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THE OXFORD HANDBOOK OF MEMORY

THE OXFORD HANDBOOK OF MEMORY THE OXFORD HANDBOOK OF MEMORY.
 Edited by E. Tulving and F. Craik.2000. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
 Price £45. Pp. 714. ISBN 0‐19512‐265‐8. The intricacies of human memory have fascinated philosophers and scholars for millennia. It is not surprising that it is so. Memory represents a key psychological process, allowing us to re‐experience events from our past which may have taken place hours, days, months or even many years ago. Memory underlies other key psychological and behavioural processes such as perception, language and movement. And memory is also crucial for our sense of consciousness: without memory we would have no real sense of self or personal identity. Because memory and learning have such a profound influence on other aspects of human existence, the scientific study of memory within experimental psychology (and the related cognitive and brain sciences) has—historically—been inseparable from the scientific study of mental life and behaviour. Moreover, not only has memory fascinated people for centuries, but—in the present day—it is one of the most active and fertile areas of contemporary psychological thought and practice. However, Tulving and Craik note that this is the first handbook of memory that has ever been published, and suggest a possible explanation: they make the point that memory research has perhaps been too successful for its own good. The case is made by Tulving and Craik that, such has been the pace of growth in the field, it has not been possible until the present day for the body of contemporary understanding in the field to be neatly encapsulated in a medium of this kind. Memory is a complex, diverse and heterogeneous entity. How does one begin to try to define its features, characteristics and organizing principles? In this volume, Tulving and Craik define memory as ‘the ability to recollect past events and to bring learned facts and ideas back to mind’. However, Tulving and Craik themselves acknowledge that an adequate definition of memory must necessarily incorporate other aspects of this complex and wide‐ranging phenomenon (or phenomena?), including, for example, both conscious and non‐conscious aspects of memory. In his concluding chapter to this volume, Weiskrantz cites a 1990 definition of memory from Michael Eysenck ‘the demonstration that behaviour has been altered as a consequence of the previous storage of information at some point in time ranging from a few seconds to several decades’. Weiskrantz, however, takes issue with such a definition as being too narrow and restrictive. With respect to the range of topics covered in this volume, Weiskrantz notes that the science of memory is now far richer than such a traditional psychology dictionary definition would imply. He argues that memory lies at the core of our whole mental life, behaviour and sense of personal identity. The raison d’être for this handbook is therefore well justified. The Oxford Handbook of Memory was, according to the editors, compiled to summarize the current state of the science of memory (with the emphasis on science), and it succeeds in this goal. As might be expected from the world renown of the editors, the handbook provides a wide‐ranging and penetrating coverage of the field of memory research. Endel Tulving and Gus Craik are both leading memory scholars and founding fathers of the highly influential ‘Toronto school’ of memory. They are responsible for articulating some of the key concepts in the contemporary memory literature (concepts such as ‘levels of processing’ and ‘encoding specificity’), and need no further introduction to anyone who has even briefly surveyed a memory textbook over the past 30 years. Indeed, over the past several decades in which Craik and Tulving have been highly influential in the field, a genuine science of human memory has begun to emerge. This book provides an insightful overview of the era in which the area has really come of age, first in terms of verbal learning and memory (the era in which Craik and Tulving ‘cut their teeth’ as researchers), more latterly in terms of new technologies such as brain imaging and transcranial stimulation (which have, at least in theory, enabled researchers to view the neural mechanisms of memory in action). In reviewing this volume, it is interesting to reflect on the sea change that has occurred in experimental memory research over the past few years with respect to the particular question of its neural underpinnings. The editors here espouse a pluralistic framework when considering memory and memory‐related phenomena. Nevertheless, they argue for the importance of an understanding of the neural components of different elements of memory (such as acquisition, storage and retrieval). In so doing, Tulving and Craik adopt an overtly cognitive neuroscience—as distinct from a functionalist, ‘black box’ or purely cognitive—perspective on memory. Thus, with respect to (i) the subjective experience of memory, (ii) the behaviours emanating from the experience of memory and (iii) the neural mechanisms of memory, Tulving and Craik state that ‘each level can be understood in its own terms, but any final theory of memory must also show how the different levels of description map onto each other’. This is a contentious issue, and it would not be appropriate here to debate the pros and cons of the particular variant of the cognitive neuroscience perspective adopted by Tulving and Craik. What I merely wish to point out here (and of especial relevance for readers of this journal) is the following: that two eminent researchers who grew up within the traditions of