| Dorthe Berntsen |
1. What is memory for? Memory enables
us to learn from experience and to selectively use stored information
in situations when this information is relevant and to suppress or
inhibit it in situations when it is irrelevant. However, because this
selectivity is largely governed by associative mechanisms, it works in
a very rough fashion. For the same reason, it may have dysfunctional
side-effects, such as ruminations, unbidden memories as a source of
distraction, and intrusive memories in Posttraumatic Stress
Disorder and depression.
2. How and how much does accuracy
matter in the study of memory? This depends on which type of
memory performance we study. For some memory tasks in daily life,
accuracy is crucial (e.g., where did I put my keys? When does my plane
leave?). For other tasks, it is much less important, whereas aesthetic,
symbolic and other communicative values of memory may be central and
cause memory distortions at the level of accuracy. Such
distortions may serve communicative purposes.
3. What processes are involved in
forgetting? Many different ones. In the way I think about
memory, cue dependent forgetting is probably the most important source
of forgetting. From my studies on involuntary memories, it seems that
access to autobiographical memories is highly cue-dependent. For
example, memories that appear to be little thought about may come to
mind in response to accidental environmental cues.
4. To what extent do we know out own
memories? We are usually quite good at distinguishing between
fantasy and memory. Although fantasy and memory can be mixed up as in
false memory, this is the exception rather than the rule. In this sense
we know our own memories quite well. We recognize a memory, when we
have one, and know that it is not a mere fantasy. To me it is a puzzle
how we are able to distinguish the two, but in most cases we are.
5. Is emotion central for memory
processes? Emotion is central for memory and generally enhances
memory for emotional events. However, the emotion need not be a result
of individual appraisal. For socially shared events, the felt emotion
may be a result of contagion rather than appraisal at the level of the
individual.
6. Given that you work in a special
field of memory studies, what do you
need or expect from specialists
in other fields? Pursuing my line of research sometimes requires
documented historical facts against which personal memory can be
measured. I have used data/analyses from historians, literary critics
and even meteorologists.
|
| David Blight |
1.
What is memory for? Difficult
question without some context, but I would say that its purpose or
meaning is that it provides a (sometimes the) means by which people
understand themselves in time. It is also a primary source of
identity
formation. And finally, it often provides the deepest narratives
or
stories in which people believe they are living.
2. How and how much does
accuracy matter in the study of memory?
Accuracy does matter to historians at some level. But this is of
course a large dilemma. Some historical memories (versions of the
past) are largely inaccurate and we know it. But that, of course
(and
our saying so), makes them no less useful to those people who believe
them deeply. One of the fascinating questions at least for
historians
is just when and where do we step into debates over public memory and
say "this is incorrect," or "that is correct." Often, however, we
are
dealing with deeply laid myths or traditions about which the question
of accuracy is not necessarily the most important one.
3. What processes are
involved in forgetting?
The processes involved in collective forgetting are more than we can
name. But some surely are politics, schooling, family and
community
cohesion, memorialization. But perhaps one of the most important
would
be matters of trauma, tragedy, sacrifice. Some historical
memories are
either too difficult to squarely face, or get largely erased. The
most
significant factor of all here for historical memory, I would suggest,
is power. Who controls the formation of the narrative?
Which stories
survive and grow, and which are suppressed? What present needs
get
fulfilled and which do not?
4. To what extent do we
know our own memories? Well,
this is tough. And I would like more time to think on this one
frankly. But I would say at least that we know our memories
(collective or individual) to a greater or lesser extent depending on
how much or how often we rehearse them. But that of course may
only
reinforce a version of our "memories," and not make them particularly
accurate. As a historian, I will argue that research,
documentation,
records, especially in large aggregates, can lead us to "knowing" more
about those collective memories (and even some individual memories)
than merely the frequent rehearsal of the story. There are, of
course,
some ways in which all our memories are essentially lost to our
retrieval.
5. Is emotion central to
memory processes? Yes,
I think emotion is central to collective memory, perhaps in ways not at
all unlike individual memory. In the study of collective, social
memory, the violence and war has taken a special and central place.
