Klein Stanley B, Cosmides Leda, Gangi Cynthia E, Jackson Betsy, Tooby John, Costabile Kristi A
University of California, Santa Barbara.
Soc Cogn. 2009 Apr;27(2):283-319. doi: 10.1521/soco.2009.27.2.283.
Over the past two decades, an abundance of evidence has shown that individuals typically rely on semantic summary knowledge when making trait judgments about self and others (for reviews, see Klein, 2004; Klein, Robertson, Gangi, & Loftus, 2008). But why form trait summaries if one can consult the original episodes on which the summary was based? Conversely, why retain episodes after having abstracted a summary representation from them? Are there functional reasons to have trait information represented in two different, independently retrievable databases? Evolution does not produce new phenotypic systems that are complex and functionally organized by chance. Such systems acquire their functional organization because they solved some evolutionarily recurrent problems for the organism. In this article we explore some of the functional properties of episodic memory. Specifically, in a series of studies we demonstrate that maintaining a database of episodic memories enables its owner to reevaluate an individual's past behavior in light of new information, sometimes drastically changing one's impression in the process. We conclude that some of the most important functions of episodic memory have to do with its role in human social interaction.
在过去二十年里，大量证据表明，人们在对自己和他人进行特质判断时，通常依赖语义总结性知识（综述见Klein，2004；Klein、Robertson、Gangi和Loftus，2008）。但是，如果一个人可以查阅形成总结的原始事件，为什么还要形成特质总结呢？相反，从事件中抽象出总结性表征后，为什么还要保留这些事件呢？将特质信息存储在两个不同的、可独立检索的数据库中有什么功能上的原因吗？进化不会偶然产生复杂且功能上有组织的新表型系统。这样的系统之所以具有其功能组织，是因为它们为生物体解决了一些反复出现的进化问题。在本文中，我们探讨情景记忆的一些功能特性。具体而言，在一系列研究中，我们证明，维护一个情景记忆数据库能使其所有者根据新信息重新评估一个人的过去行为，在此过程中有时会彻底改变一个人的印象。我们得出结论，情景记忆的一些最重要功能与其在人类社会互动中的作用有关。
