Last month I was able to present some of my research to the annual meeting of the International Society for the Study of Narrative, in a hybrid conference format (online and in-person). The title of my presentation was "Causality, Location, and Disruption as Accommodations for Remembering Sequences."
In the embedded video below (17:51), you may enjoy my enthusiastic discussion and substantive slideshow. The rest of this blogpost, if you keep scrolling, includes my abstract (285 words) and the "party favor" referred to in my talk, a supplemental handout entitled "Review of Cognitive Psychology on 'Construcive Remembering'" (1268 words, plus notes and references).
Video:
Abstract:
In a previous
ISSN presentation, “Causality as Mnemonic Accommodation,” I reviewed cognitive
science on memory and event sequence to support three nested claims. First,
remembering is constructive (Schacter 1996, 2013). Second, remembering temporal
sequences is most successful when recalled information happens to convey
temporal implications through natural logic or contextual detail (Friedman 1993).
Third, memories encoded as cause and effect imply their own sequence and unity,
facilitating efficient mnemonic reconstruction. Thus, causality helps us
remember event sequences coherently, whether recalling personal experiences, fictional
storylines, or historical emplotments.
After reviewing the
above, I suggest that physical setting can similarly accommodate the mnemonic
reconstruction of temporal sequence because movement between two locations necessarily
implies prior and subsequent order. Arbitrary developments distinguishable by
location can be mentally truncated as episodic material, and thereby sequenced
efficiently. Also, itinerary based storylines (e.g., Homer’s Odyssey or The
Wizard of Oz) provide an underlying structure within their larger emplotments.
Finally, I
suggest that disruption of any perceived equilibrium creates a mnemonic
boundary between time periods “before and after” the disruption. Thus, any
contradiction or reversal (e.g., dashed hopes, foiled plans, drastic failure, or
tragic irony) creates a powerful mnemonic association between the bygone hopes
or expectations and whatever impactful event has destroyed them. Thus, like any
trauma, disruption can redefine past and present, encoding the aftermath to
evoke what has been lost.
In summary, it
seems that memories which incorporate causality, location, and disruption each
imply their own temporal sequence in different ways, and these implications accommodate
the remembering of timelines and storylines. By enabling our minds to remember
whole sequences with less effort and greater efficiency, these cognitive accommodations
may help explain why plot, setting, and conflict (respectively) increase narrative
coherence.
Supplemental Handout:
Review of Cognitive Psychology on “Constructive Remembering” [1]
In
researching “Memory for the Time of Past Events,” William Friedman (1993)
determined that successful attempts to remember “when” a personal memory
belonged—either with respect to some known event, or else with respect to a
recognized pattern of time—require only that recalled information must include
some contextual detail that conveys temporal implications. That is, recalling memories
which contain temporal information enables us to reconstruct a larger event
sequence through the active process of working memory, so long as mnemonic
content “connects” in some way with a specific point in time, or a known
sequence in one’s personal history. For example, recalling where you were on
9/11, or which presidential candidate you first supported, or the first holiday
after a loved one’s death; these kinds of details can help you piece together
the historical timing of remembered events. In such cases, the mnemonic content
itself indicates whether that content belongs before, during, or after some
other remembered event or known time pattern. In other words, “temporal
content” implies its own sequence.
The reconstructive aspects of Friedman’s
model are functionally aligned with current studies of Reconstructive Memory
(or, “constructive remembering”), which began F. C. Bartlett’s Remembering
(1932). Narratologists will know Bartlett for his foundational contributions to
schema theory but they may not know that Bartlett deliberately gave his
subjects confusing and unfamiliar material in order to maximize opportunities
for observing schematization (64-5), and that decision produced a few
surprising results. Unexpectedly, Bartlett found that his subjects remembered
details of the target story “constructively” and that subsequent recollections
(for months and years afterward) became increasingly “more connected and
coherent” when compared with a subject’s earliest retelling; Bartlett’s
subjects also demonstrated substantial instances of (in his terms) invention,
condensation, abbreviation, simplification, confusion, rationalization, and
other types of “unrealized distortion” (63-94). Because schema theory could
explain only some contents of these observed memory distortions, and not the
overall process, Bartlett’s experiment raised new questions about the nature of
remembering itself.
