Picture your twenty-first birthday. Did you have a party? If so, do you remember who was there? Now step back: how clear are those memories? Should we trust them to be accurate, or is there a chance that you're remembering incorrectly? And where have the many details you can no longer recall gone? Are they hidden somewhere in your brain, or are they gone forever?
Such questions have fascinated scientists for hundreds of years, and, as Alison Winter shows in "Memory: Fragments of a Modern History," the answers have changed dramatically in just the past century. Tracing the cultural and scientific history of our understanding of memory, Winter explores early metaphors that likened memory to a filing cabinet; later, she shows, that cabinet was replaced by the image of a reel of film, ever available for playback. That model, too, was eventually superseded, replaced by the current understanding of memory as the result of an extremely complicated, brain-wide web of cells and systems that together assemble our pasts. Winter introduces us to innovative scientists and sensationalistic seekers, and, drawing on evidence ranging from scientific papers to diaries to movies, explores the way that new understandings from the laboratory have seeped out into psychiatrists' offices, courtrooms, and the culture at large. Along the way, she investigates the sensational battles over the validity of repressed memories that raged through the 1980s and shows us how changes in technology--such as the emergence of recording devices and computers--have again and again altered the way we conceptualize, and even try to study, the ways we remember.
Packed with fascinating details and curious episodes from the convoluted history of memory science, "Memory" is a book you'll remember long after you close its cover.

This international collection brings together scientists, scholars and artist-researchers to explore the cognition of memory through the performing arts and examine artistic strategies that target cognitive processes of memory. The strongly embodied and highly trained memory systems of performing artists render artistic practice a rich context for understanding how memory is formed, utilized and adapted through interaction with others, instruments and environments. Using experimental, interpretive and Practice-as-Research methods that bridge disciplines, the authors provide overview chapters and case studies of subjects such as: * collectively and environmentally distributed memory in the performing arts; * autobiographical memory triggers in performance creation and reception; * the journey from learning to memory in performance training; * the relationship between memory, awareness and creative spontaneity, and * memorization and embodied or structural analysis of scores and scripts. This volume provides an unprecedented resource for scientists, scholars, artists, teachers and students looking for insight into the cognition of memory in the arts, strategies of learning and performance, and interdisciplinary research methodology.

Memory: Neuropsychological, Imaging and Psychopharmacological Perspectives reviews critically the impact of recent neuropsychological and biological discoveries on our understanding of human memory and its pathology. Too often, insights from clinical, neurological and psychopharmacological fields have remained isolated and mutually unintelligible. Therefore the first part of this book provides both clinicians and neuroscientists with a broad view of the neuropsychology of memory, and the psychobiological processes it involves, including recent advances from imaging technology and psychopharmacology research. In the second part the authors go on to cover a comprehensive range of memory assessments, dysfunctions, impairments and treatments. This compendium of current research findings will prove an invaluable resource for anyone studying, researching or practising in the field of memory and its disorders.

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.

The Rise of Homo sapiens provides an unrivalled interdisciplinary introduction to the subject of hominin cognitive evolution that is appropriate for general audiences and students in psychology, archaeology, and anthropology. The book includes chapters on neural anatomy, working memory, evolutionary methods, and non-human primate cognition, but the bulk of the text reviews major developments in cognition over the span of hominin evolution from the ape-like cognition of Ardipithecus to the final developments that enabled the modern mind. The most provocative chapters of the first edition - the explicit discussion of the role of sleep in hominin evolution and the difference between Neandertal and modern human cognition - incorporate significant developments in both areas since the publication of the first edition. This revised edition updates the former text and adds greater emphasis to the growing fields of epigenetic inheritance, embodied cognition, and neuroaesthetics. The new edition provides greater emphasis on role and status of Homo heidelbergensis.

In many criminal trials, forensic technical evidence is lacking and triers of fact must rely on the reliability of eyewitness statements, identifications, and testimony; however, such reports can be riddled with deceptive statements or erroneous recollections. Based on such considerations, the question arises as to how one should weigh such eyewitness accounts given the theoretical and empirical knowledge in this field. Finding the Truth in the Courtroom focuses on how legal professionals, legal/forensic psychologists, and memory researchers can decide when statements or identifications are based on truthful or fabricated experiences and whether one can distinguish between lies, deception, and false memories. The contributors, key experts in the field, assemble recent experimental work and case studies in which deception or false memory plays a dominant role. Topics discussed relate to the susceptibility to suggestive pressure (e.g., "Under which circumstances are children or adults the most vulnerable to suggestion?"), the fabrication of symptoms (e.g., "How to detect whether PTSD symptoms are malingered?"), and the detection of deceit (e.g., "Which paradigms are promising in deception detection?"), among others. By using this approach, this volume unites diverse streams of research (i.e., deception, malingering, false memory) that are involved in the reliability of eyewitness statements.