Memorialization in its many forms tends to stem from the need to
commemorate, explain, or simply recognize blood sacrifice, loss,
victory through death. Much more can be said on this.
6. What do you need or
expect from specialists in other fields?
What do historians need from other fields: much! How can we who
study
the collective aspects of this problem understand how to link it to
individual memory? How can you help us know a collective memory
when
we meet one? How might you help us convince some of our
historian-colleagues that memory studies is a thoroughly necessary
sub-field? How might you help us or challenge us to continue to
incorporate memory into our deep commitments to the search for
verifiable evidence, documentation, sources? How can you help us
make
our case that all memories are not equal? How can you help us
explain
that we are writing histories of memory? |
|
Pascal
Boyer
|
1. What is memory
for?
I think we should be much more precise and forthright in the way
we
address the functions of different memory systems. Cognitive psychology
and study of memory often display what I would call a form of 'timid
functionalism' where we assert that cognitive systems are functional
yet only provide clearly insufficient functional descriptions. For
instance, we say and I tell my students that the function of
autobiographical memory is to connect the personal past to the present
self and present goals. This is fine as a proximate explanation of some
features of the system, but why should we have such a system? Why is
self-coherence something that we need? Take another example: we say
that the construction of shared historical narratives serves as the
bedrock of group identity. Fine, but again what is the distal
explanation? Why do people need to participate in a shared identity?
What mechanisms make such narratives compelling? So there are many
functions to memory systems, but in many cases it might be of great
interest to be more serious about function.
2. How and how much does
accuracy matter in the study of memory?
This is connected to the above. We know that intuitive, folk-psychology
assumes some kind of naˆØ¬øÔø‡ve realism: there is a particular
way in
which
the past happened, and all that matters is to preserve some clear
connection to that information; all extra contribution from the
remembering mind is bound to be a distortion of the record. We all
assume the opposite in our work on memory: that it is a constructive
process, that the past did not happen in a narrative, schematized form,
and that contributions from the remembering mind are crucial to making
the past intelligible. But it might be the case that accuracy
expectations and requirements differ a lot between memory systems,
depending on their ultimate functions. For instance, if one function of
autobiographical memory is to make the self coherent to other
people as well as the self, it would follow that such a system can be
'creative' only to some extent, as it needs to preserve some
compatibility between what we think and what others think happened to
us.
3. What processes are
involved in forgetting? There
is still no clear empirical study of memory function in my "field" of
the cognitive processes involved in cultural transmission, let alone
forgetting process. We would perhaps need something beyond decay and
interference to explain how certain items of culturally acquired
information are gradually discarded and disappear from certain groups.
In particular, it seems that some culturally spread representations
disappear from behavior only if they remain active for some time as a
counter-model. For instance, linguistic usage changes when people
maintain both a norm and a precise representation of how things should
not be said, what Jakobson called a 'dynamic synchrony'. So cultural decay requires individual memory. There may
be other processes of this kind in cultural transmission ˆ¢Ôø‡Ôø‡ and
I hope
we'll talk about that during our workshop.
4. To what extent do we
know our own memories?
A great deal of 'cultural' representations (i.e. spread in a particular
group) consist in models and assumptions that are simply not available
to conscious inspection. That this is the case is a common assumption
in cultural anthropology ˆ¢Ôø‡Ôø‡ and empirically verified every day
in
experimental social psychology. For instance, we tried to show that
religious concepts are based on assumptions about agency and intuitive
physics that no religious believer ever makes explicit, yet constrain
the way they think about supernatural agents. Also, we know that meta-memory
is often inaccurate in terms of cultural transmission. That is, people
are not really aware of what parts of their explicit past are
constructed and how.
5. Is emotion central to
memory processes?
Yes but that is probably the least understood aspect of memory. In our
Introduction to Memory course, all students seem to start from the
assumption that emotion makes things memorable. We try to dispel that
simplistic view and have a lot of experimental evidence to show that it
works in subtle and complicated ways. But that experimental literature
has not yet converged on an integrated model of how specific subtypes
of emotional processing would affect particular kinds of memories. To
be more speculative, maybe understanding the connection will require
that we discard the standard domain-general
perspective in the study
of memory (focusing on large systems like working memory, semantic
memory, retrieval, encoding, etc. regardless of the kinds of material
they handle) and emphasize domain-specific
aspects (like memory for
persons, memory for the self, memory for resources, memory for social
exchange, etc.). That's because different domains would certainly
engage memory systems in a very different way.
