Philosophy Department, Bilkent University, Turkey.
Conscious Cogn. 2012 Sep;21(3):1154-65. doi: 10.1016/j.concog.2012.04.008. Epub 2012 May 17.
Clark and Chalmers (1998) claim that an external resource satisfying the following criteria counts as a memory: (1) the agent has constant access to the resource; (2) the information in the resource is directly available; (3) retrieved information is automatically endorsed; (4) information is stored as a consequence of past endorsement. Research on forgetting and metamemory shows that most of these criteria are not satisfied by biological memory, so they are inadequate. More psychologically realistic criteria generate a similar classification of standard putative external memories, but the criteria still do not capture the function of memory. An adequate account of memory function, compatible with its evolution and its roles in prospection and imagination, suggests that external memory performs a function not performed by biological memory systems. External memory is thus not memory. This has implications for: extended mind theorizing, ecological validity of memory research, the causal theory of memory.
克拉克和查默斯（1998 年）声称，满足以下标准的外部资源可以算作记忆：（1）主体可以持续访问该资源；（2）资源中的信息可以直接获取；（3）检索到的信息会自动得到认可；（4）信息是由于过去的认可而被存储的。对遗忘和元记忆的研究表明，生物记忆并不能满足这些标准中的大多数标准，因此这些标准是不充分的。更符合心理学现实的标准会产生类似的标准外部记忆分类，但这些标准仍然无法捕捉记忆的功能。记忆功能的充分解释，与记忆的进化及其在展望和想象中的作用是一致的，这表明外部记忆发挥了生物记忆系统无法发挥的功能。因此，外部记忆不是记忆。这对以下方面有影响：扩展心灵理论、记忆研究的生态有效性、记忆的因果理论。
