We tend to think about memory in terms of the human experience, neglecting the fact that we can trace a direct line of descent from the earliest vertebrates to modern humans. But the evolutionary history that we share with other vertebrates has left a mark on modern memory, complemented by unique forms of memory that emerged in humans. This book tells an intriguing story about how evolution shaped human memory. It explains how a series of now-extinct ancestral species adapted to life in their world, in their time and place. As they did, new brain areas appeared, each of which supported an innovative form of memory that helped them gain an advantage in life. Through inheritance and modification across millions of years, these evolutionary developments created several kinds of memory that influence the human mind today. Then, during human evolution, yet another new kind of memory emerged: about ourselves and others. This evolutionary innovation ignited human imagination; empowered us to remember and talk about a personal past; and enabled the sharing of knowledge about our world, our culture, and ourselves. Through these developments, our long journey along the evolutionary road to human memory made it possible for every individual, day upon day, to add new pages to the story of a life: the remarkably rich record of experiences and knowledge that make up a human mind. Written in an engaging and accessible style, The Evolutionary Road to Human Memory will be enjoyable reading for anyone interested in the human mind.

How is the memory of traumatic events, such as genocide and torture, inscribed within human bodies? In this book, Paul Connerton discusses social and cultural memory by looking at the role of mourning in the production of histories and the reticence of silence across many different cultures. In particular he looks at how memory is conveyed in gesture, bodily posture, speech and the senses - and how bodily memory, in turn, becomes manifested in cultural objects such as tattoos, letters, buildings and public spaces. It is argued that memory is more cultural and collective than it is individual. This book will appeal to researchers and students in anthropology, linguistic anthropology, sociology, social psychology and philosophy.

Larry M. Jorgensen provides a systematic reappraisal of Leibniz's philosophy of mind, revealing the full metaphysical background that allowed Leibniz to see farther than most of his contemporaries. In recent philosophy much effort has been put into discovering a naturalized theory of mind. Leibniz's efforts to reach a similar goal three hundred years earlier offer a critical stance from which we can assess our own theories. But while the goals might be similar, the content of Leibniz's theory significantly diverges from that of today's thought. Perhaps surprisingly, Leibniz's theological commitments yielded a thoroughgoing naturalizing methodology: the properties of an object are explicable in terms of the object's nature. Larry M. Jorgensen shows how this methodology led Leibniz to a fully natural theory of mind.

What does it signify when a Shakespearean character forgets something or when Hamlet determines to 'wipe away all trivial fond records'? How might forgetting be an act to be performed, or be linked to forgiveness, such as when in The Winter's Tale Cleomenes encourages Leontes to 'forget your evil. / With them, forgive yourself'? And what do we as readers and audiences forget of Shakespeare's works and of the performances we watch? This is the first book devoted to a broad consideration of how Shakespeare explores the concept of forgetting and how forgetting functions in performance. A wide-ranging study of how Shakespeare dramatizes forgetting, it offers close readings of Shakespeare's plays, considering what Shakespeare forgot and what we forget about Shakespeare. The book touches on an equally broad range of forgetting theory from antiquity through to the present day, of forgetting in recent novels and films, and of creative ways of making sense of how our world constructs the cultural meaning of and anxiety about forgetting. Drawing on dozens of productions across the history of Shakespeare on stage and film, the book explores Shakespeare's dramaturgy, from characters who forget what they were about to say, to characters who leave the stage never to return, from real forgetting to performed forgetting, from the mad to the powerful, from playgoers to Shakespeare himself.

For those suffering from emotional disorders such as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or depression aspects of the personal past can dominate conscious experience in tenacious and toxic ways. For example, memories of distressing autobiographical experiences can intrude into awareness as thoughts or images, as flashbacks or nightmares, each laden with unwanted and painful affect. This special issue of Memory focuses on two broad themes. The first is the nature of autobiographical remembering of the personal past -what are the characteristics of such memories? And to what extent are they phenomenologically distinct from other types of autobiographical remembering? The second theme concerns varieties of difficulties in remembering emotional experiences from complete amnesia to lack of specificity of autobiographical recall. This volume draws together the world's leading theorists and researchers on these varied issues to provide a broad overview of the cutting-edge work in this field.