6. What do you need
or expect from specialists in other fields? A
lot, especially so as I do not really have a "field" but have to use
methods from some fields (cognitive psychology and evolutionary
anthropology) to solve questions from another (cultural anthropology).
I would hope that we could formulate some central questions in of
memory in such a way that the topography of these different fields,
where to find tools and findings, given a particular question, becomes
clear to all involved.
|
Jennifer Cole
|
[1] what is memory for? Memory is how
human beings know themselves in time, and construct their identities.
It has an important moral/political dimension because it is by knowing
the past that we shape and create particular kinds of futures.
[2] how and how much does accuracy
matter in the study of memory? As almost everyone else has
written, it depends. In anthropology, people tend to focus less on
questions of accuracy and more on understanding the social forces that
create/shape/sustain particular memories. But people often want to know
’Äúwhat really happened’Äù precisely so that they can better understand the
social forces at play. Thus in my own research about remembering a
rebellion, I consulted archives and oral narratives, and juxtaposed
them with each other.
[3] What processes are involved in
forgetting? The processes involved in forgetting, like the
processes involved in remembering, are tied to complex historically
constituted group dynamics, and the social practices that actively
sustain memory. It depends on your level of analysis’Äîsocial or
individual’Äîbut I certainly think identity formation and the need to
discard or suppress certain kinds of information is key.
[4] To what extent do we know our own
memories? In many ways we don’Äôt, because memory is always forged
in a complex dialectic between inner and outer landscapes, which may
hold different kinds of information within them. The fact that we don’Äôt
always know our own memories is double sided: the failure to own memory
means we can be manipulated but the failure to own memory also makes it
hard to achieve total manipulation.
[5] is emotion central to memory
processes? Absolutely, but in contradictory kinds of ways
including the malleability of memory, the transmission of memory etc.
Also, given that you work in a
special field of memory studies, what do you need or expect from
specialists in other fields? As an anthropologist, I am always
interested in borrowing ideas about multiple memory systems, or
precise kinds of encoding or erasure, from psychologists because they
tend to talk about these processes in much more precise terms than
anthropologists do!
|
| Larry Jacoby |
My answer to
the questions will be brief because I have little to add to answers
given by others for most of the questions, and for some questions, my
answers will be the basis for my talk at the meeting.
What is memory for?
As described by others, memory can serve a wide range of
purposes. The variety is sufficient large to suggest that there
are numerous forms of memory that differ in their underlying
representation, and/or their retrieval and decision processes. The
differences among goals and forms of memory are important for answering
the subsequent questions.
To what extent do we know our
own memories? The answer to this question depends on
the form or use of memory. For remembering, there is a good deal
of research to show that confidence in memory is often poorly
calibrated with regard to its accuracy. This poor calibration
raises interesting questions that concern false memory and the basis
for the subjective experience of remembering. Also, the goal when
using memory is often not one of remembering but, rather, is to engage
in some task that can reflect automatic, unaware influences of memory
(implicit memory). This form or use of memory that is unknown by
the user is important for collective memory because of its influence on
interpretation of the present and the past. Attitudes, including
implicit ones, can be seen as reflecting implicit memory.
What processes are involved in
forgetting? I have nothing to add to comments made by
others except to say that I agree with regard to the importance of the
goal of memory and the cues offered by the memory test. In that
vein, implicit memory is sometimes extremely resistant to
forgetting.
Is emotion central to memory
processes? Sometimes. Emotion can influence encoding
as well as retrieval and decision processes. Emotion is
particularly important for attitudes and self-identity, which play a
central role in collective memory.
How and how much does accuracy
matter in the study of memory? It depends on the
situation, particularly the person’Äôs goal. Sometimes accuracy
matters a lot as in the case of line-up identification or other
instances of eyewitness testimony in the legal system. In cases
such as these, the answer to the ’Äúhow it matters’Äù question is obvious.
