The Processing Of Memories Ple Memory

Originally published in 1978, this volume contains the evidence that is most crucial for our understanding the processes of forgetting and retention. Organized in terms of problem areas and issues that are particularly pertinent to understanding these processes, the book deals with both animal and human studies. The author begins by defining the topic and reviewing its historical development. A theoretical orientation follows, and then the author begins to address the major factors that determine what is, and what is not, remembered. Although we cannot yet specify the principles from which we can predict when an episode, once learned, will be remembered well or forgotten entirely, the author demonstrates that such principles are not that far away. He considers the issues that must be resolved before such principles are established, and in the course of doing so covers the major research on why we remember events and why they are forgotten.

As a conceptual framework for the investigation of human memory, the levels-of-processing paradigm had enjoyed immense popularity since its introduction in the early 1970s. It was the impetus behind literally hundreds of experiments and was used as an "explanation" for a wide range of retention phenomena. Consequently, a wealth of data and theory had emerged, and this title assimilates and evaluates this information. Originally published in 1979, the distinguished contributors to the volume – both proponents and opponents of the levels-of-processing framework – present here their latest data and ideas on a viewpoint that has been a tremendous influence in memory research and related areas.

Originally published in 1980, this title came about after many late night discussions between the authors during a 3-week workshop on Mathematical Approaches to Person Perception in 1974. In subsequent meetings a mutual interest emerged in the development of cognitive information processing metaphors for human thought and their application to problems of social perception, memory and judgment. Within the context of modern research on social cognition, the most distinctive aspects of the authors’ work was its empirical focus on how people cognitively represent people in memory, and its theoretical emphasis on models of cognitive organization and process. They concluded that an adequate theory of social memory was the necessary foundation for solutions to many questions concerning social perception and judgment that had dominated the 1974 workshop. This volume summarizes work conducted between 1974 and 1979 on social memory by these authors. In addition to six chapters summarizing individual research programs, the volume includes a general introduction and a concluding theoretical integration.

Given two events, both of which are well remembered, can we specify which event occurred first? If so, how? For example, did Nixon resign, before or after Billie Jean King beat Bobby Riggs? Originally published in 1977, little was known about the accuracy of temporal codes for memories, and still less about the nature of the codes. This volume addresses the central question of the mechanisms by which order information is attached to memories. The results of sixteen previously unpublished experiments indicate the role of some independent variables on temporal coding in relatively short-term memory and in long-term memory. Several experiments, in which changes in proactive inhibition are used as an index of temporal differentiation, show that the nature of the words making up the lists is involved fundamentally in temporal coding. Other experiments demonstrate that in relatively short-term memory a subject cannot learn to improve his performance in estimating how far apart in time two events occurred. Still other experiments show that recency judgments for two events improve with practice, but the improvement is independent of the temporal separation. The context in which memories are established is shown to influence temporal codes only if an ordering metric is part of the context. The author advances several theoretical propositions to account for the various findings. In doing so he has given initial structuring for subsequent research to a neglected area. This volume will still be of significant interest to all those interested in learning and memory.

When this title was originally published in 1981, the information processing approach to perception and memory was dominant in experimental psychology, and the research reported here had major implications for future development. After exploring the shortcomings of earlier work in this field, the author develops a new model which he shows to be capable of accounting for a variety of experimental data connected with human information processing, visual perception and attention. The central theme which is discussed is how we select relevant and discard irrelevant information. The basic assumption is that all incoming information is identified, that is, it reaches and activates the appropriate lexical entries. A piece of identified information is described as a unit consisting of three distinguishable codes: a visual code, a lexical or semantic code and a motor or action code. Identified information decays fast, so selective attention operates by selecting those units which have to be saved from this rapid decay. In a sense, therefore, the human information processor is described as struggling against forgetting.

Originally published in 1982, this book brings together two areas of research previously studied in parallel, with little interaction (particularly in the US): normal memory processing and the amnesic syndrome. When trying to document the relationship between the two it became apparent that there was much crossover and duplication of effort in a number of areas. It was written, following a meeting in 1979, by a small group of investigators, brought together to explore this commonality and to share data and theory, thus beginning the promise of a bright future of interdisciplinary interaction in memory research.

The main emphasis throughout this collection is on theoretical issues and how they relate to existing empirical work.