Many millions of people are affected by the trauma of war. Psychologists have a good understanding of how experiences of war impact on memory, but the significance of external environmental influences is often disregarded. 'Memory, War and Trauma' focuses on our understanding of the psychosocial impact of war in its broadest sense. Nigel C. Hunt argues that, in order to understand war trauma, it is critical to develop an understanding not only of the individual perspective but also of how societal and cultural factors impact on the outcome of an individual s experience. This is a compelling book which helps to demonstrate why some people suffer from post-traumatic stress while other people don t, and how narrative understanding is important to the healing process. Its multidisciplinary perspective will enable a deeper understanding of both individual traumatic stress and the structures of memory.

The book examines how well we remember what we see. Research in human memory for visual material varies tremendously across the time scales, stimuli, and scenarios of interest. Because of these distinct pursuits, research in the field of 'visual memory' is in practice rather compartmentalized and as such is disseminated across a range of literatures. The Visual World in Memory pulls together this disparate field with a series of chapters, each written by a leading expert, that concisely present the state-of-the-science in all the areas of research. The result is a single source of information that bridges the divides that separate the field as a whole. Each chapter reviews and analyzes current theories and controversies regarding such issues as visual and spatial working memory, memory for visual features, conjunctions, objects, and locations, memory for faces, memory for real-world scenes, memory for visual events, the role of visual memory in motor planning and action, the relationship between visual memory, reference frames, and navigation, and visual imagery. The rigorous discussion and analysis included in each chapter will appeal to established researchers and vision scientists whilst the breadth of the book will make it an ideal companion for students learning about memory.

This text introduces students, scholars, and interested educated readers to the issues of human memory broadly considered, encompassing both individual memory, collective remembering by societies, and the construction of history. The book is organized around several major questions: How do memories construct our past? How do we build shared collective memories? How does memory shape history? This volume presents a special perspective, emphasizing the role of memory processes in the construction of self-identity, of shared cultural norms and concepts, and of historical awareness. Although the results are fairly new and the techniques suitably modern, the vision itself is of course related to the work of such precursors as Frederic Bartlett and Aleksandr Luria, who in very different ways represent the starting point of a serious psychology of human culture.

This text introduces students, scholars, and interested educated readers to the issues of human memory broadly considered, encompassing both individual memory, collective remembering by societies, and the construction of history. The book is organized around several major questions: How do memories construct our past? How do we build shared collective memories? How does memory shape history? This volume presents a special perspective, emphasizing the role of memory processes in the construction of self-identity, of shared cultural norms and concepts, and of historical awareness. Although the results are fairly new and the techniques suitably modern, the vision itself is of course related to the work of such precursors as Frederic Bartlett and Aleksandr Luria, who in very different ways represent the starting point of a serious psychology of human culture.

Our species is misnamed. Though sapiens defines human beings as "wise" what humans do especially well is to prospect the future. We are homo prospectus. In this book, Martin E. P. Seligman, Peter Railton, Roy F. Baumeister, and Chandra Sripada argue it is anticipating and evaluating future possibilities for the guidance of thought and action that is the cornerstone of human success. Much of the history of psychology has been dominated by a framework in which people's behavior is driven by past history (memory) and present circumstances (perception and motivation). Homo Prospectus reassesses this idea, pushing focus to the future front and center and opening discussion of a new field of Psychology and Neuroscience. The authors delve into four modes in which prospection operates: the implicit mind, deliberate thought, mind-wandering, and collective (social) imagination. They then explore prospection's role in some of life's most enduring questions: Why do people think about the future? Do we have free will? What is the nature of intuition, and how might it function in ethics? How does emotion function in human psychology? Is there a common causal process in different psychopathologies? Does our creativity change with age? In this remarkable convergence of research in philosophy, statistics, decision theory, psychology, and neuroscience, Homo Prospectus shows how human prospection fundamentally reshapes our understanding of key cognitive processes, thereby improving individual and social functioning. It aims to galvanize interest in this new science from scholars in psychology, neuroscience, and philosophy, as well as an educated public curious about what makes humanity what it is.

