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Memory Ali Boyle

Episodic Memory: Uniquely Human?

Why do humans remember past events? Do other animals do this, or are they mentally ‘stuck’ in the here and now? This project uses AI to investigate.

 Ali-Boyle Profile

 

AI systems which remember past events perform better in several important domains, suggesting this kind of memory may be a critical aspect of learning and general intelligence. This could shed new light on human and animal memory.

Project Leader: Dr Ali Boyle

Project Timeline: September 2022 - August 2026

Funder: UKRI

 

Mapwork of the Project:

Aim

We remember many events from our past, from the momentous to the mundane. Most of us find we can ‘mentally replay’ these past events in our mind’s eye. This kind of memory is called episodic memory. This project addresses two puzzles about episodic memory:

First, what is episodic memory’s function? What precisely does it do, and why is it useful for us to have episodic memory, in addition to memory for facts and skills?

Second, how is episodic memory distributed throughout the animal kingdom? Do other animals remember past events, or is this a uniquely human cognitive ability?

Relevance

Episodic memory is central to human life; its loss, as in Alzheimer’s, can be devastating. But the role episodic memory plays in human cognition is not well understood. Developing a better account of this crucial element of cognition is an important step toward understanding the human mind and could be critical to understanding and treating disorders of memory and learning.

Which nonhuman animals have episodic memory is also a subject of intense debate. Answering this question would have significant implications for the use of animals in memory science, theories of memory’s evolution, and for the ethical treatment of animals. 

Methodology

This project leverages recent developments in AI to explore the function and distribution of episodic memory. Artificial implementations of episodic memory have been involved in a number of recent advancements in AI. By investigating the parallels between artificial and biological memory, the project aims to develop new theories about episodic memory’s role in intelligence and new methods for investigating episodic memory in animals. 

Impact

Publications
  1. Boyle, A. & Brown, S. A. B. (2025). Episodic memory in animals. Philosophy Compass 20 (5), e70037. https://doi.org/10.1111/phc3.70037 
  2. Boyle, A. (Forthcoming) ​Experience Replay Algorithms and the Function of Episodic Memory. in Aronowitz & Nadel (Eds.) Space, Time, and Memory. OUP.
  3. Schwartz, A. (2025). Are episodic memory and episodic simulation different in kind? Philosophical Psychology, 1-24. https://doi.org/10.1080/09515089.2025.2451819
  4. Schwartz, A. & Fresco, N. (2025). Mapping content: why cognitive maps are non-conceptual mental states. Synthese 205, 95 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-025-04922-x
  5. Boyle, A. & Brown, S. A. B. (2025). Why might animals remember? A Functional Framework for Episodic Memory Research in Comparative Psychology. Learning & Behaviour 53: 14-30. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13420-024-00645-0
  6. Boyle, A. & Blomkvist, A. (2024). Elements of episodic memory: insights from artificial agents Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 379: 20230416 https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2023.0416
  7. Boyle, Alexandria (2024), Disagreement & Classification in Comparative Cognitive Science. Noûs, 58 (3): 825-847. https://doi.org/10.1111/nous.12480
  8. Blomkvist, A. & Marks, D. F. (2023), Defining and ‘diagnosing’ aphantasia: Condition or individual difference? Cortex 169, 220-234 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2023.09.004.

Team

 

Current

 

Ali-Boyle Profile

 

Ali Boyle

Ali Boyle is an Assistant Professor in Philosophy at the LSE's Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method. 

She works in the philosophy of science. Most of her research is about comparative cognitive science - the science of nonhuman minds, from animals to artificial agents. Ali Boyle currently holds a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship (FLF) at the LSE's Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Sciences. Her FLF project focusses on the nature of episodic memory - memory for personally experienced past events - and its manifestations in animals and machines. She also works in the philosophy of biology, where she’s interested in how to count organisms in tricky cases like conjoined twinning, parasitism and pregnancy. 

Before joining the LSE, she held Research Fellowships at the University of Cambridge and the University of Bonn. Before that, she received her BA, MPhil and PhD in Philosophy from the University of Cambridge.

More about Ali Boyle can be found on her personal website.

Email: A.Boyle2@lse.ac.uk 

RD

 

Rebecca Dreier

Rebecca Dreier is a PhD student on the project titled "Episodic Memory: Uniquely Human?“. During her studies at the University of Tübingen, she delved into the nature of episodic memory, specifically in her BA thesis, and examined in her MA thesis whether remembering alone is sufficient to claim knowledge about the past.

Her primary research interest centres on the philosophy of mind, including animal cognition. Additionally she is interested in (social) epistemology, and the ethics of both animal and artificial intelligence.

In her doctoral research, Rebecca aims to further explore the functions of episodic memory. Her studies seek to provide insights into which animals might possess episodic memory and why. Additionally, she's interested in the methodologies used to investigate potential episodic memory in nonhuman species.

 Email: R.M.Dreier@lse.ac.uk

 

Arieh Schwartz

 

Arieh Schwartz

Arieh Schwartz is joining the Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social sciences as a postdoctoral researcher on the project, “Episodic Memory: Uniquely Human?”. Taking a pluralist approach to the biological function of episodic memory, he will determine what would be compelling evidence that an artificial system, such as a large language model, had a genuine episodic memory capacity. 

Arieh earned his doctorate from the University of California, Davis in 2022, under the supervision of Zoe Drayson. He previously worked in Israel as a postdoctoral researcher of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities. His research focuses mainly on topics in the philosophy of memory, although his interests range more broadly over the philosophy of cognitive science.

Email: a.g.schwartz@lse.ac.uk


 

Past

 

Andrea Blomkvist

 

Andrea Blomkvist

Andrea Blomkvist was a postdoctoral researcher on the project 'Episodic Memory: Uniquely Human?', where she primarily worked on episodic memory in AI. She earned her PhD from the University of Sheffield in 2021 under the supervision of Luca Barlassina and Dominic Gregory. Subsequently, she was a Teaching Associate in Philosophy of Psychology & Cognitive Science at the University of Sheffield, before taking up a position as a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Philosophical Psychology (University of Antwerp). Her main research interests lie in the philosophy of cognitive science, and include memory, imagination and mental imagery, comparative cognition, and issues about explanation and representation.

Personal Website: https://www.andreablomkvist.com/


 

Partners

 

lucy-cheke

 

Lucy Cheke

I research Learning and Memory in Health and Disease, with a particular emphasis on sub-clinical learning and memory deficits and how to measure and model them. 

As part of this I research memory deficits associated with particular disorders (such as Obesity and Long Covid) as well as pursuing methods to adequately measure and model subclinical learning and memory deficits. These include the development of translational assessments that can be used across animal models, human participants and computational simulations/models.

Part of my current research also focuses on the measurement of cognitive abilities within AI models, and exploration of how the capabilities of these models can be assessed and understood.

Personal Website: Dr Lucy Cheke 

 

nicola-clayton

 

Nicola S. Clayton

Nicola Clayton is Professor of Comparative Cognition in the Department of Psychology at the University of Cambridge, a Fellow of Clare College and a Fellow of the Royal Society. Her expertise lies in the contemporary study of comparative cognition, integrating a knowledge of both biology and psychology to introduce new ways of thinking about the evolution and development of intelligence in non-verbal animals and pre-verbal children. 

Personal Website: Professor Nicola S. Clayton 


 


 

 

 

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Grants/ Collaboration

Grant: UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship

Collaboration: University of Cambridge