Memory, Time and Autonoetic Consciousness

Abstract

Memory and time have multifaceted links. Along the time axis, memory is divided into short- and long-term memory. Another popular time-dependent distinction is between new and old memories and anterograde and retrograde memory impairments, respectively. Time-embedment characterizes the processing of mnemonic information, which encompasses the stages of registration, encoding, consolidation, and storage. Along the content axis, memory is partitioned into five long-term memory systems (procedural, priming, perceptual, semantic, and episodic), which are regarded to build up on each other from both a phylogenetic and ontogenetic perspective. These memory systems are accompanied by different niveaus of self and levels of consciousness. Among these long-term memory systems, the episodic memory system holds a special connection with time, which we aim to detail. In 2005, Tulving defined the episodic memory system as the conjunction of subjective time, autonoetic consciousness, and the experiencing self. Drawing on this last definition of the episodic memory, which lays an emphasis on the linkage to the self, Markowitsch has subsequently promoted the use of the construct “episodic-autobiographical” memory system. The episodic-autobiographical memory system features mental time travelling, an essential property that enables one individual to flexibly travel in subjective time in his/her past and, in addition, to flexibly project him/herself in the future. This property provides a “glue” for the self, supporting a coherent view of one's own person. According to Tulving and Markowitsch, it is unlikely that non-human animals possess the capacity for mental time travelling and the ability to “look into future” (“proscopy”). Furthermore, Tulving and Markowitsch had proposed that the ability for mental time travelling is dependent on age and intellect. Subsequent studies have confirmed that mental time travelling is one of the last features of the episodic- autobiographical memory system that achieves full functionality in humans and is the first one to be afflicted by old age, amnesia or neurodegenerative dementias (e.g., Alzheimer's dementia). At the brain level, the emergence of the capacity for mental time travelling is accompanied by ample structural and functional reorganization of elements of the brain networks supporting episodic-autobiographical memory, autonoetic consciousness, and self-referential processing.In human beings, damage to certain brain regions may alter the sense and consciousness of time in quite different ways. Herein, we have the goal to review changes in time perception and consciousness of time, which accompany different forms of amnesia. Patients with anterograde amnesia manifest an inability to consciously acquire new information for long-term storage and as a consequence are often “stuck in time”. ‘Chronotaraxis’ may accompany certain forms of preponderantly anterograde amnesia, as we aim to exemplify by drawing upon own cases, which were investigated medically, neuropsychologically, and with neuroimaging methods. Patients with retrograde amnesia manifest an inability to consciously retrieve already stored old mnemonic information, usually from the episodic-autobiographical memory domain. They lack the capacity to “ecphorize” old memories. Interestingly, the memory impairments are very similar in the patients with focal traumatic brain injuries and in those with psychogenic forms of amnesia: The patients are unable to engage in mental time traveling into their past. In addition, they show an impaired ability to imagine future personal events, being as a consequence trapped in a “noetic existence”. In psychogenic amnesia with pronounced retrograde memory impairments, we found (via functional neuroimaging) evidence of defective synchronization during retrieval between processing of affectively loaded personal events (that is presumed to preponderantly engage the right hemisphere) and fact-based processing (that is considered to preferentially recruit the left hemisphere). These data are relevant in the light of studies pointing to a right hemisphere bias for higher forms of consciousness. We conjecture that this synchronization abnormality not only leads to a memory blockade, but also to shrinkage of mental time traveling and loss of autonoetic consciousness in psychogenic or functional amnesic conditions.