Charan Ranganath
Department of Psychology
UC Davis

The Where, When, and How of Episodic Memory, and Why it Matters

Many theories of learning and memory do not differentiate between features of an event (who? and what?) and its associated context (when? where? how?). I will highlight evidence showing that information about people and things may be represented in memory differently than information about places and situations. Our research shows that the brain uses representations of event contexts to prioritize learning and retention of important information. Finally, I will present our current framework for understanding how schematic knowledge about events and event-specific information interact to support memory for complex, real-life events.

The seminar will begin at 12:00pm in the SAIL Room, 111 Levin Building (425 S. University Ave.). A pizza lunch will be served at 11:45am.