Introspection & remembering

Josef Perner

Daniela Kloo

Elisabeth Stöttinger

pp. 253-270

in: Radu Bogdan (ed), Self-ascriptions of mental states, Synthese 159 (2), 2007.

Abstract

We argue that episodic remembering, understood as the ability to re-experience past events, requires a particular kind of introspective ability and understanding. It requires the understanding that first person experiences can represent actual events. In this respect it differs from the understanding required by the traditional false belief test for children, where a third person attribution (to others or self) of a behavior governing representation is sufficient. The understanding of first person experiences as representations is also required for problem solving with images. In support of this argument we review developmental evidence that children’s episodic remembering is independent of and emerges after mastery of the false belief task but emerges together with the use of imagery for solving visual rotation tasks.