Memory identification and its failures

Abstract

When we remember, we often know that we do. How does this memory identification proceed? After having articulated some constraints on an attractive account of memory identification, this paper explores three types of accounts that respectively appeal to features of memory content, of memory as an activity, and of memory as an attitude. It offers reasons to favour an attitudinal account giving pride of place to the feeling of familiarity.

Feeling episodic: Dimensions of phenomenology in observer memory.

“…1These include feelings of pastness (Russell, 1921/1995; Matthen, 2010; Perrin, 2018), feelings of veridicality (Tulving, 1983), feelings of familiarity (Teroni, 2024), feelings of remembering (Souchay et al, 2013), feelings of ownership or mineness (Klein & Nichols, 2012; Fernández, 2019), feelings of first-handedness (Dokic, 2014; Sant’Anna, 2024), an episodic feeling (Dokic, 2021), and feelings of presence (Perrin & Barkasi, 2024). …”