AUTHOR=Andonovski Nikola 

TITLE=Episodic representation: A mental models account

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Psychology

VOLUME=13

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.899371

DOI=10.3389/fpsyg.2022.899371

ISSN=1664-1078

ABSTRACT=<p>This paper offers a modeling account of episodic representation. I argue that the episodic system constructs <italic>mental models</italic>: representations that preserve the spatiotemporal structure of represented domains. In prototypical cases, these domains are events: occurrences taken by subjects to have characteristic structures, dynamics and relatively determinate beginnings and ends. Due to their simplicity and manipulability, mental event models can be used in a variety of cognitive contexts: in remembering the personal past, but also in future-oriented and counterfactual imagination. As structural representations, they allow surrogative reasoning, supporting inferences about their constituents which can be used in reasoning about the represented events.</p>