What do you need or expect from
specialists in other fields? I hope to gain ideas
regarding means of integrating topics related to collective
memory. For example, what are the differences among the
approaches in what counts as evidence for theories of memory? Are
there empirical and theoretical tools that one can use to relate the
collective present to the collective past? As an applied
question, how can differences in collective memory be bridged or
reconciled so as to resolve conflicts such as those in Iraq? Can
research on collective memory contribute to questions of this sort?
Another need arises from my teaching a course jointly with Pascal and
Jim Wertsch. We need some integration of topics and new,
interesting material for that course. From the participants that
are involved, I am certain that we will gain new interesting material
for the course.
|
James Pennebaker
|
1. What is memory for? At the social
and cultural level, it allows for a shared view of events in the
distant or very recent past. It also serves as a framework by
which to perceive and understand current events.
2. How and how much does accuracy
matter in the study of memory? To the degree that social
memories influence important behaviors related to the real world,
accuracy is important. If our shared memory of a dinner long ago
involved the use of cyanide as an exotic yet tasty spice, accuracy is
critically important. In most cases, however, accuracy is
secondary.
3. What processes are involved in
forgetting? Social and cultural events are easily distorted or
forgotten for several reasons. We tend to forget events that
don’Äôt have relevance to our lives, that aren’Äôt rehearsed by others in
our social world, or that reflect badly on our social group.
4. To what extent do we know our own
memories? This a bit like the accuracy question. There is
only a modest correlation between the ’Äúfeeling of knowing’Äù associated
with a memory and the accurate recall of event associated with the
memory. In other words, we think we know our own memories better
than we know our own memories.
5. Is emotion central for memory
processes? Emotion is an important part of social and cultural
memories. We tend to think and talk about emotion-laden events at
much higher rates than non-emotional experiences. For some of our
most important and behavior-relevant memories, emotions are central to
both remembering and forgetting.
6. Given that you work in a special
field of memory studies, what do you need or expect from specialists in
other fields? I would like to know more about the time line of
memories. How are they formed, rehearsed, forgotten, and reawakened
over seconds, minutes, days, and years. How are shared memories
put together to create history? What is the link between memory
and narrative? How can fMRI images help us to understand how
people remember 9/11, the Korean War, or the French Revolution?
|
Roddy Roediger
|
1.
What is memory for?
The basic answer is ’Äúevery important feature of human life’Äù (and many
unimportant ones, too). Living a normal life is inconceivable without
many uses of memory, every minute, every day, which is why diseases
that rob a person of even a few types of memory are so devastating.
2. How and how much
does accuracy matter in the study of memory? The answer
here is unequivocally ambiguous: It depends. If I am trying
to recall distant memories of my childhood for some purpose (say,
psychotherapy), what I believe matters more than what happened. If I am
a student studying for my organic chemistry exam, accuracy is paramount
and what I might personally believe about organic chemistry (if
different from the facts) will not much interest my professor.
Similarly, my computer will not be impressed if I confidently recall my
pin number and get it wrong, no matter how strongly I believe myself to
be correct. Accuracy matters in many contexts. A good story
matters more in other contexts.
3. What processes
are involved in forgetting? Psychologists have been trying
to answer this question for over a hundred years. At the level of
an individual memory of an event for an individual person, retroactive
interference (interference from similar events happening after the
event in question) is doubtless a critical element of any answer. A
particular event that happened on a particular day will not be well
remembered later if many events having similar features happen between
the event of interest and a later retrieval query. Stating this another
way in terms of the principle of cue overload, a particular retrieval
cue will not be effective in provoking a particular recollection if it
matches many different traces of experience. The match between the cue
and the stored representation of the event must be distinctive. Of
course, other processes are doubtless involved in forgetting, too, but
if I had to put my money on one, it would be retroactive interference.
4. To what extent do we know our own memories? A
whole field of experimental psychology has grown up since about 1970
that tries to answer this question. The study of metamemory involves
asking people to make assessments of how they will perform in
particular memory tasks. The results generally show the glass half
full. In some tasks, people turn out to be very well calibrated
in their predictions of memorial performance, which may not be a
surprise. After all, everyone has his or her own theories about
remembering worked out over a lifetime of experience, and the
educational system turns everyone into someone knowledgeable to some
degree about how to remember. However, in some tasks or
situations, people can be wildly off-base in their judgments and
predictions of how well they will remember events in the future, or
even whether some retrieved event is recollected accurately or
inaccurately. In some cases we can confidently remember events
that never happened (the problem of false recollections) or fail to
recognize those events that did occur (one type of forgetting).
