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The hippocampus has been considered responsible for the formation of episodic memory. It has also been pointed out that the hippocampus plays an important role in imagination, which is related to future events. The fact that atrophy of the hippocampus could lead to Alzheimer΄s disease implies that the network structure of the hippocampus may provide fields for the creation of internal time corresponding to the past, present, and future. We present a hypothesis that the hippocampus plays a role in the formation of self-identity via interactions with the lateral prefrontal cortex. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the effective ways to manage large collections of digital photos is to tag names of people appearing in those photos. However, the number of people appearing in photo collections may range in the hundreds and the names of tagged people are usually presented in alphabetical order or on a first-tag first-place basis. As a result, it is difficult to quickly search for name tags that a user wishes to find. In order to solve this problem, we developed a digital photo management system that automatically groups the name tags based on their social relationships. This system was tested on users΄ own photos against three other comparison interfaces. The average searching time for name tags was significantly faster with our system. Also, the user satisfaction was higher than the others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a Conscious Tutoring System (CTS) capable of dynamic fine-tuned assistance to users. We put forth the combination of a Causal Learning and Emotional learning mechanism within CTS that will allow it to first establish, through data mining algorithms, gross user group models. CTS then uses these models to find the cause of mistakes made by users, evaluate their performance, predict their future behavior, and, through a Pedagogical Knowledge mechanism, decide which tutoring intervention fits best. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a Conscious Tutoring System (CTS) capable of dynamic fine-tuned assistance to users. We put forth the integration of an Episodic Learning mechanism within CTS that allows it to first establish, through data mining algorithms, gross user group models. CTS then uses these models to classify incoming users, evaluate their performance, predict their future behavior, and, through a Pedagogical knowledge mechanism, decide which tutoring intervention fits best. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interactions of hippocampal and parahippocampal regions are important for memory-guided behavior. Understanding the role of these structures requires understanding the interaction of populations of neurons, including the cellular properties of neurons in structures such as the entorhinal cortex. Recent data and modeling suggest an important role for cellular mechanisms of persistent spiking and membrane potential oscillations in medial entorhinal cortex, both in mechanisms for spatial navigation and for episodic memory function. Both persistent firing and membrane potential oscillations may provide mechanisms for path integration at a cellular level based on speed-modulated head direction as a velocity signal. This path integration process thereby provides a potential mechanism for grid cell firing properties in medial entorhinal cortex. Incorporation of these processes into a larger scale model allows simulation of mechanisms for sequence encoding and episodic memory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A computer model of learning and representing spatial locations is studied. The model builds on biological constraints and assumptions drawn from the anatomy and physiology of the hippocampal formation of the rat. The emphasis of the presented research is on the usability of a computer model originally proposed to describe episodic memory capabilities of the hippocampus in a spatial task. In the present model two modalities – vision and path integration – are contributing to the recognition of a given place. We study how place cell activity emerges due to Hebbian learning in the model hippocampus as a result of random exploration of the environment. The model is implemented in the Webots mobile robotics simulation software. Our results show that the location of the robot is well predictable from the activity of a population of model place cells, thus the model is suitable to be used as a basic building block of location-based navigation strategies. However, some properties of the stored memories strongly resembles that of episodic memories, which do not match special spatial requirements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sum of all the parts of Such – Of each laboratory scene – Is such. While science means this much And means no more, why, let it mean! But were the science-men to find Some animating principle Which gave synthetic Such a mind Vital, though metaphysical – To Such, such an event, I think, Would cause unscientific pain: Science, appalled by thought, would shrink To its component parts again. The first nineteen chapters of this book were written in the third person, with the author assuming the role of the proverbial fly on the wall. This was appropriate because the things described in those chapters are accessible to any observer, directly or indirectly, through his or her senses. In that respect, they exemplify what John Ziman said of science in general – they are public knowledge. The human mind has long been regarded as basically different because of its subjective dimension. We take a third-person stance when considering the workings of minds, admittedly, but our own thoughts are perforce first person and private. In this last chapter, therefore, I shall feel justified in making occasional first-person excursions, and there will even be expressions of my own subjective beliefs about such issues as consciousness and intelligence. But that doesn't imply acceptance of the view that the mind is fundamentally different from anything else in Nature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

But in the black corners in the blackest ones, they lie down to weep for the fallen, mothers who gave them milk, sisters who bathed them, brides once of snow but now in the black of mourning, and now with fever; dazed widows, shattered women, letters and photographs which portray them as they were, there, eyes bursting from seeing them so much and so little, from so many silent tears, from so much absent beauty. The traumatic collective memory that most Spaniards have, even today, of the Civil War is explained not only by the events of the war of 1936 to 1939, but also by the experience of millions of Spaniards in the aftermath of the conflict itself. During the last weeks of the war as many as half a million Spaniards on the losing side fled to escape the justifiably feared repression of the victors. Most of the exiles who crossed the French border were confined in appalling conditions in refugee camps in the south of the country. Some managed to escape the German invasion of France and went on to Latin America, and above all Mexico. Yet many Republican veterans remained in France and joined the Resistance, so suffering a second experience of war even before they had had time to recover from the first. Two decades after the end of the Civil War, some 300,000 Republicans remained in exile. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Collective remembrance Collective remembrance is public recollection. It is the act of gathering bits and pieces of the past, and joining them together in public. The ‘public’ is the group that produces, expresses, and consumes it. What they create is not a cluster of individual memories; the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Collective memory is constructed through the action of groups and individuals in the light of day. Passive memory – understood as the personal recollections of a silent individual – is not collective memory, though the way we talk about our own memories is socially bounded. When people enter the public domain, and comment about the past – their own personal past, their family past, their national past, and so on – they bring with them images and gestures derived from their broader social experience. As Maurice Halbwachs put it, their memory is ‘socially framed’. When people come together to remember, they enter a domain beyond that of individual memory. The upheavals of this century have tended to separate individual memories from politically and socially sanctioned official versions of the past. All political leaders massage the past for their own benefit, but over the last ninety years many of those in power have done more: they have massacred it. Milan Kundera tells the story of a photograph of the political leadership of the Czech socialist republic in 1948. One man in the photo was later purged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]