Research summary
We encounter vast amounts of information over our lifetimes, but our ability to use it depends on how we store and managed it in our memories. As Canada Research Chair in Philosophy of Learning and Memory, Dr. Sara Aronowitz is examining what it means to think rationally across decades, not just in isolated moments.
She and her research team are investigating how memory interacts with values, how we adapt to unlearning and relearning, and whether understanding complex concepts depends on spatial cognition. They are also exploring what it means to say that a machine “understands.” Combining philosophy, psychology and computational modelling, they aim to show that long-term cognitive success depends on how strategically we manage knowledge. Their findings could improve care for older adults, reshape how we understand ourselves as we age, and build more nuanced frameworks for evaluating whether—and to what extent—artificial intelligence systems understand the world.