In this useful text, Mark L. Howe presents the most complete book-length exegesis of the research and theory concerning the emergence and development of declarative, long-term memory from birth through early adolescence. The book also contains the first presentation of Howe's theory that memory is an adaptive mechanism that is used to guide the development and survival of the organism in an initially novel, yet changing environment.
The book is divided into four parts: In the first part, Howe discusses why memory development is important; in the second, he discusses infantile amnesia and autobiographical memory; in the third part, Howe explores a series of key factors that have an impact on early memory development--distinctiveness, emotion, stress, and maltreatment; and finally, he gives a detailed presentation of the theory of memory as an adaptation, and applies results to real-world problems.
In addition to reviewing the basic-science research on both humans and nonhuman animals, Howe devotes a significant portion of the book to clinical and forensic topics, including the roles of stress and trauma in memory development, the development of false recollection, memory for traumatic experiences, the effects of depression, PTSD, and dissociation on early memory development, and nonhuman animal research on the nature of infantile amnesia. In bringing together this diverse-yet-influential body of literature, Howe presents a valuable resource for anyone interested in research on memory.

Human memory, like other biological systems, has been subject to natural selection over the course of evolution. However, cognitive systems do not fossilize, which means that current researchers must infer evolutionary influences on human memory from current human behavior rather than from fossils or artifacts. Examining the potential for cognition as adaptation has often been ignored by cognitive psychology. Recently, a number of researchers have identified variables that affect human memory that may reflect these ancestral influences. These include survival processing, future-oriented processing, spatial memory, cheater detection, face memory and a variety of social influences on memory. The current volume grew out of discussion at the symposium on survival processing at the SARMAC conference in June 2011, in New York City. The goal of this volume will be to present the best theoretical and empirical work on the adaptive nature of memory. It features the most current work of a number of cognitive psychologists, developmental psychologists, comparative psychologists and cognitive neuroscientists, who have focused on this issue. This is important because much this work is necessarily interdisciplinary and is therefore spread out across a range of journals and conferences.

Memory is often the primary evidence in the courtroom, yet unfortunately this evidence may not be fit for purpose. This is because memory is both fallible and malleable; it is possible to forget and also to falsely remember things which never happened. The legal system has been slow to adapt to scientific findings about memory even though such findings have implications for the use of memory as evidence, not only in the case of eyewitness testimony, but also for how jurors, barristers, and judges weigh evidence. Memory and Miscarriages of Justice provides an authoritative look at the role of memory in law and highlights the common misunderstandings surrounding it while bringing the modern scientific understanding of memory to the forefront. Drawing on the latest research, this book examines cases where memory has played a role in miscarriages of justice and makes recommendations from the science of memory to support the future of memory evidence in the legal system. Appealing to undergraduate and postgraduate students of psychology and law, memory experts, and legal professionals, this book provides an insightful and global view of the use of memory within the legal system.

It is a truism that as we age there are a number of underlying physiological changes conspiring to alter our level of behavioral and cognitive function ing. Despite the inherent interrelatedness of these behavioral and cognitive changes, all too often the papers we read confine themselves to specific, isolated components of the developing process. Although exceptions nat urally exist, we believe that these exceptions should become rule. Although an integrated approach is important in all areas of adult devel opment, it is perhaps particularly germane in the study of atypical aging. Here, changes in overall functioning can occur in rapid succession, with the synchrony of decline between different subprocesses making it difficult to factor changes in one process from changes in another. For example, because changes in cognitive functioning co-occur with other dramatic changes in (motoric) response capacities, it is unclear how one can effec tively study changes in the ability to cognize independent of changes in the very mechanisms (ability to execute motor sequences) so often used to index cognitive performance."

