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.

In Perceptual Imagination and Perceptual Memory a group of distinguished contributors examine how perceptual imagination and memory resemble and differ from each other and from other kinds of sensory experience.They question the role each plays in perception and in the acquisition of knowledge. The collection discusses the epistemic roles that the imagination and memory play in our mental lives. It pushes forward the debates about the nature of perceptual imagination and perceptual memory. This innovative study will encourage future discussions on these interesting topics by students and scholars in the field. This volume presents ten new essays on the nature of perceptual imagination and perceptual memory, framed by an introductory overview of these topics. How do perceptual imagination and memory resemble and differ from each other and from other kinds of sensory experience? And what role does each play in perception and in the acquisition of knowledge? These are the two central questions that the contributors seek to address.

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.

Current theories about human memory have been shaped by clinical observations and animal experiments. This doctrine holds that the medial temporal lobe subserves one memory system for explicit or declarative memories, while the basal ganglia subserves a separate memory system for implicit or procedural memories, including habits. Cortical areas outside the medial temporal lobe are said to function in perception, motor control, attention, or other aspects of executive function, but not in memory. 'The Evolution of Memory Systems' advances dramatically different ideas on all counts. It proposes that several memory systems arose during evolution and that they did so for the same general reason: to transcend problems and exploit opportunities encountered by specific ancestors at particular times and places in the distant past. Instead of classifying cortical areas in terms of mutually exclusive perception, executive, or memory functions, the authors show that all cortical areas contribute to memory and that they do so in their own ways-using specialized neural representations. The book also presents a proposal on the evolution of explicit memory. According to this idea, explicit (declarative) memory depends on interactions between a phylogenetically ancient navigation system and a representational system that evolved in humans to represent one's self and others. As a result, people embed representations of themselves into the events they experience and the facts they learn, which leads to the perception of participating in events and knowing facts. 'The Evolution of Memory Systems' is an important new work for students and researchers in neuroscience, psychology, and biology.

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.

Thinking About Human Memory provides a novel analytical approach to understanding memory that considers the goals of the memory task, the cues and information available, the opportunity to learn, and interference from irrelevant information (noise). Each of the five chapters describing this approach introduces historical ideas and demonstrates how current thinking both differs from and is derived from them. These chapters also contain analyses of current problems designed to demonstrate the power of the approach. In a subsequent chapter, the authors discuss how memory is controlled by the environment, by others, and by ourselves, and then apply their insights to the problem solving of children, our hominin ancestors, and scrub jays. Finally, the questions of how to define episodic memory and how to investigate phylogenetic and developmental changes in memory are addressed. This book will appeal to memory researchers, including applied researchers, and advanced students.

This book uses theories of memory derived from cognitive science to offer new ways of understanding how literary works remember other literary works. Using terms derived from psychology - implicit and explicit memory, interference and forgetting - Raphael Lyne shows how works by Renaissance writers such as Wyatt, Shakespeare, Jonson, and Milton interact with their sources. The poems and plays in question are themselves sources of insight into the workings of memory, sharing and anticipating some scientific categories in the process of their thinking. Lyne proposes a way forward for cognitive approaches to literature, in which both experiments and texts are valued as contributors to interdisciplinary questions. His book will interest researchers and upper-level students of renaissance literature and drama, Shakespeare studies, memory studies, and classical reception.

Memory could be conceptualised as the capability to encode, store and retrieve information to guide behavior. Memory may be stored in different manners depending on synaptic characteristics for information processing, which may modulate synchronisation of firing of neuronal assemblies. This book focuses on some of the mechanisms that modulate the synaptic activity underlying both the organisation and expression of memory. Thus, memory is viewed from the point of view of its synaptic determinants. This book is the integrated compilation of a large body of experimental evidence related to some cellular and subcellular events underlying plastic changes of neural circuits forming the memory traces related to some memory systems. Moreover, this view of memory is considered from both a normal viewpoint and from that of some atypical situations.

Autobiographical memory plays a key role in psychological well-being, and the field has been investigated from multiple perspectives for over thirty years. One large body of research has examined the basic mechanisms and characteristics of autobiographical memory during general cognition, and another body has studied what happens to it during psychological disorders, and how psychological therapies targeting memory disturbances can improve psychological well-being. This edited collection reviews and integrates current theories on autobiographical memory when viewed in a clinical perspective. It presents an overview of basic applied and clinical approaches to autobiographical memory, covering memory specificity, traumatic memories, involuntary and intrusive memories, and the role of self-identity. The book discusses a wide range of psychological disorders, including depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), borderline personality disorder and autism, and how they affect autobiographical memory. It will be of interest to students of psychology, clinicians and therapists alike.

