 | This article includes a list of references, related reading, or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations .(October 2011) |
The Now Print! theory, first proposed by Robert B. Livingston in 1967, is an attempt to explain the neurobiology underlying the flashbulb memory phenomenon. The theory argues that a special mechanism exists in the brain, which issues a now print! order to preserve moments of great personal significance.
The Now Print! mechanism could have evolved because of the selection value of permanently retaining biologically crucial, but unexpected events. The same mechanism may account for both the enduring significant memories in which one has played the role of protagonist and those in which one has only been a member of an interested audience of millions. (Brown & Kulik, 1977, pp. 97–99).
The circumstances of a now print! reaction are described by Brown and Kulik: "First comes the recognition of high novelty or unexpectedness; then comes a test for biological meaning for the individual; if this second test is met, there follows the permanent registration not only of the significant novelty, but of all recent brain events."(1967b, p. 576).
Brown and Kulik proposed that the Now Print! theory delivered an evolutionary advantage by giving rise to very specific and durable memories of events of high personal consequence. Such memories might be used vicariously in preparing effective avoidance and approach strategies and so aid in survival. “The mechanism is activated when a given event occurs unexpectedly and has biologically significant consequences for individual’s lives so that people are ready to recognize similar events in the future,” (Lanciano, Curci & Semin, 2010). When this happens memories for these events contain an abnormal amount of sensory and peripheral details that give the impression of accuracy.
Researchers have tested this theory extensively in order to determine whether it is viable. The overwhelming evidence has shown the Now Print! hypothesis to be unsupported. Neisser (2000) explains that most memories that become flashbulbs do not obtain their significance immediately, but instead only later with rehearsal and repetition through interactions with other people or personal reflection on an event.
In other studies, Neisser & Harsch (1992) and Neisser et al. (1996) provide evidence for the inaccuracy of flashbulb memories and thereby weaken the Now Print! hypothesis. The former assesses the accuracy of participants memories of the Challenger explosion soon after it happened and then two and a half years later to determine the precision of their memories. The latter compares three different groups of people based on the 1989 California earthquake. One group was located in a different state and only ‘heard’ about the quake, the second group experienced relatively minor effects in Berkeley located near the epicenter, and the third group resided in Santa Cruz, where major damage occurred. The participants answered a questionnaire soon after the earthquake experience and then another time one and a half years later. Although the participants who experienced the more severe conditions of the earthquake had a higher “mean remembered rating” than the other group located nearby, the results from this study show that memory was not necessarily better if high emotionality was involved in the context. The group of participants located in an entirely different state than the quake did even worse regarding the amount of recalled items.
A flashbulb memory is a vivid, long-lasting memory about a surprising or shocking event that has happened in the past.
Source amnesia is the inability to remember where, when or how previously learned information has been acquired, while retaining the factual knowledge. This branch of amnesia is associated with the malfunctioning of one's explicit memory. It is likely that the disconnect between having the knowledge and remembering the context in which the knowledge was acquired is due to a dissociation between semantic and episodic memory – an individual retains the semantic knowledge, but lacks the episodic knowledge to indicate the context in which the knowledge was gained.
Repressed memory is an alleged psychiatric phenomenon which involves an inability to recall autobiographical information, usually of a traumatic or stressful nature. The concept originated in psychoanalytic theory where repression is understood as a defense mechanism that excludes painful experiences and unacceptable impulses from consciousness. Repressed memory is a controversial concept, particularly in legal contexts where it has been used to impugn individuals unfairly and inaccurately, leading to substantial harm. At the same time, an American Psychological Association working group indicated that while "most people who were sexually abused as children remember all or part of what happened to them, it is possible for memories of abuse that have been forgotten for a long time to be remembered". Although Sigmund Freud later revised his theory, he initially held that memories of childhood sexual trauma were often repressed yet the traumas unconsciously influenced behavior and emotional responding.
Episodic memory is the memory of everyday events that can be explicitly stated or conjured. It is the collection of past personal experiences that occurred at particular times and places; for example, the party on one's 7th birthday. Along with semantic memory, it comprises the category of explicit memory, one of the two major divisions of long-term memory.
Ulric Richard Gustav Neisser (December 8, 1928 – February 17, 2012) was a German-American psychologist, Cornell University professor, and member of the US National Academy of Sciences. He has been referred to as the "father of cognitive psychology". Neisser researched and wrote about perception and memory. He posited that a person's mental processes could be measured and subsequently analyzed. In 1967, Neisser published Cognitive Psychology, which he later said was considered an attack on behaviorist psychological paradigms. Cognitive Psychology brought Neisser instant fame and recognition in the field of psychology. While Cognitive Psychology was considered unconventional, it was Neisser's Cognition and Reality that contained some of his most controversial ideas. A main theme in Cognition and Reality is Neisser's advocacy for experiments on perception occurring in natural settings. Neisser postulated that memory is, largely, reconstructed and not a snap shot of the moment. Neisser illustrated this during one of his highly publicized studies on people's memories of the Challenger explosion. In his later career, he summed up current research on human intelligence and edited the first major scholarly monograph on the Flynn effect. A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Neisser as the 32nd most cited psychologist of the 20th century.
