When speaking of the experience, do not leave out the experiencer: on self and magnitude

摘要

Memory, motor-control, attention, learning, navigation, emotion, and perception are among the foundations of cognitive neurosciences. For many years, these have been studied separately, as distinct functions (Fodor, 2000). Recently, several veins of research have lead to the idea that different cognitive faculties may be handled by similar neurocognitive mechanisms. Likewise, Buzsáki and Moser proposed that a range of interacting cell types (such as “place cells,” “grid cells” or “time cells”), which support navigation, may also play a role in memory (Buzsáki and Moser, 2013). Moreover, these prominent researchers have suggested that navigation and memory rely on two fundamental mechanisms: one that is more allocentric, related to representations of landmarks in the environment, and another that is egocentric, self-referenced (Buzsáki and Moser, 2013). Similarly to navigation, memory encompasses autobiographical memory, related to events that happened to the experiencer (self-referenced), and semantic memory of events that the experiencer “knows”. Perception may be taken from a self-referenced first-person-perspective or from a third-person-perspective. Correspondingly, in the affective plane, emotion may be self-referenced, reflecting the experiencer own-feelings, or may be dominated by a third-person-perspective, when the experiencer is absorbed in the life of others (Zinck, 2008).