Visual Perspective Shapes Subjective Experience: Dissociable Parietal Contributions to the Constructive Nature of Memory

Subjective features of memory are often treated as secondary to the objective content of remembered events. However, growing evidence suggests that these features actively shape how memories are constructed, experienced, and used. Rather than treating visual perspective as a peripheral correlate of subjectivity, this review positions it as a key mechanism that shapes the memory. Because perspective can be flexibly controlled and reliably measured, it offers a unique window into how retrieval goals interact with mental simulation to produce vivid and emotionally resonant recollections. Drawing on behavioral and neuroimaging research, this review shows that visual perspective determines the spatial framing of memory, and the emotional and sensory qualities of recollection. Focusing on the posterior parietal cortex, it outlines distinct roles for the angular gyrus (AG) and the precuneus in supporting perspective-dependent retrieval. The AG contributes to the selection and maintenance of a retrieval perspective, integrating perceptual and conceptual features into a coherent scene. In contrast, the precuneus supports spatial transformation and modulates the vividness, emotional tone, and embodied character of recollection, particularly when individuals recall events from a non-dominant or shifted perspective. Together, these findings position visual perspective as a central mechanism in the construction of subjectivity. Understanding how perspective shapes the process of remembering provides insight into how memory supports emotion regulation, mental simulation, and the continuity of the self across time.