Psychology is the dogma of our age; psychotherapy is our means of self-understanding; and "repressed memory" is now a universally familiar form of trauma. Jeffrey Prager, who is both a sociologist and a psychoanalyst, explores the degree to which we manifest the cliches of our culture in our most private recollections.

At the core of "Presenting the Past" is the dramatic and troubling case of a woman who during the course of her analysis began to recall scenes of her own childhood sexual abuse. Later the patient came to believe that the trauma she remembered as a physical violation might have been an emotional violation and that she had composed a memory out of present and past relationships. But what was accurate and true? And what evidence could be persuasive and valuable? Could the analyst trust either her convictions or his own? Using this case and others, Prager explores the nature of memory and its relation to the interpersonal, therapeutic, and cultural worlds in which remembering occurs.

Synthesizing research from social science, psychoanalysis, neuroscience, and cognitive psychology, Prager uses clinical examples to argue more generally that our memories are never simple records of events, but constantly evolving constructions, affected by contemporary culture as well as by our own private lives. He demonstrates the need that sociology has for the insights of psychoanalysis, and the need that psychoanalysis has for the insights of sociology.

The bombing of Pearl Harbor, the assassination of President Kennedy, the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger: every generation has unforgettable events, the shared memory of which can create fleeting intimacy among strangers. These public memories, combined with poignant personal moments--the first day of college, a baseball game with one's father, praise from a mentor--are the critical shaping events of individual lives. Although experimental memory studies have long been part of empirical psychology, and psychotherapy has focused on repressed or traumatizing memories, relatively little attention has been paid to the inspiring, touching, amusing, or revealing moments that highlight most lives. What makes something unforgettable? How do we learn to share the significance of memories? David Pillemer's research, brought together in this gracefully written book, extends the current study of narrative and specific memory. Drawing on a variety of evidence and methods--cognitive and developmental psychology, cross-cultural study, psychotherapy case studies, autobiographies and diaries--Pillemer elaborates on five themes: the function of memory; how children learn to construct and share personal memories; memory as a complex interactive system of image, emotion, and narrative; individual and group differences in memory function and performance; and how unique events linger in memory and influence lives. A provocative last chapter, full of striking examples, considers potential variations in memory across gender, culture, and personality. Momentous Events, Vivid Memories is itself a compelling and memorable book.

This special issue of the International Journal of Psychology had its origins in the Quebec 98 Conference on Short-Term Memory, held in Quebec City, Canada, in June 1998. Following this conference, participants were invited to submit contributions based on, and expanding upon, their presentation at this conference. The enthusiastic response made it possible to collect the exciting selection of articles that you will find herein. It must be noted that because of the finite journal space available, the editors and reviewers were faced with the difficult problem of selecting only a limited number of the excellent articles that were submitted. The outcome of this process is this special issue, which we believe provides an up-to-date overview of current research on short-term/working memory, including the challenges, controversies, and recent theoretical advances in this field.

The Camden Memory Tests consist of 5 new measures. Each test was developed to fulfil a clinical need that was not met by existing memory tests and they are intended to be used separately. The Pictorial Recognition Memory Test is an exceptionally easy test that can provide useful clinical information in the assessment of patients unable to cope with the demands of more difficult tests. It can also be used to identify subjects who are 'faking' memory disorders. The Topographical Recognition Memory Test provides a culture-free measure of visual memory that is a useful alternative to the more commonly used Recognition Memory Test for faces. The Paired-Associate Learning Test provides a more satisfactory measure of verbal recall and verbal learning than is at present available. The Short Recognition Memory Test for Words and The Short Recognition Memory Test for Faces were both developed to provide a short and quick version of the standard Recognition Memory Test with only the minimum loss of discriminative power. Each of the 5 individual tests has been standardised in a large representative cross section of an urban population including subjects between the ages of 70 and 85. Validation studies are presented. The localising power of the Topographical Recognition Memory Test and the Paired-Associate Learning Test has been established by assessing patients with unilateral cerebral lesions and the discriminative power of the Short Recognition Memory Test for Words and for Faces has been established by assessing patients with dementing illnesses.

