The subjective experience of remembering

Based at Durham University, we are the UK's first Institute for Medical Humanities. Our research explores human experiences of health and ill-health using an interdisciplinary arts and humanities approach.

Institute for Medical Humanities

Jon Simons will consider the latest evidence shedding light on the brain mechanisms responsible for the subjective experience of remembering

Institute for Medical Humanities • Confluence Building • Durham University

The ability to remember personally experienced events in vivid, multisensory detail makes an immensely important contribution to our lives, allowing us to re-live each moment of a previous encounter and providing us with the store of precious memories that form the building blocks of who we are. Such remembering involves reactivating sensory and perceptual features of an event, and the thoughts and feelings we had when the event occurred, integrating them into a conscious first-person experience. It allows us to make judgments about the things we remember, such as distinguishing events that actually occurred from those we might have imagined or been told about. Although a great deal is known about the cognitive and neural processes that enable us to recall a word list, for example, considerably less is known about the processes underlying the subjective experience of remembering. Drawing on inspiration from philosophers and novelists, I will consider the latest evidence from functional neuroimaging and studies of patients with neurological and psychiatric conditions, which is beginning to shed light on the brain mechanisms responsible for the subjective experience of remembering.About the speaker:<a href="https://www.psychol.cam.ac.uk/people/jon-simons" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Jon Simons</a> is a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of Cambridge, where he leads a research programme seeking to understand the cognitive and brain mechanisms of human memory. After studying Psychology at the University of Aberdeen, Jon undertook a PhD at the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit in Cambridge before moving to a post-doctoral position at Harvard University. On returning to the UK, he took up a senior research fellowship at UCL followed by a move back to Cambridge, where he is now Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience and principal investigator in the Memory Laboratory at the Department of Psychology. Jon has published more than 100 papers in leading international journals and has held positions on editorial boards and funding panels. His work has been recognised with the Experimental Psychology Society EPS Prize, a James S. McDonnell Foundation Scholar Award, the Memory Disorders Research Society Laird Cermak Award, and Fellowship of the Royal Society of Biology and the Association for Psychological Science.This event is hosted by <a href="https://www.durham.ac.uk/research/institutes-and-centres/medical-humanities/our-research/strands/the-science-of-human-experience-/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Science of Human Experience</a> as part of the 2023-24 IMH Hidden Experience Seminar Series, which centres on hidden experiences of health and illness. For more information about the series, please visit our <a href="https://www.durham.ac.uk/research/institutes-and-centres/medical-humanities/about-us/news/announcing-new-imh-hidden-experience-seminar-series/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">website</a>.

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The subjective experience of remembering

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The subjective experience of remembering

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