Sorting out why these experiences occur is a central issue in the
experimental study of memory.
5. Is emotion
central to memory processes? As with the second question, the
answer is ’Äúit depends.’Äù (In fact, that is the all-purpose answer
for almost all questions/issues about memory). If I am remembering the
phone number of a friend, or my pin number, or whether I took out the
garbage this morning, emotion is not much involved. If I am remembering
some exciting or happy or tragic time from earlier in my life, emotion
is involved.
6. What do you need
or expect from specialists in other fields? Psychologists
tend to look to other fields for interesting questions to which they
can apply their armamentarium of techniques (experimental methods,
questionnaires, surveys, etc.). The hope is to turn interesting
general questions into testable hypotheses about which systematic data
can be collected. The field of collective memory is fascinating,
but to date has largely been approached through qualitative rather than
quantitative and experimental studies. These studies have
revealed many fascinating insights, in my opinion, but psychologists
have not yet attempted to pluck this field with their empirical
techniques. I hope the conference might lead some of us to take this
plunge.
|
Michael Ross
|
[1] What is memory for? A lot of things.
A partial list would include: personal knowledge/identity (especially
in Western cultures), social identity, problem solving, behavioral
guidance, self- presentation, mood regulation, prediction, cultural
transmission, instruction, relationship formation and maintenance, and
entertainment.
[2] How and how much does
accuracy matter in the study of memory? Throughout human
history (in the days before GPS and PDAs, anyway), an accurate memory
was probably an evolutionary advantage. It helped individuals navigate
their surroundings, find food, and avoid danger. More generally,
accuracy matters if accuracy helps individuals and social groups deal
with current life circumstances. Otherwise it is not so important. It
may not matter much, for example, whether my childhood memories are
accurate. And the scientific study of childhood memories can tell us
about how the human mind works, even if the memories are inaccurate or
their accuracy is unknown. Research in the Bartlett tradition and in
social psychology focuses on the content rather than the accuracy of
recall. For example, social psychologists might ask spouses to recall
an argument. The experimental interest is in factors predicting
differences and similarities in spouses’Äô recall of the same event
rather than accuracy (which cannot readily be assessed). Also, the
definition of accuracy can vary with context. Often
retaining/constructing the meaningful gist of a past episode is good
enough to satisfy people’Äôs needs. In other situations, verbatim recall
is valued. And then there is the question of ’Äúmatter to whom’Äù? My
inaccuracies in describing a past event might not matter much to me,
but they might disturb my spouse. The minor inaccuracies of a
participant in a memory experiment might be of great excitement to
researcher whose theory they support.
[3] What processes are involved in
forgetting? A host of cognitive, motivational,
experiential, and social/cultural processes. Social groups sometimes
’Äúforget’Äù shameful aspects of their past, because the episodes are
omitted from social discourse, the media, and school textbooks. In
contrast, social groups maintain ’Äúrecollections’Äù of past injustices
committed against their group, as well as their groups’Äô past triumphs.
Such memories are often transmitted from generation to generation.
[4] To what extent do we know our own
memories? I am not sure what you mean by ’Äúknow’Äù.
[5] Is emotion central to memory
processes? Sometimes emotion is central because the emotional
impact of an episode can influence how and whether we remember it.
Similarly emotion at retrieval, whatever its cause, can affect what we
remember. But a lot of remembering has little to do with emotion.
[6] What do you need or expect from
specialists in other fields? I borrow from everyone and anyone.
I have borrowed paradigms and theories from cognitive and developmental
psychologists. More recently in my work on group memory and
recollections of injustice, I have turned to work by historians and
legal scholars to inform my experimental materials and hypotheses.
|
David
Rubin
|
[1] what is memory for?
- To allow us to escape the
tyranny of the present ~ Bartlett
- To allow modifications in
behavior that are not hard wired.