Basic researchers unlock the secrets of nature; applied researchers unlock the means by which those secrets of nature can change people's lives. Neither basic nor applied research has an independent impact. These volumes examine the convergence of basic and applied research in the field of memory. "Volume 1: Theory and Context, " focuses on the methods for understanding and applying basic memory theory, while "Volume 2: Practical Applications, " expands the understanding of practical memory research by providing in-depth research examples and findings.
If the science of memory is to make a significant contribution to society, coordinating our basic and applied efforts and determining how they complement each other become of paramount importance. These volumes will help in this regard--both as textbooks demonstrating how to investigate memory and apply basic memory theory, and as reference sources leading to a better understanding of certain problems in basic and applied memory research.
Readers of these volumes will gain a thorough grasp of the way major themes relate to basic and applied research collaboration, how programmatic basic and applied research can be conducted on particular memory problems, and the manner in which basic and applied work in major problem areas has been incorporated into the field of memory. Both volumes present important information that will be indispensable to researchers and students alike.

Rubin brings together and integrates the best contemporary work on the cognitive psychology of memories of the self. Autobiographical memory is the basis for most psychotherapies, an important repository of legal, historical, and literary information, and, in some views, the source of the concept of self. When it fails, it is the focus of serious complaints in many neurological disorders. Introductory chapters place the study of autobiographical memory in its historical, methodological, and theoretical contexts. Later chapters report original research concerning the recollections people have of substanial portions of their lives. Topics include the schematic and temporal organization of autobiographical memory, the temporal distribution of autobiographical memories, and failures of autobiographical memory in various forms of amnesia.

From a well-known authority, this comprehensive yet accessible book shows how state-of-the-art research can be applied to help people with nonprogressive memory disorders improve their functioning and quality of life. Barbara Wilson describes a broad range of interventions, including compensatory aids, learning strategies, and techniques for managing associated anxiety and stress. She reviews the evidence base for each clinical strategy or tool and offers expert guidance on how to assess patients, set treatment goals, develop individualized rehabilitation programs, and conduct memory groups. The book also provides essential background knowledge on the nature and causes of memory impairment.

The term 'memory' encompasses our recollections of past experiences, our ability to keep track of what is happening from moment to moment, our stored knowledge, including knowledge of words and their meanings, our habits, our recognition of objects and faces, and our ability to remember to do things in the future. As such, an understanding of memory is central to an understanding of human behaviour. Memory supports our ability to speak and decode language, to find our way around, to make rational decisions, and to function successfully in society. Moreover, memory of past life-events contributes to our unique individual personalities. Memory research has a long and important history within psychology and it continues to have fascinating everyday applications. Memory research has also helped us to understand the effects of brain damage, and has also been used to predict scholastic achievement and language development. However, memory has become such a broad field of study and research that it is extremely hard to keep up to date with new developments. The sheer scale of the growth in memory research output-and the breadth of the field-makes this new collection from Psychology Press especially timely and welcome. It will enable ready access to the most influential and important works across the full gamut of the discipline, encouraging a broader appreciation of the field and mutual influences within it. Edited by a leading memory researcher, the four volumes in this collection-on the structure of memory, memory processes (including theories of forgetting), working memory, and the constraints on memory-bring together carefully selected key historical papers along with cutting-edge research. The organization of the collection, broadly by research domain, together with the editor's newly written Introduction, will enable users to make sense of the wide range of approaches, theories, and concepts that have informed memory research to date. It is an essential reference work destined to be valued as a vital research resource by all scholars and students of the subject.

"Learning and Memory," Second Edition provides an overview of the full range of current knowledge about learning and memory. A thorough revision of the 1992 edition of "The Encyclopedia of Learning and Memory," the second edition features new articles and article updates that capture advances in the ever-changing fields of memory, neuroscience, and cognition. New entries include autobiographical memory, collective memory, de ja vu, schizophrenia and memory, and more.