Imagination allows individuals and groups to think beyond the here-and-now, to envisage alternatives, to create parallel worlds, and to mentally travel through time. Imagination is both extremely personal (for example, people imagine unique futures for themselves) and deeply social, as our imagination is fed with media and other shared representations. As a result, imagination occupies a central position within the life of mind and society. Expanding the boundaries of disciplinary approaches, the Handbook of Imagination and Culture expertly illustrates this core role of imagination in the development of children, adolescents, adults, and older persons today. Bringing together leading scholars in sociocultural psychology and neighboring disciplines from around the world, this edited volume guides readers towards a much deeper understanding of the conditions of imagining, its resources, its constraints, and the consequences it has on different groups of people in different domains of society. Summarily, this Handbook places imagination at the center, and offers readers new ways to examine old questions regarding the possibility of change, development, and innovation in modern society.

This clear and accessible textbook introduces the brain's remarkable capacity for memory. The text was developed for undergraduate and beginning graduate students, but it will also be of use to cognitive scientists, biologists, and psychologists who seek an introduction to biological investigations of memory. Like the first edition, this fully-updated second edition begins with a history of memory research, starting with a 'Golden Era' at the turn of the 20th century, and progressing to our current understanding of the neurobiology of memory. Subsequent sections of the book discuss the cellular basis of memory, amnesia in humans and animals, the physiology of memory, declarative, procedural, and emotional memory systems, memory consolidation, and the control of memory by the prefrontal cortex. The book is organized into four sections, which highlight the major themes of the text. The first theme is connection, which considers how memory is fundamentally based on alterations in the connectivity of neurons. This section of the book covers the most well studied models of cellular mechanisms of neural plasticity that may underlie memory. The second theme is cognition, which involves fundamental issues in the psychological structure of memory. This section of the book considers the competition among views on the nature of cognitive processes that underlie memory, and tells how the controversy was eventually resolved. The third theme is compartmentalization, which is akin to the classic problem of memory localization. However, unlike localization, the notion of "compartments" is intended to avoid the notion that particular memories are pigeon-holed into specific loci, and instead emphasize that different forms of memory are accomplished by distinct modules or brain systems. This section of the book surveys the evidence for multiple memory systems, and outlines how they are mediated by different brain structures and systems. The fourth and final theme is consolidation, the process by which memories are transformed from a labile trace into a permanent store. This text encapsulates the major concepts in the field of memory research, and makes this area accessible to students who pursue a variety of related disciplines.

From the Middle Ages onwards, writers, artists and composers became self-consciously aware of the vast potential for external references to enrich their works. By evoking canonical texts and their producers from the distant or more recent past, authors demonstrated their respect for tradition while showcasing their own merits. In so doing they also manipulated the memory of their readers. This volume represents a multidisciplinary approach to the themes of citation and intertextual play. It is also an exploration of the role of memory in the cultural production of the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance. The essays investigate work by renowned authors, composers and artists, as well as less familiar sources, from France, England and Italy.

There are few terms or concepts that have, in the last twenty or so years, rivaled "collective memory" for attention in the humanities and social sciences. Indeed, use of the term has extended far beyond scholarship to the realm of politics and journalism, where it has appeared in speeches at the centers of power and on the front pages of the world's leading newspapers. The current efflorescence of interest in memory, however, is no mere passing fad: it is a hallmark characteristic of our age and a crucial site for understanding our present social, political, and cultural conditions. Scholars and others in numerous fields have thus employed the concept of collective memory, sociological in origin, to guide their inquiries into diverse, though allegedly connected, phenomena. Nevertheless, there remains a great deal of confusion about the meaning, origin, and implication of the term and the field of inquiry it underwrites. The Collective Memory Reader presents, organizes, and evaluates past work and contemporary contributions on the questions raised under the rubric of collective memory. Combining seminal texts, hard-to-find classics, previously untranslated references, and contemporary landmarks, it will serve as an essential resource for teaching and research in the field. In addition, in both its selections as well as in its editorial materials, it suggests a novel life-story for the field, one that appreciates recent innovations but only against the background of a long history. In addition to its major editorial introduction, which outlines a useful past for contemporary memory studies, The Collective Memory Reader includes five sections-Precursors and Classics; History, Memory, and Identity; Power, Politics, and Contestation; Media and Modes of Transmission; Memory, Justice, and the Contemporary Epoch-comprising ninety-one texts. In addition to the essay introducing the entire volume, a brief editorial essay introduces each of the sections, while brief capsules frame each of the 91 texts.

