Roland G. Benoit, Philipp C. Paulus, Ann-Kristin Meyer, Davide F. Stramaccia | Simulating the future and forgetting the past

Based on our research group’s ongoing work, we will examine the adaptive nature of memory. In the first part, RGB will show how we can simulate the future by recombining details of past experiences into novel events. He will particularly explore the influence of such episodic simulation on real-life attitudes and highlight the contribution of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC). PCP will then build on this research by further scrutinizing the functional role of this region. He will examine whether the vmPFC codes for affective associative representations of our environment. In the second part, AKM will discuss how suppressing the retrieval of unwanted memories can reduce the vividness with which they can be recalled and eventually cause forgetting. She will show how such a reduction in vividness goes along with an attenuation of associated emotional responses and a deterioration of hippocampal memory representations. Finally, DFS will take a bird’s eye view on the field of memory suppression by meta-analyzing some of the evidence for voluntary forgetting. By this, he will also ponder the question whether suppression constitutes a beneficial coping mechanism that may protect from mental disorders. Together, the presentations thus highlight processes that make memory adaptive, enabling us to imagine the future and to forget the unwanted past.