The radiation of autonoetic consciousness in cognitive neuroscience: A functional neuroanatomy perspective.
Neuropsychologia April 30, 2020 Amnon Dafni-Merom, S. Arzy
Endel Tulving's concept of autonoetic consciousness—self-knowing awareness that enables mental time travel—links episodic memory with the ability to remember past events and simulate future ones. This review traces how Tulving's ideas have expanded into related theories including episodic memory, mental time travel, episodic simulation, scene construction, and self-projection. The authors examine the cognitive operations involved in traveling or projecting across temporal, spatial, and social domains. A meta-analysis of functional neuroimaging studies shows overlapping brain activations in medial prefrontal cortex, precuneus, retrosplenial cortex, temporoparietal junction, and medial temporal lobe, supporting the interconnectedness of these theories and their roots in Tulving's original framework.