Emergence of Semantic Memory through Sequential Event Prediction and Its Role in Episodic Future Thinking: A Computational Exploration

Yuichi Ito	Nagoya University, Nagoya, Aichi, Japan
Taiji Ueno	Nagoya University, Nagoya, Aichi, Japan
Shinji Kitagami	Nagoya University, Nagoya, Aichi, Japan
Jun Kawaguchi	Nagoya University, Nagoya, Aichi, Japan

Abstract

This study aimed to clarify the mechanism underlying episodic future thinking, which refers to the ability to generate prospective events in a specific time/location/context. Given that episodic future thinking involves generating predictions in a plausible order from previous internal predictions, we hypothesized that knowledge of sequential prediction should underlie episodic future thinking. A parallel-distributed processing model was trained to predict the next event in the training sequence. After training, the model was allowed to use the acquired knowledge to repeatedly self-generate event sequences. The resultant event sequences captured the episodic future thinking of normal participants and that of neurological patients when the model was lesioned. Moreover, the nature of knowledge acquired after training for sequential prediction of external events reflected that of episodic memory, schema-like knowledge and semantic memory, all of which have been found to contribute to episodic future thinking by past studies.

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