Episodic Memories (for Creative Reactions: Pint of Science)

This creative piece below explores the formation of episodic memories. Episodic memories are memories that pertain to experience; they have a sense of self in them. Scientific research has demonstrated that our daily experience, which is continuous, is saved in memory as discrete events (or episodes) and it is when a salient change occurs within our daily experience that an event boundary is perceived. An event boundary is where one episode closes and another opens.

What kind of event causes the registration of an event boundary? How is it that we place more weight on one event than another? Does the element of surprise have any significance in changing the way in which an episode is stored into our memory and if so, how?

I explore these ideas through the use of photography and photographic manipulation, combining elements of a number of different photographs that I have taken specifically for this project and assembling them together to form one image.