8 Secko, D.M. et al. (2008) Perspectives on engaging the public in the
ethics of emerging biotechnologies: from salmon to biobanks to
Nature 450, 1157–1159
in
idg
UpdateRoberts. The Behavioural and Clinical Neuroscience Institute is
supported by a joint award from the Medical Research Council and
Wellcome Trust.
Letters
What should be compared
travel?
M. Osvath
1
, C.R. Raby
2
and N.S. Clayton
2
1
Lund University Cognitive Science
2
Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Cambr
Roberts andFeeney [1] recently argued that tests ofmental
time travel (MTT) in animals must show that they are
highly time specific in order to demonstrate qualitative
comparability with human MTT. We suggest that such a
demonstration, however interesting, would show only the
ability to order more than one event temporally within the
past or the future. Roberts and Feeney acknowledge that
neither time nor place is an essential element ofMTT.MTT
as experienced by humans is rarely specific in absolute
time. The temporal order of events need not be encoded
into episodicmemory traces and the perception of a chrono-
logical past depends on a process of active and repeated
construction, which may include having to add a sense of
pastness [2]. Although a sense of the past and the future isCorresponding author: Osvath, M. (Mathias.Osvath@lucs.lu.se).1364-6613/$ – see front matter  2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.tics.2009.10.007 Available online 16 November 2009
comparative mental time
e
regarded as a defining factor of MTT [3], the precise time
sequencing suggested by the authors is not.
A question at the core of the current comparative MTT-
debate is whether or not animals are capable of so called
autonoesis, the awareness of being subjectively involved in
the represented past or future events [3]. Such representa-
tions are enabled by the episodic cognitive system. The
authors argue that our studies on great apes and corvids
[4–6], which suggest MTT into the future, could instead be
explained by the animals using the semantic memory
system and not the episodic. In their view, the animals
know facts and, based on these, take actions that affect
their future, without projecting autonoetically into that
future. For example, they argue that scrub-jays apparently
making provision for a future meal might simply have aAcknowledgements
The authors are funded in part by Wellcome Trust Programme Grant
(076274/Z/04/Z) to B.J.S., Trevor Robbins, Barry Everitt and Angelatists who must ensure that neuroethics and public engage-
ment is integrated into their ongoing research and
teaching. With the continuing interest of neuroscientists
in investigating complex issues such as the neural basis of
personality traits, social attitudes, sexual and political
preferences and religious experiences, their increased
awareness and effective communication of the con-
sequences of such research is essential.
neuroethics. Account Res. 15, 283–302
9 Leshner, A.I. (2005) It’s time to go public with neuroethics. Am. J.
Bioeth. 5, 1–2
10 Illes, J. et al. (2005) International perspectives on engaging the public
in neuroethics. Nat. Rev. Neurosci. 6, 977–982
11 Christensen, L.J. et al. (2007) Ethics, CSR, and sustainability
education in the Financial Times top 50 global business schools:
baseline data and future research directions. J. Bus. Ethics 73, 347–368
12 Owen, A.M. et al. (2006) Detecting awareness in the vegetative state.
Science 313, 1402
13 Turner, D.C. et al. (2003) Cognitive enhancing effects of modafinil in
healthy volunteers. Psychopharmacology 165, 260–269
14 Sahakian, B. and Morein-Zamir, S. (2007) Professor’s little helper.discussions held at schools with children, in science festi-
vals and, where appropriate, in patient conferences, as well
as training with the media, all of which has prompted
much discussion and additional learning.
Concluding remarks
The emerging scholarly and political interests in neu-
roethics and public engagement should be translated into
wider dissemination to students and, ultimately, account-
ability by researchers, for the benefit of both neuroscien-
tists and a well-informed public. By itself, formal teaching
would be limited in instilling this approach and should be
viewed within the context of additional activities under-
taken by the neuroscience community. Although several of
the arguments outlined above are not specific to neuro-
science and could be adopted in other research areas,
including bioethics and nanotechnology, it is neuroscien-References
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4 Sahakian, B.J. and Morein-Zamir, S. (2009) Neuroscientists need
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Trends in Cognitive Sciences Vol.14 No.2predisposition to cache foods in novel locations. It is not
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