10/30/25 Kari Hoffman: Memory Futures
CCN brown bag
Kari Hoffman, PhD
Associate Professor of Psychology
Date: Thursday, October 30, 2025
Time: 12:10- 1:00pm
Location: 316 Wilson Hall
Memory Futures
In this talk, I’ll highlight five considerations to inform the next era of memory research. They build on what the field has discovered, as well as insights that are sometimes downplayed or neglected.
1. Memory mechanisms follow planning horizon or, why fruit flies make poor investment managers
2. We’re after memories, not memory, or, the star of the show is the constellation
3. Classic memory categories may not map onto neurobiological equivalents, or, taxonomy without representation
4. Methodological limits are not organizational principles, or, if you only bring a hammer, the world looks like nails
5. Memory as a verb not a noun, or, it’s not about the size, it’s how you use it
Together, these frame memory as best understood through diverse lenses, oriented to adaptive behavior, multiply realized, and fundamentally about what the brain does, not what it has.