Constructive Memory and the Simulation of Future Events

Abstract

Memory is widely conceived as a fundamentally constructive rather than purely reproductive process. One well-known source of evidence for constructive remembering is provided by various kinds of memory errors and illusions. A second line of evidence, which has recently emerged into the forefront of cognitive neuroscience, concerns the processes involved in imagining or simulating future events and novel scenes. In this chapter we discuss recent studies using various patient populations and neuroimaging techniques to examine future-event simulation and its relation to episodic memory, and we also link this research with earlier studies of constructive memory. Converging evidence supports the idea that imagining possible future events depends on much of the same neural machinery as does remembering past events, which we refer to as the core network. We consider conceptual and theoretical issues raised by this work, and also discuss adaptive functions of future-event simulation and related processes in the context of a constructive approach to memory.