Brain Development and School offers a range of practical classroom strategies to help pupils develop their executive function. Packed with useful tips that are grounded in theory, it examines how to support aspects of children's executive functioning that can affect their school life; including self-control, memory, metacognition, organisation, motivation, self-regulation and focus. Relevant for pupils in the primary and secondary school, the book focuses on ways of improving children's emotional and intellectual development. It includes: Discussion of what executive functioning is and the different factors that might affect a child's executive functioning Ways that executive functioning weaknesses show themselves in school Support strategies for teachers and advice for pupils to improve specific areas of executive functioning Manageable solutions and modifications that can be applied within the mainstream classroom A self-assessment questionnaire that can be used as a starting point for discussion with pupils This book will be beneficial to all teachers, school leaders and SENCOs looking to support their pupils by identifying and understanding the root causes of their behaviour. It recognises the important role that schools play in pupils' neurological development and suggests ways for schools to provide more personalised, differentiated support for individual pupils.

Memory is one of the few psychological concepts with a truly ancient lineage. Presenting a history of the interrelated changes in memory tasks, memory technology and ideas about memory from antiquity to the late twentieth century, this book confronts psychology"s "short present" with its "long past." Kurt Danziger, one of the most influential historians of psychology of recent times, traces long-term continuities from ancient mnemonics and tools of inscription to modern memory experiments and computer storage. He explores historical discontinuities, showing how different kinds of memory became prominent at different times, and examines these changes in the context of specific themes including the question of truth in memory, distinctions between kinds of memory, the project of memory experimentation and the physical localization and conceptual location of memory. Daniziger"s unique approach provides a historical perspective for understanding varieties of reproduction, narratives of the self and short-term memory.

We take for granted the survival into the present of artifacts from the past. Indeed the discipline of archaeology would be impossible without the survival of such artifacts. What is the implication of the durability or ephemerality of past material culture for the reproduction of societies in the past? In this book, Andrew Jones argues that the material world offers a vital framework for the formation of collective memory. He uses the topic of memory to critique the treatment of artifacts as symbols by interpretative archaeologists and artifacts as units of information (or memes) by behavioral archaeologists, instead arguing for a treatment of artifacts as forms of mnemonic trace that have an impact on the senses. Using detailed case studies from prehistoric Europe, he further argues that archaeologists can study the relationship between mnemonic traces in the form of networks of reference in artifactual and architectural forms.

Deja vu is one of the most complex and subjective of all memory phenomena. It is an infrequent and striking mental experience, where the feeling of familiarity is combined with the knowledge that this feeling is false. While until recently it was an aspect of memory largely overlooked by mainstream cognitive psychology, this book brings together the growing scientific literature on deja vu, making the case for it as a metacognitive phenomenon. The Cognitive Neuropsychology of Deja Vu reviews clinical, experimental and neuroimaging methods, focusing on how memory disorders and neurological dysfunction relate to the experience. Examining deja vu as a memory phenomenon, Chris Moulin explores how the experience of deja vu in special populations, such as healthy aging or those with schizophrenia, provides new insights into understanding this phenomenon. He considers the extensive data on deja vu in people with epilepsy, dementia and other neurological conditions, assessing neuropsychological theories of deja vu formation. Essential reading for all students and researchers interested in memory disorders, this valuable book presents the case for deja vu as a 'healthy' phenomenon only experienced by people with sufficient cognitive resources to oppose and detect the false feeling of familiarity.