This book presents the latest research in working memory from around the world. There are thirteen chapters which are ordered according to three main themes. Chapters concerned with developmental differences address the relationships between working memory and children's learning and school performance, the role of working memory in the development of planning, associations between working memory and implicit learning, and theoretical models that account for visuo-spatial working memory development. Chapters concerned with component processes address issues of visual feature binding, aspects of cognitive load theory, the processing of affective stimuli in working memory, and the role of working memory in spatial orientation and navigation. Finally, a section on improvement mechanisms is comprised of chapters related to improving working memory through the differential outcomes procedure, applying transcranial alternating stimulation to the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, and methods of cognitive remediation including working memory training both in participants with ADHD and other populations. The chapters provide comprehensive reviews as well as presenting new empirical data concerned with these topics. They aim to further the current understanding of working memory from developmental, cognitive, and educational perspectives. The book should therefore be of interest to all academics and researchers with an interest in working memory and related skills.

In this book, the authors present current research in the study of the psychology of memory. Topics discussed include verbal association priming and episodic and semantic memory; working memory span tasks; capacity limits in visual short-term memory; processes of conscious and unconscious memory and prospective memory in children.

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.

This book was first published in 2009. We often remember personal experiences without any conscious effort. A piece of music heard on the radio may stir a memory of a moment from the past. Such occurrences are known as involuntary autobiographical memories. They often occur in response to environmental stimuli or aspects of current thought. Until recently, they were treated almost exclusively as a clinical phenomenon, as a sign of distress or a mark of trauma. In this innovative work, however, Dorthe Berntsen argues that involuntary memories are predominantly positive and far more common than previously believed. She argues that they reflect a basic mode of remembering that predates the more advanced strategic retrieval mode, and that their primary function may simply be to prevent us from living in the present. Reviewing a variety of cognitive, clinical, and aesthetic approaches, this monograph will be of immense interest to anyone seeking to better understand this misunderstood phenomenon.

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.

Eber and Neal address some of the theoretical issues connected with symbolic constructions of reality through human memory and its subsequent representation. Linkages between what we remember and how we represent it give humans their distinctive characteristics. We construct our reality from how we perceive the events in our lives and, from that reality, we create a symbol system to describe our world. It is through such symbolic constructions that we are provided with a usable backdrop for shaping our memories and organizing them into meaningful lines of action.
These case studies present a new and creative synthesis of the multiple meanings of memory and representation within the context of contemporary perceptions of truth.

This highly practical resource has been designed to support working memory and curriculum success in the Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 classroom. Working memory is crucial for success in maths, reading, reading comprehension and problem solving, yet children with poor working memory often struggle to meet the demands of everyday classroom activities. Filled with activities and support for Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 Maths and English, this book offers ideas for the practising teacher on how to make the classroom a place to reinforce memory skills, and to ensure that those with working memory difficulties are included and supported. Key features include: * Information on recognising working memory difficulties * Practical and specific strategies to support learners in the classroom * Graduated activities for Maths and English learners based on the national curriculum The importance of working memory on curriculum success is becoming increasingly evident, with growing emphasis on testing and an ever more demanding curriculum. With photocopiable and downloadable resources, this is an essential book for teachers, teaching assistants and other education staff looking to support working memory with children.

Roger Schank's influential book, Dynamic Memory, described how computers could learn based upon what was known about how people learn. Since that book's publication in 1982, Dr Schank has turned his focus from artificial intelligence to human intelligence. Dynamic Memory Revisited contains the theory of learning presented in the original book, extending it to provide principles for teaching and learning. It includes Dr Schank's important theory of case-based reasoning and assesses the role of stories in human memory. In addition, it covers his ideas on non-conscious learning, indexing, and the cognitive structures that underlie learning by doing. Dynamic Memory Revisited is crucial reading for all who are concerned with education and school reform. It draws attention to how effective learning takes place and provides instruction for developing software that truly helps students learn.

