Aroma Dabas

Abstract Experiences shape preferences. This is particularly the case when they deviate from our expectations and thus elicit prediction errors. Here we show that prediction errors do not only occur in response to actual events - they also arise endogenously in response to merely imagined events. Specifically, we show that people acquire a preference for acquaintances as they imagine interacting with them in unexpectedly pleasant situations.

Abstract An integral part of episodic retrieval is the reinstatement of neural activity that was present in the medial temporal lobe during encoding. However, neural memory representations do not remain static. Consolidation promotes the transformation of representations that are specific to individual episodes towards more generalized representations that reflect commonalities across episodes.