A Definition Stuck in the Past: Episodic Memory Remains Tethered to Outdated Views of Animal Consciousness
Abstract
Animal cognition research has accumulated strong behavioural and neurobiological evidence for memory of specific events in non-human animals. However, the definition of episodic memory remains tethered to subjective criteria. I motivate a revised, measurement-aligned definition that centres objectively testable episode representations (what-where-when) and treats the conscious experience of recollection as a separable component (ecphory). This reframing accommodates evidence from food-cache paradigms, hippocampal replay/preplay, vicarious trial-and-error, and targeted memory reactivation. Phenomenology remains relevant as convergent evidence for episodic recollection in humans, but is not required for cross-species claims. I outline a practical route to consensus terminology.
Keywords: episodic memory, autonoesis, animal consciousness, ecphory, vicarious trial-and-error