neural and cognitive underpinnings.

In addition, we have argued that these observations are relevant to thinking about the adaptive functions of a constructive memory system. Specifically, Schacter and Addis18  have put forward the constructive episodic simulation hypothesis, which holds that past and future events draw on similar information stored in memory (episodic memory in particular) and rely on similar underlying processes. Episodic memory, in turns, supports the construction of future events by extracting and recombining stored information into a simulation of a novel event. Such a system is adaptive because it enables past information to be used flexibly in simulating alternative future scenarios without engaging in actual behaviors, but it comes at a cost of vulnerability to errors and distortions that result from mistakenly combining elements of imagination and memory.

The observation that memory and imagination depend, at least in part, on a common neural network, raises an important question: how does the brain distinguish between memories for actual past experiences and those that have only been imagined? One clue comes from the Addis et al86  study discussed earlier, in which participants were scanned while remembering actual events consisting of key person-place-object details, or imagining experiences comprised of recombined details from different memories. As in previous studies, the core network discussed earlier was activated for both remembering and imagining. In addition, however, Addis et al86  noted that distinct subsystems within the core network were preferentially associated with imagining and remembering, respectively. The imagining network  consisted of medial temporal lobe including anterior hippocampus, bilateral medial prefrontal cortex, inferior frontal gyrus, polar and posterior temporal cortex, and medial parietal cortex. The remembering network  included posterior visual cortices such as fusiform, lingual and occipital gyri and cuneus, as well as parahippocampal gyrus and posterior hippocampus. Addis et al86  suggested that the association of posterior visual cortices with memory for actual experiences might indicate that reactivation of sensory-perceptual details during memory retrieval recruits the neural regions involved in the original processing of the remembered information.

RELEVANT QUESTION

Notes

Sometimes our current actions confer redemptive value on past actions and prove that our previous sacrifices were not in vain.

We go so far as to invent new ends, so we can see our earlier investments as part of a coherent pattern.

The difference between remebring and imagining is the input of sensory information?

So blank sensory inputs now render blank

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