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<p>A proper account of affective memory must distinguish it from here-and-now emotions directed to the past (i.e., present emotions about past events) and semantic emotional memory (i.e., remembering the fact that one felt a certain way in the past but without any phenomenology of re-experiencing past personal events). Previous accounts have failed to make these distinctions, leading some theorists to doubt whether affective memory is a real mental phenomenon. I argue that there is a real, unique mental phenomenon of affective memory and that it is <i>emotional imagination directed towards one’s personal past</i>. Specifically, I argue that (i) affective memory is about emotions as <i>felt</i> in a past situation; (ii) remembering emotions involves <i>imaginatively simulating</i> emotions as something one personally experienced in the past; and (iii) the simulative character of affective memory is what distinguishes it from here-and-now emotions and semantic emotional memory.</p>

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Affective memory: what it is and what it is not

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2026年5月4日

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  • Laura Bickel

摘要

A proper account of affective memory must distinguish it from here-and-now emotions directed to the past (i.e., present emotions about past events) and semantic emotional memory (i.e., remembering the fact that one felt a certain way in the past but without any phenomenology of re-experiencing past personal events). Previous accounts have failed to make these distinctions, leading some theorists to doubt whether affective memory is a real mental phenomenon. I argue that there is a real, unique mental phenomenon of affective memory and that it is emotional imagination directed towards one’s personal past. Specifically, I argue that (i) affective memory is about emotions as felt in a past situation; (ii) remembering emotions involves imaginatively simulating emotions as something one personally experienced in the past; and (iii) the simulative character of affective memory is what distinguishes it from here-and-now emotions and semantic emotional memory.