This textbook has been updated and extended to include recent research in all areas of everyday memory. The controversy about the value of naturalistic research, as opposed to traditional laboratory methods, is outlined, and the views of both critics and defenders are put forward. The trend toward convergence of the two approaches is evaluated.; This book brings together studies on many different topics such as memory for plans and actions, for names and faces, for routes and maps, conversations and stories, autobiographical experiences, and childhood events. Further chapters focus on memory for general knowledge and for specialist domains such as music, chess, and computer programming. Emphasis is also given to memory for internal mental events such as thoughts and dreams. False memory syndrome, memory for health events, and social remembering are covered.; This new edition spells out the links between naturalistic and applied studies and the models, and theories that support them. It shows how theoretical frameworks such as schemas, scripts, mental models and production systems, and concepts such as encoding specificity, implicit memory and rule-based and case-based reasoning are needed to explain and interpret the findings and observations derived from the study of memory in the real world.

This book explores historical discourses on the various forms of identity production in film that are based on memory and shows how these narratives get 'mediated' by (documentary) film. Most films about the Balkans produced in the last two decades were in fact made in response to immediate concerns about the economic crises and political conflicts that struck the region during the 1990s. These new forms of communication about history mostly show a rather self-critical approach. The book's case studies give the reader a clear idea of how processes informing identity formations are directly launched and later on maintained in peoples' real and everyday lives. Thus, the case studies' principal objective is to integrate the study of 'private space' with existing macro-debates in politics as well as with dominant discourses within the academic community. The included case studies focus on several topics, i.e. migration, the reproduction and protection of personal as well as collective identities in post-socialist societies, revolutionary processes towards the official end of the Cold War, the (re-)creation of politically constructed narratives, generational conflicts in the post-socialist period, and the fate of women during the war. The multifaceted view of the region under focus in this study shows that common grounds and differences co-exist in the Balkan space, be it on a cultural, economic, social or (geo)-political level. Apart from the field of film studies, this work is a powerful contribution to cultural history as well as to the growing field of visual history.

The Arts of Memory and the Poetics of RememberingThis collection of essays explores the dynamics of representation, transmission and circulation of memory, as well as the role of personal and collective memory in shaping meanings, values, attitudes and identities. Bringing together a group of international scholars from different disciplines, the book examines various literary, artistic, psychological, social, historical and political narratives, ranging from British women's elegies of the First World War to the Brooklyn Dodgers to the constructed narratives of Lincoln University's founding ideals to photographs of the Holocaust and Nazi Camp testimonies. Among the key features of the book's approach is its focus on memory, not as a static entity, but as a set of malleable patterns and strategies that highlight both the unity of the concept of memory and the diversity of its human expressions and artistic forms.

You rely on your memories for who you are as a person, where you have been, and what you have experienced in your life to date. But, what if it turned out that these memories that you hold closely aren't your memories at all? What if they were someone else's memories?This book documents the results of a research project investigating the effects of interpersonal relationship factors on shared reminiscence. Although memory and the factors that influence it have been researched more in recent years, there has been limited research which has measured the specific interpersonal effects of familiarity, trust, confidence, and memory esteem on memory distortion.There are four empirical chapters in this book. Within these four chapters are four separate, but related, studies, which examine the effects of interpersonal factors on memory distortion for ordinary events and for flashbulb memory of the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001.

Implicit memory refers to a change in task performance due to an earlier experience that is not consciously remembered. The topic of implicit memory has been studied from two quite different perspectives for the past 20 years. On the one hand, researchers interested in memory have set out characterize the memory system (or systems) underlying implicit memory, and see how they relate to those underlying other forms of memory. The alternative framework has considered implicit memory as a by-product of perceptual, conceptual, or motor systems that learn. That is, on this view the systems that support implicit memory are heavily constrained by pressures other than memory per se. Both approaches have yielded results that have been valuable in helping us to understand the nature of implicit memory, but studied somewhat in isolation and with little collaboration. This volume is unique in explicitly contrasting these approaches, bringing together world class scientists from both camps in an attempt to forge a new approach to understanding one of the most exciting and important issues in psychology and neuroscience.Written for postgraduate students and researchers in cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience, this is a book that will have an important influence on the direction that future research in this field takes.

This book balances coverage of theory, research, and data in order to promote a more complete understanding of how human memory works. The book strikes a balance between historically significant findings and current research. Actual experiments, both paper and pencil and online demonstrations, are included to help students see the link between theory and data.