the functional school of memory research (i.e. within the verbal learning tradition, as it would have been referred to then) have—in making a statement such as this—positioned themselves at the start of the 21st century firmly within the cognitive neuroscience school of contemporary work. Indeed, this position is clearly reflected in the contents of this book. Individual chapters of the book are written by distinguished workers in the field of memory research, providing insight into the current state of the art in their spheres of expertise, as well as identifying challenges for the future. Topics included in this volume cover many important areas, for example: the development of memory, memory in the laboratory versus memory in the outside world, memory decline, the organization of memory and theories of memory. Below I outline in a little more detail the organization of the book and some of the topics covered, before briefly summarizing some of the points raised. There are, of course, many ways in which a book of this kind could have been organized, some more arbitrary than others. The book is divided into four main sections entitled ‘Study of memory’, ‘Memory in the laboratory’, ‘Memory in life’ and ‘Organization of memory’. The first section of the book, on the theme of ‘Study of memory’, provides an overview of the history of memory research and its influential concepts and methods. This section sets the scene for the remainder of the book by laying out some basic principles and suppositions within a historical context. Within the second section of the book, entitled ‘Memory in the laboratory’, the chapter authors concern themselves with how memory has been studied within the experimental, scientific tradition (that is, with respect to the verbal learning and cognitive methodologies). This section provides a survey of the major hypotheses, methods, results and conclusions that form the core of the contemporary experimental science of memory. This section of the book includes subsections on ‘Acts of memory’ (including considerations of short‐term memory, encoding and retrieval, transfer and expertise), ‘Contents of memory’ (serial learning, remembering actions and words, and distortions of memory), ‘Reflections in memory’ (memory judgements, source monitoring and metamemory) and ‘Awareness in memory’ (recollection, familiarity and the process dissociation procedure, remembering and knowing, and nonconscious forms of human memory). The second section of the book therefore provides appropriate coverage of both the behavioral and subjective (i.e. conscious reflection, awareness) perspectives on human memory. Within the third section of the book, entitled ‘Memory in life’, the chapters deal with memory in the ‘real world’ (as opposed to the laboratory). There are subsections here on ‘Memory in development’ (memory in infancy and early childhood, socialization of memory, and memory and theory of mind) and ‘Memory in use’ (remembering life experiences, control processes in remembering, long‐term maintenance of knowledge, remembering spaces and memory for emotional events). The next subsection picks up the developmental theme again, with a consideration of ‘Memory in decline’, an area of tremendous current interest given the ‘ageing population’ that is currently occurring in the vast majority of Western countries. This subsection covers memory changes in healthy older adults, memory in the ageing brain, selective memory disorders and memory in the dementias. The fourth and final section of the book is entitled ‘Organization of memory’. It is broken into two further subsections, the first entitled ‘Neural substrates of memory’ and the second entitled ‘Theories of memory’. The first of these two subsections covers current work investigating the relationship of behavioural and subjective aspects of human memory to neural mechanisms: the neuroanatomy of memory, the medial temporal lobe and the hippocampus, brain imaging and memory, event‐related potential studies of memory and psychopharmacological perspectives. The second subsection in this final part of the book seeks to bring together many of the ideas and findings previously presented. It provides chapters on the adaptive nature of memory, memory models, connectionist models of memory, episodic memory and autonoetic awareness, theories of memory and the ‘memory systems of 1999’. Finally, in his epilogue Larry Weiskrantz considers ‘the story of memory, and memory of the story’. As highlighted in this volume, studies in memory research have now placed us in a position where we have a variety of richly worked theoretical frameworks at our disposal. We can use these to seek to understand and explain the complexities of different memory‐related phenomena. In reviewing the rich and extensive world of memory research, Tulving and Craik make the case that ‘accepted facts about memory are remarkably firm’, and argue that the major present‐day uncertainties about memory concern—rather—how to interpret the body of now well‐established findings. An example in point (and an area covered in the book) might be the highly controversial ‘recovered memories’ literature of recent years. Do these ‘recovered memories’ in fact predominantly reflect the re‐emergence of veridical memories for actual events that occurred in one’s autobiographical past (such as incidents of child abuse, to cite some of the most controversial circumstances), or—given the highly reconstructive nature of human memory, reported in the literature since the time of Bartlett in the 1930s—are these, in fact, memory distortions created by top‐down influences and suggestibility? (Of course, the possibility exists that some elements of each of these scenarios may occur both