Living Longer: The heart-mind connection is written for all those who strive for optimal long-term health and the maximal functioning of their hearts and minds. Today's problem for the health-conscious individual is information overload - new health studies pour out almost daily from newspapers, radio stations and television networks. Many of the reports are contradictory and often misleading.
In this book, Professor Opie sifts through the available information on the vast number of possible health promotion changes, varying from increased exercise to aspirin to green tea, and diets from Atkins to the vegetarian, with the aim of grading the validity of the evidence, asking questions such as, "Just how true are the studies" and "Just how compelling are the facts they claim"? Living Longer guides the reader through this morass of information with the message that just five key steps taken now will promote long-term health benefits for heart and mind and give protection from future heart disease and brain deterioration.

Memory has never been closer to us, yet never more difficult to understand. In the more than thirty specially commissioned essays that make up this book, leading scholars survey the histories, the theories, and the faultlines that compose the field of memory research. The volume reconstructs the work of the great philosophical and literary figures of the last two centuries who recast the concept of memory and brought it into the forefront of the modernist and postmodernist imagination-among them, Bergson, Halbwachs, Freud, Proust, Benjamin, Adorno, Derrida, and Deleuze. Drawing on recent advances in the sciences and in the humanities, the contributors address the question of how memory works, highlighting transactions between the interiority of subjective memory and the larger fields of public or collective memory. The public, political life of memory is an increasingly urgent issue in the societies we now inhabit, while the category of memory itself seems to become ever more capacious. Asking how we might think about the politics of memory, the closing chapters explore a number of defining instances in which the troubled phenomenon of memory has entered and reshaped our very conception of what makes and drives the domain of politics. These include issues of slavery, the Soviet experience, the Holocaust, feminism and recovered memory, and memory in post-apartheid South Africa.

While there are many books on retrospective memory, or remembering past events, Prospective Memory: An Overview and Synthesis of an Emerging Field is the first authored text to provide a straightforward and integrated foundation to the scientific study of memory for actions to be performed in the future. Authors Mark A. McDaniel and Gilles O. Einstein present an accessible overview and synthesis of the theoretical and empirical work in this emerging field. Key Features: Focuses on students rather than researchers: While there are many edited works on prospective memory, this is the first authored text written in an accessible style geared toward students. Provides a general approach for the controlled, laboratory study of prospective memory: The authors place issues and research on prospective memory within the context of general contemporary themes in psychology, such as the issue of the degree to which human behavior is mediated by controlled versus automatic processes. Investigates the cognitive processes that underlie prospective remembering: Examples are provided of event-based, time-based, and activity-based prospective memory tasks while subjects are engaged in ongoing activities to parallel day-to-day life. Suggests fruitful directions for further advancement: In addition to integrating what is now a fairly loosely connected theoretical and empirical field, this book goes beyond current work to encourage new theoretical insights. Intended Audience: This relatively brief book is an excellent supplemental text for advanced undergraduate and graduate courses such as Memory, Human Memory, and Learning & Memory in the departments of psychology and cognitive science.

The beginning of the 1990's saw a partisan debate about the nature of recovered memories for highly emotional events. Some authors claimed that recovered memories of trauma always referred to veridical memories that had been inaccessible for years. Others argued that such memories were false by definition and that they were created by therapeutic attempts to uncover trauma that was believed to lie at the root of anxiety or depression. Although the debate soon moved to a middle ground, both sides fuelled the development of relevant experimental paradigms to explore the mechanisms for how false memories might be created and also how true memories might be forgotten. Examples are studies looking at memory implanting, false word memory, and retrieval-induced forgetting in the mid-1990's. Many studies using such paradigms, however, relied on emotionally neutral material. Studies relating to trauma were less readily available. Now more and more researchers are bridging this gap, testing whether emotive material can be implanted and forgotten and whether there are special populations more susceptible to these effects. This special issue brings together papers examining emotion and memory malleability, both providing a picture of the state-of-the-art research and pushing the field forward.