Early reception of Bartlett’s study was
heavily critical, with psychologists failing to replicate his results and challenging
his methodology.[2]
Fortunately, Ulrich Neisser’s Cognitive Psychology (1967) revitalized
the concept of constructive memory, comparing reassembled memories to
reconstructed fossils and arguing that “stored fragments are used as
information to support a new construction” (272).[3] Daniel Schacter (1996)
sums up Neisser’s view by saying, “only bits and pieces of incoming data are
stored in memory. These retained fragments of experience in turn provide a
basis for reconstructing a past event” (40). Neisser’s functional claims about
the fragmentary nature of recall are confirmed easily enough by common
experience of general mnemonic limitations: that recognition is easier than
recall, that memories are strengthened by repetition and recency, that
memorization typically requires study and rehearsal, and that such learning
tends to fade unless periodically reinforced. These basic strengths and
weaknesses of memory have been repeatedly affirmed by psychological research
(e.g., Kahana, 2012). Further, the claim that memory is reconstructive is now
widely affirmed as well (see, e.g., Wagoner 2017b), with even prominent critics
of Bartlett like Alan Baddeley affirming that “the reconstructive view” is
“associated with normal remembering.”[4]
Neisser’s functional distinction between
simple recall (the retrieval of semantic information and episodic fragments) on
the one hand, and constructive remembering (reassembling a whole from whatever
bits and pieces are recalled) on the other, can also facilitate discussion of Friedman’s
research about temporal content, considering that details of memory which imply
temporality are details which arise during “recall,” and the use of that
information in reconstruction thereby rounds out the process of “remembering.” In
reality, it may be that these distinct tasks often occur simultaneously or
interactively, but for mastering the basic concept it can help to think (as I
do in my presentation) of “recall” and “reconstruction” as separate stages of a
two step process.
What remains in contention in current
psychological research is the extent to which “normal” constructive remembering
necessarily results in distortions; on the one hand, extensive research by
Daniel Schacter and his associates has demonstrated undeniably that mnemonic
distortion is typical, significant, and not infrequently severe.[5] On the other hand,
researchers like James Ost & Alan Costall (2002) and Brady Wagoner (2017a,
2017b) have emphasized cases in which mnemonic accuracy does occur, such as the
“prodigiously retentive capacity” of Swazi cattle herders for the details of
their business, and that particular facets of collaboration can often improve
accuracy in remembering.[6] In addition, Wagoner
(2017a: 10) points out that construction “does not occur out of nothing” and
that “innovation in the present” requires “flexibly engaging with the past.”
Even Bartlett himself, in responding to critics, said, “I did not imply that
literal retrieval is impossible, but I did imply that it requires special
constricting conditions.”[7] Bartlett (93) also
confessed, “Detail is outstanding when it fits in with a subject’s pre-formed
interests and tendencies” although “it tends to take a progressively earlier
place in successive reproductions.”
In a balanced critique of Schacter,
Wagoner (2017a: 203-4) suggests that emphasis on distortions and errata is “not
in itself wrong but simply one-sided” and “limits the possibilities for
exploring the reasons and nature of change in remembering,” adding,
“remembering serves many other functions than creating accurate representations
of the past.”[8]
Bartlett (16) suggested that literal recall might have been evolutionarily
“detrimental” when survival depended on “a continuous play of adaptation
between changing response and varying environment.” In other words, we need our
memories to be useful.[9] We might underscore this
point with an even more basic point, that in order to prove useful, information
must be remembered. Thus, in the practical sense, distorted memory is
far better than no memory at all. As Bartlett (93-94) concluded, “the reduction
of material to a form that can be readily and ‘satisfyingly’ dealt with” is
essential because it provides some kind of “specific ground, frame, or setting,
without which it will not be persistently remembered” (emphasis mine). Constructive
distortions enable us to remember something rather than nothing, and researchers
should study these actual phenomena.[10]
Without question, we must embrace the fact
that literal accuracy appears by far the exception rather than the rule, but in
my view we must also realize that “distortion” describes a wide variety of
aberrations and alterations, ranging from simple abbreviation and summary to
confabulation and outright falsification.[11] Strictly speaking, the
concept of an “accurate synopsis” is oxymoronic and yet the practice of
providing one another with “accurate” synopses remains an essential requirement
of personal and professional communication, allowing for legal testimony,
medical status updates, personal accident reports, news articles, plot
summaries, and even basic directions. Human memory distorts the true past in all
of these cases, but many of these distortions do not significantly inhibit
critical thinkers from discerning details and aspects of truth in a given recollection
(or extemporaneous narration).[12] In fact, some recalled
details can be extremely informative, even without a fully reconstructed
context, as the following case illustrates profoundly. When professor of
psychology Christine Blasey Ford was called before the U.S. Senate in 2018, she
testified that certain details of her assault (some thirty years prior)
remained “indelible in the hippocampus” while “other details kind of drift.”[13] As reported, Ford’s
memory appears to evidence both fragmentation (bits and pieces) and distortion
(the special prominence of “laughter” is effectively caricature), and yet rational
observers widely declared that her testimony rang strongly of truth rather than
falsehood.[14]
It is within this understanding of memory,
with a balanced appreciation of both its limitations and strengths, that I have
conducted the research which I present March 3 (5:30-6:45p), on “Causality,
Location, and Disruption as Accommodations for Remembering Sequence.”
Notes
[1] Although
psychological discourse uses these two words together on occasion, the more
common categorical labels are “reconstructive memory” (e.g., Baddeley, Eysenck,
& Anderson 2009), or “constructive memory” (e.g., McClelland 1995). For my
purposes, I hope that “constructive” will evoke similar concepts already
familiar to scholars in the humanities, especially scholars for whom “reconstruction”
tends to imply critical judgment without autonomous creativity (whereas mnemonic
reconstruction may employ both). I also prefer “remembering” as a verb because
it centers the key notion that memory is a dynamic process.
