Remember things better by understanding how your memory works. If memory is a simple thing, why does it so often go awry? Why is forgetting so common? How can you be certain about something you remember-and be wrong about it? Why is it so difficult to remember people's names? How can you study hard for an exam but not be able to recall the material on the test? In Why We Forget, Dr. Andrew Budson and Dr. Elizabeth Kensinger address these questions and more, using their years of experience to guide readers into better memory. Why We Forget shows you how to use these answers to improve your memory. In its pages you will learn: · How memory's most important function isn't to help you remember details from your past. · How memory is actually a collection of different abilities. · How you create, store, and retrieve memories of your daily life. · Ways to control what you remember and what you forget. · Ways to distinguish between a true and false memory. · Effective ways to study for an exam. · How to remember people's names, all your passwords, 50 digits of Pi, and anything else you wish. · How memory changes in normal aging, Alzheimer's disease, depression, anxiety, PTSD, ADHD, and other disorders-including COVID brain fog. · How exercise, nutrition, alcohol, cannabis, sleep, mindfulness, and music affect your memory. Why We Forget uses the science of memory to empower you with the knowledge you need to remember better, whether you are a college student looking to ace your next exam, a business professional preparing a presentation, or a healthcare worker needing to memorize the 600+ muscles in the human body.

Richard Semon was a German evolutionary biologist who wrote, during the first decade of the twentieth century, two fascinating analyses of the workings of human memory which were ahead of their time. Although these have been virtually unknown to modern researchers, Semon's work has been rediscovered during the past two decades and has begun to have an influence on the field. This book not only examines Semon's contribution to memory research, but also tells the story of an extraordinary life set against the background of a turbulent period in European history and major developments in science and evolutionary theory.
The resulting book is an engaging blend of biographical, historical and psychological material. Through the remarkable story of an almost forgotten German biologist, this fascinating book addresses not only key questions in memory research but also wide-ranging and substantive issues in the history and psychology of science.

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Richard Semon was a German evolutionary biologist who wrote, during the first decade of the twentieth century, two fascinating analyses of the workings of human memory which were ahead of their time. Although these have been virtually unknown to modern researchers, Semon's work has been rediscovered during the past two decades and has begun to have an influence on the field. This book not only examines Semon's contribution to memory research, but also tells the story of an extraordinary life set against the background of a turbulent period in European history and major developments in science and evolutionary theory. The resulting book is an engaging blend of biographical, historical and psychological material.

People sometimes remember events that never happened. These illusory or false memories have important practical implications in various aspects of everyday life, and also have significant theoretical implications for cognitive and neuropsychological models of memory. Cognitive psychologists and neuropsychologists have long been aware of false recognition, confabulation, and related kinds of memory distortions, but during the past several years research on these topics has increased rapidly. In recognition of this emerging domain of interest, this special issue of Cognitive Neuropsychology is devoted to the cognitive neuropsychology of false memories. Edited by Daniel L. Schacter, the special issue features experimental and theoretical contributions from leading cognitive psychologists, neuropsychologists, and neurologists that explore such issues as false recognition after frontal lobe damage, the nature of confabulation, amnesia and false memories, physiological correlates of memory illusions, memory distortions in normal and abnormal aging, and computational models of true and false memories.

This volume provides, for the first time, multidisciplinary perspectives on the problem of awareness of deficits following brain injury. Such deficits may involve perception, attention, memory, language, or motor functions, and they can seriously disrupt an individual's ability to function. However, some brain-damaged patients are entirely unaware of the existence or severity of their deficits, even when they are easily noticed by others. In addressing these topics, contributors cover the entire range of neuropsychological syndromes in which problems with awareness of deficit are observed: hemiplegia and hemianopia, amnesia, aphasia, traumatic head injury, dementia, and others. On the clinical side, leading researchers delineate the implications of awareness of deficits for rehabilitation and patient management, and the role of defense mechanisms such as denial. Theoretical discussions focus on the importance of awareness disturbances for better understanding such cognitive processes as attention, consciousness, and monitoring.

Hypnosis, confabulation, source amnesia, flashbulb memories, repression--these and numerous additional topics are explored in this timely collection of essays by eminent scholars in a range of disciplines. This is the first book on memory distortion to unite contributions from cognitive psychology, psychopathology, psychiatry, neurobiology, sociology, history, and religious studies. It brings the most relevant group of perspectives to bear on some key contemporary issues, including the value of eyewitness testimony and the accuracy of recovered memories of sexual abuse.

The distinguished contributors to this volume explore the full range of biological phenomena and social ideas relevant to understanding memory distortion, including the reliability of children's recollections, the effects of hypnosis on memory, and confabulation in brain-injured patients. They also look into the activity and role of brain systems, cellular bases of memory distortion, and the effects of emotion and trauma on the accuracy of memory. In a section devoted to the social aspects of memory distortion, additional essays analyze the media's part in distorting social memory, factors influencing historical reconstruction of the collective past, and memory distortion in religion and other cultural constructs. Daniel Schacter launches the collection with a history of psychological memory distortions. Subsequent highlights include new empirical findings on memory retrieval by a pioneer in the field, some of the foremost research on computational models, studies of the relationship between emotion and memory, new findings on amnesia by a premier neuroscientist, and reflections on the power of collective amnesiain U.S. history, the Nazi Holocaust, and ancient Egypt.

The scientific research literature on memory is enormous. Yet until now no single book has focused on the complex interrelationships of memory and belief. This book brings together eminent scholars from neuroscience, cognitive psychology, literature, and medicine to discuss such provocative issues as "false memories," in which people can develop vivid recollections of events that never happened; retrospective biases, in which memories of past experiences are influenced by one's current beliefs; and implicit memory, or the way in which nonconscious influences of past experience shape current beliefs.

Ranging from cognitive, neurological, and pathological perspectives on memory and belief, to relations between conscious and nonconscious mental processes, to memory and belief in autobiographical narratives, this book will be uniquely stimulating to scholars in several academic disciplines.

Memory. There may be nothing more important to human beings than our ability to enshrine experience and recall it. While philosophers and poets have elevated memory to an almost mystical level, psychologists have struggled to demystify it. Now, according to Daniel Schacter, one of the most distinguished memory researchers, the mysteries of memory are finally yielding to dramatic, even revolutionary, scientific breakthroughs. Schacter explains how and why it may change our understanding of everything from false memory to Alzheimer's disease, from recovered memory to amnesia with fascinating firsthand accounts of patients with striking--and sometimes bizarre--amnesias resulting from brain injury or psychological trauma.