For some time now, the study of cognitive development has been far and away the most active discipline within developmental psychology. Although there would be much disagreement as to the exact proportion of papers published in developmental journals that could be considered cognitive, 50% seems like a conservative estimate. Hence, a series of scholarly books devoted to work in cognitive development is especially appropriate at this time. The Springer Series in Cognitive Developmemt contains two basic types of books, namely, edited collections of original chapters by several authors, and original volumes written by one author or a small group of authors. The flagship for the Springer Series is a serial publication of the "advances" type, carrying the subtitle Progress in Cognitive Development Research. Each volume in the Progress sequence is strongly thematic, in that it is limited to some well defined domain of cognitive-developmental research (e. g., logical and math ematical development, development of learning). All Progress volumes will be edited collections. Editors of such collections, upon consultation with the Series Editor, may elect to have their books published either as contributions to the Progress sequence or as separate volumes. All books written by one author or a small group of authors are being published as separate volumes within the series. A fairly broad definition of cognitive development is being used in the selection of books for this series."

Emerging Themes in Cognitive Development presents two volumes of the newest research and theory in cognitive development available at the outset of the 1990s. These ideas are firmly rooted in research from the 1980s and, in some sense, these volumes represent a culmination of that research and of even earlier work. Nevertheless, these volumes are offered as catalysts more than summaries, because each presents the freshest and most recently gathered data of many scientists whose insights have had an important impact on the field. The latest ideas of these researchers will, in some cases, immediately prove to be dominant themes of research and theory. In other cases, of course, it will take longer for the concepts presented to capture the imagination of students and colleagues who are still invested in meritori ous research on other themes. In either case, the syntheses and innova tions proposed are not likely to escape the careful study of the serious scholar, and it is to such scholars that these volumes are dedicated."

For a number of decades now the study of children's memory development, with few exceptions, has been synonymous with the development of pro cesses that lead to the initial encoding and immediate retention of informa tion. Although there is little doubt that the study of such acquisition pro cesses is central to understanding memory development, the long-term retention of previously encoded information represents at least as important a component of children's memory. Indeed, as both students of memory development and educators, our interest is in the maintenance and utiliza tion of knowledge over considerable periods of time, not just in the immedi ate (e. g., classroom) context. Clearly, then, without an understanding of how recently acquired information is maintained in memory over extended periods of time, our theories of long-term memory development remain incomplete at best. Although children's forgetting and reminiscence was a topic of inquiry early in this century, it is only recently, due in part to the current controversy concerning the reliability of children's eyewitness testimony, that the study of long-term retention has resurfaced in the scientific literature. The purpose of this volume is to draw together some of the principals involved in this resurgence to summarize their recent research programs, present new and previously unpublished findings from their labs, and outline the issues they believe are important in the study of children's long-term retention."

Emerging Themes in Cognitive Development, Volumes I and II offer the full spectrum of current knowledge and research trends in cognitive developmental psychology. The first volume provides a foundation by describing key discoveries in new areas of research and by thoroughly examining fundamental aspects of the field, including several demonstrations of formal modeling; the gains in prediction and precision that can be won by such mathematical analyses are the hallmark of cognitive development as a maturing science. The second volume traces the development of cognitive competence - denoting a change or increment in cognitive proficiency, understanding, or mastery - and includes analyses of innovative and previously unpublished studies. The primary challenge issued by many of the authors in this volume is to ensure the incorporation of new knowledge into educational practices. These volumes, which are milestones in cognitive developmental psychology, interest every researcher in the field.

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.

Memory is often the primary evidence in the courtroom, yet unfortunately this evidence may not be fit for purpose. This is because memory is both fallible and malleable; it is possible to forget and also to falsely remember things which never happened. The legal system has been slow to adapt to scientific findings about memory even though such findings have implications for the use of memory as evidence, not only in the case of eyewitness testimony, but also for how jurors, barristers, and judges weigh evidence. Memory and Miscarriages of Justice provides an authoritative look at the role of memory in law and highlights the common misunderstandings surrounding it while bringing the modern scientific understanding of memory to the forefront. Drawing on the latest research, this book examines cases where memory has played a role in miscarriages of justice and makes recommendations from the science of memory to support the future of memory evidence in the legal system. Appealing to undergraduate and postgraduate students of psychology and law, memory experts, and legal professionals, this book provides an insightful and global view of the use of memory within the legal system.