[2]
Helpful surveys of the psychological literature and research history appear in
Waggoner (2017a, 66-73), Ost & Costall (2002), and Schacter (1995, 8-9). In
defense of Bartlett’s method with regard to “the non-ergodic character of
psychological phenomena,” see Jaan Valsiner’s Foreword in Wagoner (2017a).
[3]
Neisser (1967) also applies the paleontologist analogy to visual perception
(90, 92) and recognition (107, 109).
[4]
Baddeley, Eysenck, & Anderson (2009, 153; cf. 95, 180-1).
[5]
The classic study is Schacter (1995); see also Schacter, Addis, and Buckley
(2007) and Schacter (2011).
[6]
See Ost & Costall (2002): 248ff and Wagoner (2017a, 72-5).
[7]
Unpublished paper, cited by Ost & Costall (2002, 243) and Wagoner (2017a,
72). See also Bartlett (1932, 93-4).
[8] For
a promising (albeit indirect and partial) response, see Thakral, Barberio, Devitt,
& Schacter (2022).
[9]
Bartlett (294-296) discusses Maurice Halbwachs (1925), who pointed out that acts
of remembering are influenced by present situations; cf. Wagoner (2017a, 118-9).
For more on Halbwachs’s project, see LeDonne (2008, 41-50).
[10] That
is, as opposed to lamenting unrealized ideals; see Wagoner (2017a, 75-77); see
also LeDonne (2008, 50-64).
[11]
See, e.g., Schudson (1995), Moscovitch (1995), and Bartlett (1932, 63-94).
[12] I
would here cite historical theorists on methodology, but those references would
require an additional paper.
[13]
“’Indelible in the Hippocampus is the Laughter.’ The Science Behind Christine
Blasey Ford’s Testimony,” Time, September 27, 2018.
[14] I
myself remember a moment when Ford’s assigned questioner honed in on a precise
date for the alleged incident, which prompted a certain South Carolinian to throw
a tantrum, after which the questioner had gone.
References
Baddeley, Alan, Michael W. Eysenck, & Michael C. Anderson. 2009. Memory. East Sussex: Psychology Press.
Bartlett, F. C. 1932. Remembering. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Friedman, William J. 1993. Memory for the Time of Past Events. Psychological Bulletin 113(1), 44–66.
Halbwachs, Maurice. 1925. On Collective Memory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Kahana, Michael. 2012. Foundations of Human Memory. Oxford: Oxford, University Press.
LeDonne, Anthony. 2008. The Historiographical Jesus. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press.
McClelland, James L. 1995. Constructive Memory and Memory Distortion: A Parallel-Distributed Processing Approach. In Memory Distortion: How Minds, Brains, and Societies Reconstruct the Past, ed. Daniel L. Schacter, 69-90. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
Moscovitch, Morris. 1995. Confabulation. In Memory Distortion: How Minds, Brains, and Societies Reconstruct the Past, ed. Daniel L. Schacter, 226-51. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
Neisser, Ulrich. 1967. Cognitive Psychology. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.
Ost, James & Costall, Alan. 2002. Misremembering Bartlett: A Study in Serial Reproduction. British Journal of Psychology, 93, 243-55.
Schacter, Daniel L. 1995. “Memory Distortion: History and Current Status. In Memory Distortion: How Minds, Brains, and Societies Reconstruct the Past, ed. Daniel L. Schacter, 1-46. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
Schacter, Daniel L. 1996. Searching for Memory. New York: Basic Books.
Schacter, Daniel L. & Donna Rose Addis. 2007. The Cognitive Neuroscience of Constructive Memory: Remembering the Past and Imagining the Future. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 362, 773-86.
Schacter, Daniel L., Scott A. Guerin, and Peggy L. St. Jacques. “Memory Distortion: an adaptive perspective.” Trends in Cognitive Science. Cambridge, Massachusetts. October 2011. Vol. 15, No. 10.
Schudson, Michael. 1995. Dynamics of Distortion in Collective Memory. In Memory Distortion: How Minds, Brains, and Societies Reconstruct the Past, ed. Daniel L. Schacter, 346-64. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
Thakral, Preston P., Natasha M. Barberio, Aleea L. Devitt, & Daniel L. Schacter. 2022. Constructive Episodic Retrieval Processes Underlying Memory Distortion Contribute to Creative Thinking and Everyday Problem Solving. Memory & Cognition.
Valsiner, Jaan. 2017. Foreword: Active and Developing Patterns: Remembering into the Future. In Brady Wagoner. The Constructive Mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Wagoner, Brady. 2017a The Constructive Mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Wagoner, Brady. 2017b What Makes Memory Constructive? Culture & Psychology. 23(2),