Do memory abilities decline with aging? Are changes in memory universal or differential? Do they occur similarly or differently for all types of memory and to all aging persons? These are some of the principal questions explored in the Victoria Longitudinal Study and presented in this volume. Although there is a large amount of research comparing the memory performance of younger and older adults, few studies have followed the same older adults over time. Only through the use of such longitudinal methods can one directly observe changes in memory functioning with aging. This monograph reports recent longitudinal data following the same individuals over a six-year period. The authors consider a variety of theoretical and methodological issues related to memory and aging. In addition, they report analyses of data to examine questions such as: are average changes in performance associated with age, cohort, or both? are there substantial individual differences in memory change in later life or are people changing in similar fashion?; and what component processes predict changes in complex memory performance in adulthood?

Authored by the foremost researchers in cognitive psychology, the handbook Memory is an outstanding reference tool for all cognitive psychologists and interested professionals. Memory provides an excellent synopsis of the research and literature in this field, including comprehensive chapters on basic theory. The text discusses storage and access of information in both short-term and long-term memory; how we control, monitor, and enhance memory; individual differences in mnemonic ability; and the processes of retrieval and retention, including eye-witness testimony, and training and instruction.

The depiction of historical humanitarian disasters in art exhibitions, news reports, monuments and heritage landscapes has framed the harrowing images we currently associate with dispossession. People across the world are driven out of their homes and countries on a wave of conflict, poverty and famine, and our main sites for engaging with their loss are visual news and social media. In a reappraisal of the viewer's role in representations of displacement, Niamh Ann Kelly examines a wide range of commemorative visual culture from the mid-nineteenth-century Great Irish Famine. Her analysis of memorial images, objects and locations from that period until the early 21st century shows how artefacts of historical trauma can affect understandings of enforced migrations as an ongoing form of political violence. This book will be of interest to students and researchers of museum and heritage studies, material culture, Irish history and contemporary visual cultures exploring dispossession.

A multitude of devices and technological tools now exist to make, share, and store memories and moments with family, friends, and even strangers. Memory practices such as home movies, which originated as the privilege of a few, well-to-do families, have now emerged as ubiquitous and immediate cultures of sharing. Departing from the history of home movies, this volume offers a sophisticated understanding of technologically mediated, mostly ritualized memory practices, from early beginnings in the fin-de-siecle to today. Departing from a longue duree perspective on home movie practices, Materializing Memories moves beyond a strict historical study to grapple with highly theorized fields, such as media studies, memory studies, and science and technology studies (STS). The contributors to this volume reflect on these different intellectual backgrounds and perspectives, but all chapters share a common framework by addressing practices of use, user configurations, and relevant media landscapes. Grasping the cultural dynamics of such multi-faceted practices requires a multidimensional conceptual approach, here achieved by centering around three concepts as central analytical lenses: dispositifs, generations, and amateurs.

Bringing together neuroscientists, social scientists, and humanities scholars in cross-disciplinary exploration of the topic of cultural memory, this collection moves from seminal discussions of the latest findings in neuroscience to variegated, specific case studies of social practices and artistic expressions. This volume highlights what can be gained from drawing on broad interdisciplinary contexts in pursuing scholarly projects involving cultural memory and associated topics. The collection argues that contemporary evolutionary science, in conjunction with studies interconnecting cognition, affect, and emotion, as well as research on socially mediated memory, provides innovatively interdisciplinary contexts for viewing current work on how cultural and social environments influence gene expression and neural circuitry. Building on this foundation, Cultural Memory turns to the exploration of the psychological processes and social contexts through which cultural memory is shaped, circulated, revised, and contested. It investigates how various modes of cultural expression-architecture, cuisine, poetry, film, and fiction-reconfigure shared conceptualizing patterns and affectively mediated articulations of identity and value. Each chapter showcases research from a wide range of fields and presents diverse interdisciplinary contexts for future scholarship. As cultural memory is a subject that invites interdisciplinary perspectives and is relevant to studying cultures around the world, of every era, this collection addresses an international readership comprising scholars from the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences, from advanced undergraduates to senior researchers.

'Meik's new book will change the way you think' Dr Rangan Chatterjee ___________________________________________________________________________ From the same author that brought us The Little Book of Hygge, this book reveals the secret to filling your life with happy moments, and how to remember them for ever. Happy memories don't have to be reserved for big life events. Drawing on global surveys, behavioural science experiments and data gathered by The Happiness Research Institute in Copenhagen, Meik is here to show how we can we can turn ordinary experiences into something extraordinary. Whether it's eating dinner at the table rather than in front of the TV, exploring a new part of your neighbourhood, or planning how you're going to celebrate your small wins, this book will help you find the magic in the every day, and create memories you will cherish forever. PRE-ORDER THE HYGGE HOME, THE NEW BOOK FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE LITTLE BOOK OF HYGGE