Open your mind’s eye : sensorimotor simulation in episodic event construction

Abstract

International audiencePast events are not frozen into memory. Instead, they canbe dynamically recombined to reconstruct them or, even,to imagine future events. Yet, very little is known abouthow event (re)construction is accomplished. From an embodied cognition perspective, we assessed whether event(re)construction occurs through the simulation/reactivation of sensorimotor properties of our past experiences.Young adults watched videos and received a specificity induction (an interview boosting the production of eventspecific details) or solved math problems. Then, they described their memories of the videos while simultaneouslyviewing an interfering stimulus (dynamic visual noise; DVN)or a control stimulus. As expected, viewing a DVN duringthe description task has decreased the number of videospecific details reported, but only after the specificity induction. These findings provide evidence that the specificity induction targets and facilitates the sensorimotor simulation mechanism, confirming the crucial involvement of such a mechanism in the constructive functioningof memory