[2]
how and how much does accuracy matter in the study of memory?
- Accuracy matters depending on
the task.
- All memory is reconstructed
from information in basic systems. For example a visual scene is
transformed by the eyes with all their limits in resolution,
wavelength, etc. to a chemical change then an electrical change, then .
. . and eventually retransformed back to a visual image where it is
combined with transformed auditory and other infomation.
- Accuracy is a myth. But
memory is often good enough (Herrnstein-Smith) for the task given it,
as in oral traditions and autobiographical memory
[3] What
processes are involved in forgetting?
- Interference and decay in
each of the basic systems (which I will talk about) individually, which
can be offset by the combination of systems.
- Things are forgotten if they
cannot be uniquely cued by the information given. Cuing in
multiple systems has very powerful effects.
[4] To what
extent do we know our own memories?
- If we can reconstruct them,
we can examine them.
- If we reconstruct them
convincingly (in terms of recollection and belief) but not in a way
that matches the original event we can know still know ˆ¢Ôø‡Ôø‡our
memoriesˆ¢Ôø‡Ôø‡
well just not the event.
[5]
is emotion central to memory processes?
- Very. It modulates
other memory processes.
[Also] given
that you work in a special field of memory studies, what do you need or
expect from specialists in other fields?
- I have used and will use
whatever I can get. (I may be called a dilettante more easily than a
specialist.)
|
Dan Schacter
|
[1] What is memory for? The answer
depends in part on exactly what type of memory one is talking about,
but in general I would say a primary function common to many forms of
memory is that they allow us to prepare for the future.
[2] How and how much does accuracy
matter in the study of memory? Accuracy needs to be
defined carefully, since it can refer to different levels or types of
memory. For example, one can be inaccurate when remembering the precise
details of a situation but at the same time be accurate when
remembering the general meaning, sense or gist of what happened in the
same situation. Accuracy is important in the study of memory in part
because analyzing distortions and errors of memory can provide
important insights into how memories are constructed.
[3] What processes are involved in
forgetting? There are many potentially relevant processes,
including failures of
encoding, storage, and/or retrieval, as well as contributions of
interference and decay. Another perspective I have taken in writing
about the seven 'sins' of memory is to divide forgetting into three
forms (or 'sins'): transience (forgetting over time), absent-mindedness
(failures at the interface between attention and memory), and blocking
(temporary retrieval failure).
[4] To what extent do we know
our own memories? Depends on what aspects of memory one has in
mind, but in general I would would be a bit evaisve here and say 'to
some extent'. For example, confidently held memories can be more
accurate than those held with less confidence, but it is easy to
demonstrate that some high confidence memories can be wrong. We can
predict to some extent whether we will be able to recognize an item we
cannot recall at the moment, but our ability to do so is far from
perfect.
[5] Is emotion central to memory
processes? Emotion has a powerful influence modulatory influence
on memory. Emotional arousal generally occurs in response to
significant events - those that are likely to be important to remember
in the future. So it is hard to imagine that we could develop an
adequate understanding of memory without taking into account the
influence of emotion.
[6] Given that you work in a special
field of memory studies, what do you need or expect from specialists in
other fields? Depends on the field. For example, back in the
1980s, cognitive psychologists derived great benefit from the
observations of neuropsychologists concerning striking dissociations
among forms of memory in amnesic patients, dissociations which led
cognitive psychologists to develop paradigms and ideas that they might
not have otherwise. Neuropsychologists, in turn, were able to make use
of sophisticated methods developed by cognitive psychologists to
improve their studies of patient populations. So, it all depends on the
methods, ideas, and observations that can be provided by a particular
field.
|
Lori Watt
|
1. What is memory for? Personal
memories are for orienting a person in time and space, and
collective memories help to affirm and stabilize that process,
often across generations.
2. How and how much does
accuracy matter in the study of memory? Accurate memories matter
in the study of memory and history because most non-historians,
and some historians, believe that anything less than true
"facts," based on sources including accurate testimony, is not viable
history. It matters, therefore, because people believe that
accuracy matters. Contesting the accuracy of a person's memory,
like contesting the numbers killed in an atrocity, is one of the
easiest ways to derail a conversation about history. The showdown
between the eyewitness with his or her memory, and the historian with
his or her fact, is almost never productive. (I'm thinking Enola
Gay here.) But, if used with care, inaccurate memories can be an
important means for understanding the past, if one can figure out what
purpose an inaccurate recollection serves.