within and across different individuals.) The Oxford Handbook of Memory provides the reader with a sound and thorough grounding in current theoretical memory frameworks and the methodologies and empirical findings on which they are based. Its coverage largely relates to the experimental psychology of memory, and its sibling disciplines: neuropsychology, cognitive neuroscience and developmental psychology. As the editors acknowledge, other lively areas of current and past research, for example, pertaining to the science of animal memory, had perforce to be omitted from this volume. One useful feature of the book for workers in related academic and professional disciplines (such as law and medicine) is that the findings are not presented in a theoretically sterile environment. Rather, having first conveyed the important principles to the reader, several chapter authors then neatly convey the ramifications of the findings and theories for those working in a more applied context. This provides useful information to the applied professional; for example, for the clinician who wishes to learn more about the relevant principles of memory that will enable him/her to convey information to patients in a more memory‐sensitive manner, or to the lawyer or judge who needs to know about the strengths and weaknesses of human memory, and when and where this capacity (or, more correctly, capacities) should and should not be trusted. Of course, with a book of this nature (and having edited works on memory myself), one cannot hope that the finished product will be absolutely up‐to‐date with respect to every single niche in the field, such is the fertility of modern day memory research. For example, while there is coverage in the book of the field of false/distorted memories and recovered memories (very active and controversial areas over the past decade), there is scant coverage of change blindness, which many would consider to be a memory‐related phenomenon. Indeed, more generally, the focus of the book is on long‐term memory phenomena, with relatively less coverage of working memory and related processes. This may reflect the overall focus of the book, which seems to be more North American than European in its theoretical orientation. With respect to its audience, I would suggest that the book would be most useful for advanced undergraduates, beginning graduate students, healthcare professionals such as physicians and other professionals who may have relevant work‐related interests, such as lawyers and social workers. Informed laypeople may well also find sections of the text to be quite accessible and—without doubt—informative. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Brain Oxford University Press

THE OXFORD HANDBOOK OF MEMORY

Foster, Jonathan, K.
Brain , Volume 125 (2) – Feb 1, 2002
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Oxford University Press
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0006-8950
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1460-2156
DOI
10.1093/brain/awf064
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Abstract

THE OXFORD HANDBOOK OF MEMORY.
 Edited by E. Tulving and F. Craik.2000. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
 Price £45. Pp. 714. ISBN 0‐19512‐265‐8. The intricacies of human memory have fascinated philosophers and scholars for millennia. It is not surprising that it is so. Memory represents a key psychological process, allowing us to re‐experience events from our past which may have taken place hours, days, months or even many years ago. Memory underlies other key psychological and behavioural processes such as perception, language and movement. And memory is also crucial for our sense of consciousness: without memory we would have no real sense of self or personal identity. Because memory and learning have such a profound influence on other aspects of human existence, the scientific study of memory within experimental psychology (and the related cognitive and brain sciences) has—historically—been inseparable from the scientific study of mental life and behaviour. Moreover, not only has memory fascinated people for centuries, but—in the present day—it is one of the most active and fertile areas of contemporary psychological thought and practice. However, Tulving and Craik note that this is the first handbook of memory that has ever been published, and suggest a possible explanation: they make the point that memory research has perhaps been too successful for its own good. The case is made by Tulving and Craik that, such has been the pace of growth in the field, it has not been possible until the present day for the body of contemporary understanding in the field to be neatly encapsulated in a medium of this kind. Memory is a complex, diverse and heterogeneous entity. How does one begin to try to define its features, characteristics and organizing principles? In this volume, Tulving and Craik define memory as ‘the ability to recollect past events and to bring learned facts and ideas back to mind’. However, Tulving and Craik themselves acknowledge that an adequate definition of memory must necessarily incorporate other aspects of this complex and wide‐ranging phenomenon (or phenomena?), including, for example, both conscious and non‐conscious aspects of memory. In his concluding chapter to this volume, Weiskrantz cites a 1990 definition of memory from Michael Eysenck ‘the demonstration that behaviour has been altered as a consequence of the previous storage of information at some point in time ranging from a few seconds to several decades’. Weiskrantz, however, takes issue with such a definition as being too narrow and restrictive. With respect to the range of topics covered in this