In psychology, memory inhibition is the ability not to remember irrelevant information. The scientific concept of memory inhibition should not be confused with everyday uses of the word "inhibition". Scientifically speaking, memory inhibition is a type of cognitive inhibition, which is the stopping or overriding of a mental process, in whole or in part, with or without intention.
The reminiscence bump is the tendency for older adults to have increased or enhanced recollection for events that occurred during their adolescence and early adulthood. It was identified through the study of autobiographical memory and the subsequent plotting of the age of encoding of memories to form the lifespan retrieval curve.
Exceptional memory is the ability to have accurate and detailed recall in a variety of ways, including hyperthymesia, eidetic memory, synesthesia, and emotional memory. Exceptional memory is also prevalent in those with savant syndrome and mnemonists.
Autobiographical memory (AM) is a memory system consisting of episodes recollected from an individual's life, based on a combination of episodic and semantic memory. It is thus a type of explicit memory.
Emotion can have a powerful effect on humans and animals. Numerous studies have shown that the most vivid autobiographical memories tend to be of emotional events, which are likely to be recalled more often and with more clarity and detail than neutral events.
Memory gaps and errors refer to the incorrect recall, or complete loss, of information in the memory system for a specific detail and/or event. Memory errors may include remembering events that never occurred, or remembering them differently from the way they actually happened. These errors or gaps can occur due to a number of different reasons, including the emotional involvement in the situation, expectations and environmental changes. As the retention interval between encoding and retrieval of the memory lengthens, there is an increase in both the amount that is forgotten, and the likelihood of a memory error occurring.
In psychology, the misattribution of memory or source misattribution is the misidentification of the origin of a memory by the person making the memory recall. Misattribution is likely to occur when individuals are unable to monitor and control the influence of their attitudes, toward their judgments, at the time of retrieval. Misattribution is divided into three components: cryptomnesia, false memories, and source confusion. It was originally noted as one of Daniel Schacter's seven sins of memory.
Memory is the faculty of the mind by which data or information is encoded, stored, and retrieved when needed. It is the retention of information over time for the purpose of influencing future action. If past events could not be remembered, it would be impossible for language, relationships, or personal identity to develop. Memory loss is usually described as forgetfulness or amnesia.
Mood dependence is the facilitation of memory when mood at retrieval is identical to the mood at encoding. When one encodes a memory, they not only record sensory data, they also store their mood and emotional states. An individual's present mood thus affects the memories that are most easily available to them, such that when they are in a good mood they recall good memories. The associative nature of memory also means that one tends to store happy memories in a linked set. Unlike mood-congruent memory, mood-dependent memory occurs when one's current mood resembles their mood at the time of memory storage, which helps to recall the memory. Thus, the likelihood of remembering an event is higher when encoding and recall moods match up. However, it seems that only authentic moods have the power to produce these mood-dependent effects.
Childhood memory refers to memories formed during childhood. Among its other roles, memory functions to guide present behaviour and to predict future outcomes. Memory in childhood is qualitatively and quantitatively different from the memories formed and retrieved in late adolescence and the adult years. Childhood memory research is relatively recent in relation to the study of other types of cognitive processes underpinning behaviour. Understanding the mechanisms by which memories in childhood are encoded and later retrieved has important implications in many areas. Research into childhood memory includes topics such as childhood memory formation and retrieval mechanisms in relation to those in adults, controversies surrounding infantile amnesia and the fact that adults have relatively poor memories of early childhood, the ways in which school environment and family environment influence memory, and the ways in which memory can be improved in childhood to improve overall cognition, performance in school, and well-being, both in childhood and in adulthood.
Selective omission is a memory bias. In collective memory, it is a bias where a group works to forget traumatic memories.
Childhood amnesia, also called infantile amnesia, is the inability of adults to retrieve episodic memories before the age of two to four years. It may also refer to the scarcity or fragmentation of memories recollected from early childhood, particularly occurring between the ages of 2 and 6. The development of a cognitive self is also thought by some to have an effect on encoding and storing early memories.
A personal-event memory is an individual's memory of an event from a certain moment of time. Its defining characteristics are that it is for a specific event; includes vivid multi-sensory elements ; is usually recalled in detail; and is usually believed by the individual to be an accurate representation of the event.
Ira Hyman, Ph.D., is currently a professor of psychology at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington. His research is focused on human memory including traumatic memories, false childhood memories, autobiographical memory, memory in social context, and memory for phobia onset. Some of his most influential studies are: "Did you see the unicycling clown? Inattentional blindness while walking and talking on a cell phone", "Errors in autobiographical memories", "Individual differences and the creation of false childhood memories", "The role of mental imagery in the creation of false childhood memories" and "False memories of childhood experiences".
The fading affect bias, more commonly known as FAB, is a psychological phenomenon in which memories associated with negative emotions tend to be forgotten more quickly than those associated with positive emotions. It is important to note that FAB only refers to the feelings one has associated with the memories and not the content of the memories themselves. Early research studied FAB retrospectively, or through personal reflection, which brought about some criticism because retrospective analysis can be affected by subjective retrospective biases. However, new research using non-retrospective recall studies have found evidence for FAB., and the phenomenon has become largely accepted.