3. What processes are involved
in forgetting? Forgetting helps to streamline narratives.
4. To what extent do we know
our own memories? In the 1998 film After Life, the recently
deceased 71-year-old Watanabe Ichiro is unable to complete his final
task, choosing one memory he will relive throughout eternity. He
is perplexed because he feels he needs some evidence. So his
caseworker orders all 71 videotapes of Watanabe's life, tapes that
provide an objective record, and gives them to him to review. All of my
intellectual training tells me that such a record, in any form, does
not exist. But part of me acts as if there is a recoverable
record of my life. And if such a record did exist, my videotapes
and my memories would diverge dramatically because on the scale of
accurate remembers and rewriters, I fall on the rewriting end. My
memories often lose out to the more powerful force, the idea of the way
things should have been. (Needless to say, this
self-knowledge is disturbing to me as a historian). What kind of
person has a "truer" grip on his or her past?
5. Is emotion central to memory
processes? I feel like one of Pascal Boyer's freshmen here, but
it is my assumption that emotion makes things memorable.
6. What do you need or expect
from specialists in other field? I want to know more about
current scientific theories on the brain and memory, and where to look
for them in the future. Would you recommend Schacter and Scarry's
Memory, Brain and Belief? Where are memories processed and
stored? Does sleep record memories? Does the brain store
triggers from traumatic episodes? It is my understanding that
historical movies tend to overwrite people's personal memories of
important events. Are some people more resistant to that
process? Do pessimists remember better than optimists?
I was intrigued by Roddy Roediger's impulse to try to apply the
techniques of psychology to the field of collective memory, with the
goal of "testable hypotheses about whic systematic data can be
collected." In 2001, Jay Winter wrote, "the assumption [in these
problematic essays] is that individual memory and collective memory are
related in a linear or aggregative way. I know of no study in
neurology or cognitive psychology that justifies such a
conclusion.
The language of "collective memory" or "cultural memory" is simply too
vague to bear the weight of such an argument." A possible
starting point?
Finally, is memory in modern times different from memory in
pre-industrial times? I am not talking about orality versus
literacy, but asking whether there is something about the modern
condition that requires people to remember differently than they did in
the past.
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James
Wertsch
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1. What is memory for?
& 2
.
How and how much does accuracy matter in the study of memory? The correct answer to the first of these
questions is of course, "It depends on what kind of memory one has in
mind". My
particular response focuses on something like episodic memory on the
collective level (even though Endel Tulving has told me that this does
not really qualify memory at all). From
this perspective there are two basicˆ¢Ôø‡Ôø‡and often
competingˆ¢Ôø‡Ôø‡functions
of
memory. The
first is to provide a representation of the past (often accompanied by
strong assumptions about accuracy), and the second is to serve a role
in the construction of identity. Depending
on
the context, memory serves one or the other of these functions to a
greater or lesser degree, but both are often in evidenceˆ¢Ôø‡Ôø‡and
often in
conflict as well. In particular, accuracy
is often sacrificed in the service of an identity project.
The degree to which one
focuses on either of these two functions is typically a reflection of
disciplinary orientation. Anthropological,
sociological, and historical accounts are often guided by the
assumption that memory exists in order to create collective identity
and has little commitment to accuracy, whereas psychological studies
often start with might be called an "accuracy criterion" (which is not
to suggest that psychologists believe memory IS accurate in any simple
sense). But regardless of where one
operates on
the disciplinary horizon, there is often evidence of a commitment both
to accurate representation, on the one hand, and to an identity
project, on the other. Such orientations
are
often not explicit, or even recognized, but instead surface in the
methods and evidence employed by various disciplines.
Because
of this, there is all too often a complete disconnect in ideas about
what memory is and what it is for when representatives of various
disciplines try to launch a discussion.
3. What processes are
involved in forgetting?
