I haven’t thought that much about it, but “re-process memories” feels like… it sort of requires language, and orientation around narratives.
Hmm. I’m not sure to what extent, if any, I’m using language when I’m re-processing memories? Except when I’m explicitly thinking about what I want to say to someone, or what I might want to write, I generally don’t feel like I think in a language: I feel like I think in mental images and felt senses.
“Narratives”, I think, are basically impressions of cause and effect or simple mental models, and any animals that could be described as “intelligent” in any reasonable sense do need to have those. “Memory re-processing”, would then just be an update to the mental model that you interpreted the memory in terms of.
I feel like this excerpt from “Don’t Shoot the Dog” could be an example of very short-term memory reprocessing:
I once videotaped a beautiful Arabian mare who was being clicker-trained to prick her ears on command, so as to look alert in the show ring. She clearly knew that a click meant a handful of grain. She clearly knew her actions made her trainer click. And she knew it had something to do with her ears. But what? Holding her head erect, she rotated her ears individually: one forward, one back; then the reverse; then she flopped both ears to the sides like a rabbit, something I didn’t know a horse could do on purpose. Finally, both ears went forward at once. Click! Aha! She had it straight from then on. It was charming, but it was also sad: We don’t usually ask horses to think or to be inventive, and they seem to like to do it.
This (and other similar anecdotes in the book) doesn’t look to me like it’s just simple reinforcement learning: rather, it looks to me more like the horse has a mental model of the trainer wanting something, and is then systematically exploring what that something might be, until it hits on the right alternative. And when it does, there’s a rapid re-interpretation of the memory just a moment ago: from “in this situation, my trainer wants me to do something that I don’t know what”, to “in this situation, my trainer wants me to prick my ears”.
Hmm. I’m not sure to what extent, if any, I’m using language when I’m re-processing memories? Except when I’m explicitly thinking about what I want to say to someone, or what I might want to write, I generally don’t feel like I think in a language: I feel like I think in mental images and felt senses.
“Narratives”, I think, are basically impressions of cause and effect or simple mental models, and any animals that could be described as “intelligent” in any reasonable sense do need to have those. “Memory re-processing”, would then just be an update to the mental model that you interpreted the memory in terms of.
I feel like this excerpt from “Don’t Shoot the Dog” could be an example of very short-term memory reprocessing:
This (and other similar anecdotes in the book) doesn’t look to me like it’s just simple reinforcement learning: rather, it looks to me more like the horse has a mental model of the trainer wanting something, and is then systematically exploring what that something might be, until it hits on the right alternative. And when it does, there’s a rapid re-interpretation of the memory just a moment ago: from “in this situation, my trainer wants me to do something that I don’t know what”, to “in this situation, my trainer wants me to prick my ears”.