Memory Distortion: How Minds, Brains, and Societies Reconstruct the Past

Daniel Schacter

ISBN 10: 0674566769 / ISBN 13: 9780674566767

Published by Harvard University Press, 1997

About this Item

1997, 417 pages | gently read copy - covers are clean, with block fading to back cover; no spine creasing; interior is clean and bright, free of name, notes etc | professional booksellers based in the UK | we package with great care and usually dispatch within 24hrs, always within two working days | please request scans or further information on any of our listings, which are all in stock and ready to be dispatched.

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Bibliographic Details

• Title: Memory Distortion: How Minds, Brains, and Societies Reconstruct the Past
• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Publication Date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0674566769
• ISBN 13: 9780674566767
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: Near Fine

About this title

Synopsis

Hypnosis, confabulation, source amnesia, flashbulb memories, repression--these and numerous additional topics are explored in this timely collection of essays by eminent scholars in a range of disciplines. This is the first book on memory distortion to unite contributions from cognitive psychology, psychopathology, psychiatry, neurobiology, sociology, history, and religious studies. It brings the most relevant group 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 distinguished 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 highlights include new empirical findings on memory retrieval by a pioneer in the field, some of the foremost 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 U.S. history, the Nazi Holocaust, and ancient Egypt.

About the Authors

Daniel L. Schacter is William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of Psychology at Harvard University.

Lawrence E. Sullivan is Emeritus Professor of Theology, University of Notre Dame, and former Director of the Center for the Study of World Religions, Harvard University.