Empirically Informed Philosophy of Mind online Seminar
Nous aurons le plaisir d'accueillir Francesco Ianì (Università degli studi di Torino)
Titre : Mental simulation(s) as memory process(es)
Résumé : The concept of “Mental Simulation” (MS) has been increasingly used in cognitive science since the early 2000s, supporting a wide range of cognitive activities such as mental imagery, language comprehension, and action observation. Although MS is used widely across these domains, it functions as an umbrella term because different types of mental simulations can vary in their simulation processes (e.g., triggered externally or internally) and simulation outcomes (e.g., motor resonance or a mental representation) (Stockner et al., 2025). In this work, we propose a theoretical framework suggesting that different types of mental simulation exist, all of which can be considered as different forms of memory processes. To outline this point, we review extensive literature indicating that these forms of mental simulation and their underlying neurocognitive mechanisms rely heavily on previous experiences. For example, expert musicians perform better at auditory imagery tasks (e.g., Bishop et al., 2013), and neural activation during action observation is greater when dancers are familiar with the observed dance (e.g., Calvo-Merino et al., 2005). Our underlying theoretical assumption is as follows: if a mental simulation and its underlying neurocognitive process are shaped by, and directly related to, previous and memorised experience, then it is a form of memory. These memory processes can have a more explicit (i.e., declarative) or implicit (i.e., procedural) nature, depending on the characteristics of the simulation process and its outcome features. Like memory processes, mental simulations should also be regarded as constructive and generative processes that may involve partial reinstatement but should not be identified with it. Thus, instead of traditionally conceptualising memory as an imaginative process (i.e., imagination-first), we propose a memory-first approach.