Is it true, as the novelist Cees Nooteboom once wrote, that memory is like a dog that lies down where it pleases? Where do the long, lazy summers of our childhood go? Why, as we grow older, does time seem to condense, speed up and elude us, while in old age, significant events from our distant past can seem as vivid and real as what happened yesterday? Douwe Draaisma, author of the internationally acclaimed Metaphors of Memory (Cambridge, 2001), explores the nature of autobiographical memory. Applying a unique blend of scholarship, poetic sensibility, and keen observation, he tackles such extraordinary phenomena as deja-vu, near-death experiences, the memory feats of idiot savants, and the effects of extreme trauma on memory recall. Raising almost as many questions as it answers, this fascinating book will not fail to affect you at the same time as it educates and entertains. Douwe Draaisma is Professor of the History of Psychology in the Department of Theory and History of Psychology at the University of Groningen, The Netherlands. He has published books on time and memory and his articles have appeared in professional journals as diverse as Annals of Science, Psychological Medicine, and Nature. The original Dutch version of Why Life Speeds Up As You Get Older has won several scientific and literary awards.

This innovative study of memorial architecture investigates how design can translate memories of human loss into tangible structures, creating spaces for remembering. Using approaches from history, psychology, anthropology and sociology, Sabina Tanovic explores purposes behind creating contemporary memorials in a given location, their translation into architectural concepts, their materialisation in the face of social and political challenges, and their influence on the transmission of memory. Covering the period from the First World War to the present, she looks at memorials such as the Holocaust museums in Mechelen and Drancy, as well as memorials for the victims of terrorist attacks, to unravel the private and public role of memorial architecture and the possibilities of architecture as a form of agency in remembering and dealing with a difficult past. The result is a distinctive contribution to the literature on history and memory, and on architecture as a link to the past.

What is memory? Without memory we lose our sense of identity, reasoning, even our ability to perform simple physical tasks. Yet it is elusive and difficult to define, and throughout the ages philosophers and psychologists have used metaphors as a way of understanding it. This fascinating book takes the reader on a guided tour of these metaphors of memory from ancient times to the present day, exploring the way metaphors often derived from the techniques and instruments developed to store information such as wax tablets, books, photography, computers and even the hologram.

There is a growing acknowledgement of the importance of integrating the study of reasoning with other areas of cognitive psychology. The purpose of this volume is to examine the extent to which we can further our understanding of reasoning by integrating findings, theories and paradigms in the field of memory. Reasoning as Memory consists of nine chapters that make explicit links between basic memory process, and reasoning and decision-making. The contributors address a number of key topics including: the relationship between semantic memory and reasoning the role of expert memory in reasoning recognition memory and induction working memory and reasoning metamemory in reasoning. In addition, the chapters provide broad coverage of the field of thinking, and invite the intriguing question of how much there is left to explain in the field of reasoning when one has extracted the variance due to memory. This book will be of great interest to advanced undergraduates, postgraduates and researchers interested in reasoning or decision making, and to researchers interested in the role played in cognition by a variety of memory processes.

The fully updated eighth edition of Cognitive Psychology: A Student’s Handbook provides comprehensive yet accessible coverage of all the key areas in the field ranging from visual perception and attention through to memory and language. Each chapter is complete with key definitions, practical real-life applications, chapter summaries and suggested further reading to help students develop an understanding of this fascinating but complex field.

The new edition includes:

an increased emphasis on neuroscience

updated references to reflect the latest research

applied ‘in the real world’ case studies and examples.

Widely regarded as the leading undergraduate textbook in the field of cognitive psychology, this new edition comes complete with an enhanced accompanying companion website. The website includes a suite of learning resources including simulation experiments, multiple-choice questions, and access to Primal Pictures’ interactive 3D atlas of the brain. The companion website can be accessed at: www.routledge.com/cw/eysenck.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations

Preface

Visual tour (how to use this book)

1 Approaches to human cognition

Introduction

Cognitive psychology

Cognitive neuropsychology

Cognitive neuroscience: the brain in action

Computational cognitive science

Comparisons of major approaches

Is there a replication crisis?

