Memory Distortion â " How Minds, Brains & Societies Reconstruct the Past

Hypnosis, confabulation, source amnesia, flash-bulb memories, repression - these and numerous additional topics are explored in this collection of essays by scholars in a range of disciplines. This book on memory distortion unites contributions from cognitive psychology, psychopathology, psychiatry, neurobiology, sociology, history and religious studies. It brings relevant groups 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 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 contributions include empirical findings on memory retrieval by a pioneer in the field, 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 amnesia in US history, the Nazi Holocaust and ancient Egypt.