Schacter, a Harvard psychology professor, has produced a full, rich picture of how human memory works, an elegant, captivating tour de force that interweaves the latest research in cognitive psychology and neuroscience with case materials and examples from everyday life. Clinical studies of brain-damaged and amnesiac patients reinforce his thesis that memory is not a single faculty, as was long assumed, but instead depends on a variety of systems, each tied to a particular network of brain structures, all acting in concert so we recognize objects, acquire habits, hold information for brief periods, retain concepts and recollect specific events. Aided by numerous reproductions of contemporary paintings that evoke the subjective workings of memory, Schacter explores how we convert fragmentary remains of experience into autobiographical narratives. Implicit memory, at work even when we are unable to fully recall recent events, pervasively, unconsciously colors our perceptions, judgments, feelings and behavior, he maintains. Chapters also cover distortion in memory, repressed memory of childhood sexual abuse, recollection of extreme trauma and memory impairment with aging. This wonderfully enlightening survey enlarges our understanding of the mind's potential. (June)
Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly
Harvard psychologist Schacter (Victims of Memory, LJ 4/15/95) here delivers a solid, thoughtful analysis of memory, underscoring the relationship between memory's limitations and its pervasive influence as the core of how the past shapes the present. Memory, he writes, is not to be conceptualized as a unitary phenomenon but as a composite of separate processes and systems. Memories do not emerge as passive recordings of reality but also store meaning and emotion. Consequently, the way we perceive events plays a major role in what we later recall. Schacter argues effectively that it is important to know how past memories shape present realities. Echoing Barry Gordon's Memory: Remembering and Forgetting (Mastermedia, 1995), this analysis of a burgeoning new area of study is recommended for informed readers.Dennis Glenn Twiggs, Winston-Salem, N.C.
A survey of new research on human memory drawing on artistic and
anecdotal case studies and examples that enliven the impeccable
scientific detail with a thematic narrative. Schacter (psychology,
Harvard U.) uses his own research, that of other cognitive scientists
and neuroscientists, literary and art sources, and autobiography to
explain semantic, episodic, procedural, and implicit memory, as well
as the origins and implications of memory distortion, brain damage,
amnesia, repressed memories, and memory loss due to diseases such as
Alzheimer's.
Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.
Schacter describes what memory is and how it works, explaining with admirable clarity such complicated subjects as the hippocampus and other pertinent areas of the brain and how they function, and he reviews the major advances in memory research that such techniques as positron-emission tomography have recently made possible. Memory, he shows, does not resemble a simple computer file; it is much more complicated and is influenced by many physical and emotional elements. The subjective sense of pastness is also important to it; claims for exact memory of conversations and other events, he points out, are often misleading. Further, his consideration of the problems of repressed memories is one of the best analyses of them in recent literature. Detailed, readable, well documented, his effort is a useful addition to popular and scholarly scientific collections alike. What's more, Schacter draws on his personal art collection to strikingly illustrate his report.
This long but never dull synthesis of research on memory from the late 19th century to the present provides a host of interesting facts and insights into how our recollections are formed, maintained, retrieved, and sometimes distorted or forgotten.
Personal memories, both conscious and unconscious, greatly influence our actions, habits, and values. Yet what exactly is memory? A professor of psychology at Harvard, Schacter skillfully bridges the disciplines of cognitive neuroscience and psychology in summarizing the neurological, hormonal, and emotional bases of memory. He also clearly distinguishes among several kinds of recollections, including semantic (cognitive) and procedural (task- oriented), as well as field versus observer (in the former, one is part of the recollected scene; in the latter, one isn't). Schacter is also very informative on pseudo-memories, noting the susceptibility of many young children to suggestive questioning and of some adults to hypnosis; psychogenic, or trauma-induced, amnesia; the recurrent intrusive memories found in post-traumatic stress disorder; the controversy between believers in and critics of "recovered memory" (memories, usually of sexual abuse, retrieved through hypnosis or other therapeutic techniques); and myths and realities concerning how aging affects memory. Schacter repeatedly notes how fragile memory is: It hardly provides a camcorder-like reflection of the past. Concerning flashbacks of a traumatic event, for example, he writes that "[their] content may say more about what a person believes or fears than about what actually happened." His narrative style is superb, balancing clear scientific journalism with interesting anecdotal material. Contemporary art focusing on the themes of memory and forgetting provides a vivid counterpoint.
In short, a highly readable, intellectually rich, and altogether memorable work.