Outline of this book

Chapter summary

Further reading

PART I: Visual perception and attention

2 Basic processes in visual perception

Introduction

Vision and the brain

Two visual systems: perception-action model

Colour vision

Depth perception

Perception without awareness: subliminal perception

Chapter summary

Further reading

3 Object and face recognition

Introduction

Pattern recognition

Perceptual organisation

Approaches to object recognition

Object recognition: top-down processes

Face recognition

Visual imagery

Chapter summary

Further reading

4 Motion perception and action

Introduction

Direct perception

Visually guided movement

Visually guided action: contemporary approaches

Perception of human motion

Change blindness

Chapter summary

Further reading

5 Attention and performance

Introduction

Focused auditory attention

Focused visual attention

Disorders of visual attention

Visual search

Cross-modal effects

Divided attention: dual-task performance

“Automatic” processing

Chapter summary

Further reading

PART II: Memory

6 Learning, memory and forgetting

Introduction

Short-term vs long-term memory

Working memory: Baddeley and Hitch

Working memory: individual differences and executive functions

Levels of processing (and beyond)

Learning through retrieval

Implicit learning

Forgetting from long-term memory

Chapter summary

Further reading

7 Long-term memory systems

Introduction

Declarative memory

Episodic memory

Semantic memory

Non-declarative memory

Beyond memory systems and declarative vs non-declarative memory

Chapter summary

Further reading

8 Everyday memory

Introduction

Autobiographical memory: introduction

Memories across the lifetime

Theoretical approaches to autobiographical memory

Eyewitness testimony

Enhancing eyewitness memory

Prospective memory

Theoretical perspectives on prospective memory

Chapter summary

Further reading

PART III: Language

9 Speech perception and reading

Introduction

Speech (and music) perception

Listening to speech

Context effects

Theories of speech perception

Cognitive neuropsychology

Reading: introduction

Word recognition

Reading aloud

Reading: eye-movement research

Chapter summary

Further reading

10 Language comprehension

Introduction

Parsing: overview

Theoretical approaches: parsing and prediction

Pragmatics

Individual differences: working memory capacity

Discourse processing: inferences

Discourse comprehension: theoretical approaches

Chapter summary

Further reading

11 Language production

Introduction

Basic aspects of speech production

Speech planning

Speech errors

Theories of speech production

Cognitive neuropsychology: speech production

Speech as communication

Writing: the main processes

Spelling

Chapter summary

Further reading

PART IV: Thinking and reasoning

12 Problem solving and expertise

Introduction

Problem solving: introduction

Gestalt approach and beyond: insight and role of experience

Problem-solving strategies

Analogical problem solving and reasoning

Expertise

Chess-playing expertise

Medical expertise

Brain plasticity

Deliberate practice and beyond

Chapter summary

Further reading

13 Judgement and decision-making

Introduction

Judgement research

Theories of judgement

Decision-making under risk

Decision-making: emotional and social factors

Applied and complex decision-making

Chapter summary

Further reading

14 Reasoning and hypothesis testing

Introduction

Hypothesis testing

Deductive reasoning

Theories of “deductive” reasoning

Brain systems in reasoning

Informal reasoning

Are humans rational?

Chapter summary

Further reading

PART V: Broadening horizons

15 Cognition and emotion

Introduction

Appraisal theories

Emotion regulation

Affect and cognition: attention and memory

Affect and cognition: judgement and decision-making

Judgement and decision-making: theoretical approaches

Anxiety, depression and cognitive biases

Cognitive bias modification and beyond

Chapter summary

Further reading

16 Consciousness

Introduction

Functions of consciousness

Assessing consciousness and conscious experience

Global workspace and global neuronal workspace theories

Is consciousness unitary?

