Memory and Knowledge: Memory and Knowledge in Theories of Episodic Memory

Abstract

The natural scope of theories of episodic memory is memory phenomena, rather than knowledge phenomena such as reasoning or decision making. A case can be made, however, that as long as they do not tackle knowledge, such theories are inherently incomplete because we use our memories in two broad senses whenever we reason or make decisions. We encode the content of whatever task we are confronted with (production of category exemplars, metaphorical inference, decisions about risky prospects), and we retrieve stored information to understand and perform the task. What we encode and what we retrieve must be due in large measure to past and present workings of episodic memory. It is appropriate to ask, then, how theoretical ideas about episodic memory can be extended to cover basic knowledge effects.