volume, Weiskrantz notes that the science of memory is now far richer than such a traditional psychology dictionary definition would imply. He argues that memory lies at the core of our whole mental life, behaviour and sense of personal identity. The raison d’être for this handbook is therefore well justified. The Oxford Handbook of Memory was, according to the editors, compiled to summarize the current state of the science of memory (with the emphasis on science), and it succeeds in this goal. As might be expected from the world renown of the editors, the handbook provides a wide‐ranging and penetrating coverage of the field of memory research. Endel Tulving and Gus Craik are both leading memory scholars and founding fathers of the highly influential ‘Toronto school’ of memory. They are responsible for articulating some of the key concepts in the contemporary memory literature (concepts such as ‘levels of processing’ and ‘encoding specificity’), and need no further introduction to anyone who has even briefly surveyed a memory textbook over the past 30 years. Indeed, over the past several decades in which Craik and Tulving have been highly influential in the field, a genuine science of human memory has begun to emerge. This book provides an insightful overview of the era in which the area has really come of age, first in terms of verbal learning and memory (the era in which Craik and Tulving ‘cut their teeth’ as researchers), more latterly in terms of new technologies such as brain imaging and transcranial stimulation (which have, at least in theory, enabled researchers to view the neural mechanisms of memory in action). In reviewing this volume, it is interesting to reflect on the sea change that has occurred in experimental memory research over the past few years with respect to the particular question of its neural underpinnings. The editors here espouse a pluralistic framework when considering memory and memory‐related phenomena. Nevertheless, they argue for the importance of an understanding of the neural components of different elements of memory (such as acquisition, storage and retrieval). In so doing, Tulving and Craik adopt an overtly cognitive neuroscience—as distinct from a functionalist, ‘black box’ or purely cognitive—perspective on memory. Thus, with respect to (i) the subjective experience of memory, (ii) the behaviours emanating from the experience of memory and (iii) the neural mechanisms of memory, Tulving and Craik state that ‘each level can be understood in its own terms, but any final theory of memory must also show how the different levels of description map onto each other’. This is a contentious issue, and it would not be appropriate here to debate the pros and cons of the particular variant of the cognitive neuroscience perspective adopted by Tulving and Craik. What I merely wish to point out here (and of especial relevance for readers of this journal) is the following: that two eminent researchers who grew up within the traditions of the functional school of memory research (i.e. within the verbal learning tradition, as it would have been referred to then) have—in making a statement such as this—positioned themselves at the start of the 21st century firmly within the cognitive neuroscience school of contemporary work. Indeed, this position is clearly reflected in the contents of this book. Individual chapters of the book are written by distinguished workers in the field of memory research, providing insight into the current state of the art in their spheres of expertise, as well as identifying challenges for the future. Topics included in this volume cover many important areas, for example: the development of memory, memory in the laboratory versus memory in the outside world, memory decline, the organization of memory and theories of memory. Below I outline in a little more detail the organization of the book and some of the topics covered, before briefly summarizing some of the points raised. There are, of course, many ways in which a book of this kind could have been organized, some more arbitrary than others. The book is divided into four main sections entitled ‘Study of memory’, ‘Memory in the laboratory’, ‘Memory in life’ and ‘Organization of memory’. The first section of the book, on the theme of ‘Study of memory’, provides an overview of the history of memory research and its influential concepts and methods. This section sets the scene for the remainder of the book by laying out some basic principles and suppositions within a historical context. Within the second section of the book, entitled ‘Memory in the laboratory’, the chapter authors concern themselves with how memory has been studied within the experimental, scientific tradition (that is, with respect to the verbal learning and cognitive methodologies). This section provides a survey of the major hypotheses, methods, results and conclusions that form the core of the contemporary experimental science of memory. This section of the book includes subsections on ‘Acts of memory’ (including considerations of short‐term memory, encoding and retrieval, transfer and expertise), ‘Contents of memory’ (serial learning, remembering actions and words, and distortions of memory), ‘Reflections in memory’ (memory judgements, source monitoring and metamemory) and ‘Awareness in memory’ (recollection, familiarity and the process dissociation procedure, remembering and knowing, and nonconscious forms of human memory). The second section of the book therefore provides appropriate coverage of both the behavioral and subjective (i.e. conscious reflection, awareness) perspectives on human memory. Within the third section of the book, entitled ‘Memory in life’, the chapters deal with memory in the ‘real world’ (as opposed to the laboratory). There are subsections here on ‘Memory in development’ (memory in infancy and early childhood, socialization of memory, and memory and theory of mind) and ‘Memory in use’ (remembering life experiences, control processes in remembering, long‐term maintenance of knowledge, remembering spaces and memory for emotional events). The next subsection picks up the developmental theme again, with a consideration of ‘Memory in decline’, an area of tremendous current interest given the ‘ageing population’ that is currently occurring in the vast majority of Western countries. This subsection covers memory changes in healthy older adults, memory in the ageing brain, selective memory disorders and memory in the dementias. The fourth and final section of the book is entitled ‘Organization of memory’. It is broken into two further subsections, the first entitled ‘Neural substrates of memory’ and the second entitled ‘Theories of memory’. The first of these two subsections covers current work investigating the relationship of behavioural and subjective aspects of human memory to neural mechanisms: the neuroanatomy of memory, the medial temporal lobe and the hippocampus, brain imaging and memory, event‐related potential studies of memory and psychopharmacological perspectives. The second subsection in this final part of the book seeks to bring together many of the ideas and findings previously presented. It provides chapters on the adaptive nature of memory, memory models, connectionist models of memory, episodic memory and autonoetic awareness, theories of memory and the ‘memory systems of 1999’. Finally, in his epilogue Larry Weiskrantz considers ‘the story of memory, and memory of the story’. As highlighted in this volume, studies in memory research have now placed us in a position where we have a variety of richly worked theoretical frameworks at our disposal. We can use these to seek to understand and explain the complexities of different memory‐related phenomena. In reviewing the rich and extensive world of memory research, Tulving and Craik make the case that ‘accepted facts about memory are remarkably firm’, and argue that the major present‐day uncertainties about memory concern—rather—how to interpret the body of now well‐established findings. An example in point (and an area covered in the book) might be the highly controversial ‘recovered memories’ literature of recent years. Do these ‘recovered memories’ in fact predominantly reflect the re‐emergence of veridical memories for actual events that occurred in one’s autobiographical past (such as incidents of child abuse, to cite some of the most controversial circumstances), or—given the highly reconstructive nature of human memory, reported in the literature since the time of Bartlett in the 1930s—are these, in fact, memory distortions created by top‐down influences and suggestibility? (Of course, the possibility exists that some elements of each of these scenarios may occur both within and across different individuals.) The Oxford Handbook of Memory provides the reader with a sound and thorough grounding in current theoretical memory frameworks and the methodologies and empirical findings on which they are based. Its coverage largely relates to the experimental psychology of memory, and its sibling disciplines: neuropsychology, cognitive neuroscience and developmental psychology. As the editors acknowledge, other lively areas of current and past research, for example, pertaining to the science of animal memory, had perforce to be omitted from this volume. One useful feature of the book for workers in related academic and professional disciplines (such as law and medicine) is that the findings are not presented in a theoretically sterile environment. Rather, having first conveyed the important principles to the reader, several chapter authors then neatly convey the ramifications of the findings and theories for those working in a more applied context. This provides useful information to the applied professional; for example, for the clinician who wishes to learn more about the relevant principles of memory that will enable him/her to convey information to patients in a more memory‐sensitive manner, or to the lawyer or judge who needs to know about the strengths and weaknesses of human memory, and when and where this capacity (or, more correctly, capacities) should and should not be trusted. Of course, with a book of this nature (and having edited works on memory myself), one cannot hope that the finished product will be absolutely up‐to‐date with respect to every single niche in the field, such is the fertility of modern day memory research. For example, while there is coverage in the book of the field of false/distorted memories and recovered memories (very active and controversial areas over the past decade), there is scant coverage of change blindness, which many would consider to be a memory‐related phenomenon. Indeed, more generally, the focus of the book is on long‐term memory phenomena, with relatively less coverage of working memory and related processes. This may reflect the overall focus of the book, which seems to be more North American than European in its theoretical orientation. With respect to its audience, I would suggest that the book would be most useful for advanced undergraduates, beginning graduate students, healthcare professionals such as physicians and other professionals who may have relevant work‐related interests, such as lawyers and social workers. Informed laypeople may well also find sections of the text to be quite accessible and—without doubt—informative.

Journal

Brain – Oxford University Press

Published: Feb 1, 2002

There are no references for this article.