Chapter summary

Further reading

Glossary

References

Author index

Subject index

How is the complex history of the ancient Near East and Islamic World brought to bear in contemporary political discourse? In this book, Medieval Near Eastern historian Jacob Lassner explores the resonance of ancient and medieval history in the political disputes that dominate the contemporary Middle East. From identification with ancient forbears as a method of legitimization and nation-building, to tracing the deep history of the concept of revolution in the Arab world, the author probes the historical foundations of modern conflicts in the region. A medievalist, the author takes the position that an appreciation of cultural history is essential to understanding the debate surrounding the Israel/Palestine conflict. In turn, the book identifies the misappropriation and misunderstanding of the past, deliberate or accidental, as key weapon in the ongoing conflict.

A leading contrarian thinker explores the ethical paradox at the heart of history's wounds The conventional wisdom about historical memory is summed up in George Santayana's celebrated phrase, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Today, the consensus that it is moral to remember, immoral to forget, is nearly absolute. And yet is this right? David Rieff, an independent writer who has reported on bloody conflicts in Africa, the Balkans, and Central Asia, insists that things are not so simple. He poses hard questions about whether remembrance ever truly has, or indeed ever could, "inoculate" the present against repeating the crimes of the past. He argues that rubbing raw historical wounds-whether self-inflicted or imposed by outside forces-neither remedies injustice nor confers reconciliation. If he is right, then historical memory is not a moral imperative but rather a moral option-sometimes called for, sometimes not. Collective remembrance can be toxic. Sometimes, Rieff concludes, it may be more moral to forget. Ranging widely across some of the defining conflicts of modern times-the Irish Troubles and the Easter Uprising of 1916, the white settlement of Australia, the American Civil War, the Balkan wars, the Holocaust, and 9/11-Rieff presents a pellucid examination of the uses and abuses of historical memory. His contentious, brilliant, and elegant essay is an indispensable work of moral philosophy.

The intellectual development of human beings from birth to adulthood is a fascinating phenomenon. Understanding the constraints that limit children's intelligence, as well as discovering methods to improve it, has always been a challenging undertaking for developmental psychologists. This book presents a unique attempt to address these issues by establishing a dialogue between neo-Piagetian theorists and researchers specialized in typical and atypical working memory development. The book integrates recent advances in studies of working memory development with theories proposed by the most prominent neo-Piagetian researchers who have emphasized the role of cognitive resources and working memory capacity in the development of thinking and reasoning. In the opening section, the main proponents of this tradition develop their theories of cognitive development in terms of available mental attention, processing efficiency and speed, inhibition and relational complexity. The second part of the book addresses the mechanisms that underpin the increase in working memory capacity and the respective roles of processing efficiency, storage capacity, and the use of reactivation processes of memory traces such as rehearsal. Finally, the central role played by working memory in atypical development and learning difficulties is examined. This book provides psychologists, students and researchers who are interested in child development with an integrated and up-to-date series of chapters written by prominent specialists in the areas of working memory, attention, and cognitive development.

Our longstanding view of memory and remembering is in the midst of a profound transformation. This transformation does not only affect our concept of memory or a particular idea of how we remember and forget; it is a wider cultural process. In order to understand it, one must step back and consider what is meant when we say memory. Brockmeier's far-ranging studies offer such a perspective, synthesizing understandings of remembering from the neurosciences, humanities, social studies, and in key works of autobiographical literature and life-writing. His conclusions force us to radically rethink our very notion of memory as an archive of the past, one that suggests the natural existence of a distinctive human capacity (or a set of neuronal systems) enabling us to "encode," "store," and "recall" past experiences. Now, propelled by new scientific insights and digital technologies, a new picture is emerging. It shows that there are many cultural forms of remembering and forgetting, embedded in a broad spectrum of human activities and artifacts. This picture is more complex than any notion of memory as storage of the past would allow. Indeed it comes with a number of alternatives to the archival memory, one of which Brockmeier describes as the narrative approach. The narrative approach not only permits us to explore the storied weave of our most personal form of remembering-that is, the autobiographical-it also sheds new light on the interrelations among memory, self, and culture.