In his 1882 presentation "What Is a Nation?" Ernest Renan famously
stated, "Forgetting, I would even go so far as to say historical error,
is a crucial factor in the creation of a nation." He
went on to argue that history not only differs from memory, but often
stands in opposition to it ("progress in historical studies often
constitutes a danger for [the principle of] nationality [and its
associated memory project]." Like
most
analysts of national and other forms of collective memory, Renan's
interest was not primarily in cases of blatant denial or crude
falsification. Instead, much of his
argument
rests on assumptions of how cultural tools such as narratives are
structured and employed in such ways that ensure some sort of
forgetting. Specifically, it has to do
with what
Louis Mink called "narrative truth", i.e., whether or not one has the
right story, rather than the truth of particular propositions. To be sure, there
are instances where the "blank spots" of history or memory are crudely
formulated, but cases of forgetting, at least as it occurs in
collective remembering, are usually more complex because they are a
matter of how a set of actors and events are emplotted or narrativized. From this
perspective remembering is a process that is inherently distributed
between active agents and the cultural tools they employ.
In an important sense, the narrative tools are as much a
part of remembering as are the individuals and groups using them. The
analysis of forgetting, then, requires examining what Mink termed the
"cognitive instrument" of narrative form as well as the particular ways
that active agents use them.
4. To what extent do we
know our own memories? My
comments so far have been concerned with issues that generally fall
under the heading of episodic memory, specifically remembering that is
organized by cultural tools such as narratives shared by members of a
collective. This does not touch on
implicit
memory, which promises to be one of the more interesting issues of the
meetings, but even in the case of the sorts of memory I am examining,
there is an important sense in which people usually do not know their
own memories. This derives from
what A.R. Luria called the "transparency" of natural language in
general, and I would argue, narratives in particular.
They
are transparent in the sense that members of a group who talk about the
past typically employ narrative forms provided by the collective
without recognizing their existence, let along influence.
One
result of this is that people employing different accounts of the past
often view themselves as simply reporting "what really happened" and
find themselves completely at odds with what other similarly insist is
the truth.
Such problems are exacerbated to the degree that the narrative tools
involved are transparent to their users. One
distinction that is useful in this regard differentiates "specific
narratives" that include concrete information about dates, places, and
actors, on the one hand, and "schematic narrative templates" that are
generalized and often mythic in nature, on the other.
The
latter are typically much more difficult to recognize, and hence
knowing our own memories is more difficult when dealing with this level
of organization. In part because of this,
schematic narrative templates are particularly conservative and
resistant to change.
5. Is emotion central to
memory processes? Emotion
often plays a crucial role in collective memory. One
of the features that distinguishes mere knowledge about the past from
collective memory is that the latter is about "us" and hence questions
or attacks on our narrative of the past are often taken to be attacks
on our identity claims and on us directly. It
is
for this reason that emotions run high when Turks say that the Armenian
account of the 1915 massacre is overblown, Pakistanis say that Indians
have never recognized the true reasons for the 1947 partition, and so
forth. The kind of
emotion involved and how it attaches to the narrative tools of
collective remembering remain under-theorized and largely unexplored
issues. And the emotional processes in
such
instances are probably different from others often encountered in the
study of individual memory, raising further challenges to anyone trying
to make sense of this complex topic.
6. What do you need or
expect from specialists in other fields? The
issues of emotion noted above beg for insights by colleagues from
psychology, neuroscience, and related disciplines, and the list goes on
and on for anyone concerned with collective memory.
Based
on discussions of memory studies that we have had over the past several
years at Washington University, I think good candidates for productive
discussion are the much used notions of schemas and narratives. These
notions have been used widelyˆ¢Ôø‡Ôø‡and somewhat
differentlyˆ¢Ôø‡Ôø‡by various
strands of memory studies, and they seem to be good candidates for
finding a common ground. Given that part of our task is to lay out what
would be involved in a general effort in memory studies, I think that
it would be helpful to build on the ideas from specialists in other
fields to construct a typology of types of remembering.
This is an ambitious task just within, say, psychology,
and trying to reach across disciplines will be all that much harder. The meeting we will have in May brings
together a group that just may be able to pull this off, however.
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