Current Issues in Memory is a series of edited books that reflect the state-of-the-art areas of current and emerging interest in the psychological study of Memory. For the first time, this book offers a comprehensive new collection which gathers together some of the most influential chapters from the series into one essential volume. Featuring 17 chapters by many of the leading researchers in the field, the volume seeks to illustrate how memory research may be informative to the general public—either because it speaks to questions of personal or societal importance or because it changes traditional ways of thinking within society. Topics range from working memory to false fabrication and autobiographical forgetting, showcasing the breadth of memory research in the public sphere. With an introduction and conclusion by Professor Jan Rummel, this is the ideal companion for any student or practitioner looking for an insightful overview of the most researched topics in the field.

Our memories shape how we think about the past, how we plan for the future, and how we think about ourselves. Yet our memories are also constantly being reinvented: we often remember our experiences differently from how they truly happened, and can even remember experiences that never happened at all. ? False and Distorted Memories provides an overview of recent and ongoing developments in the science of false memory. World-leading researchers unpick questions about flawed recollections, discussing issues as varied as the reliability of highly emotional memories, why we sometimes begin to remember fictional experiences that we have deliberately fabricated, and what happens when we stop believing our memories. Each chapter demonstrates how memory science has furthered our understanding of these important questions, by exploring theoretical ideas and psychological research methods that underpin their investigations. ? Edited by Robert Nash and James Ost, this volume offers an international and up-to-date perspective on false and distorted memories. The volume also draws attention to the broad range of real-life contexts in which such distortions might arise and their potential consequences. False and Distorted Memories illustrates the ease with which memory can be contaminated and the power of the resulting memory errors, providing an integral text for researchers and students interested in the psychology of memory.

Current demographical patterns predict an aging worldwide population. It is projected that by 2050, more than 20% of the US population and 40% of the Japanese population will be older than 65. A dramatic increase in research on memory and aging has emerged to understand the age-related changes in memory since the ability to learn new information and retrieve previously learned information is essential for successful aging, and allows older adults to adapt to changes in their environment, self-concept, and social roles. This volume represents the latest psychological research on different aspects of age-related changes in memory. Written by a group of leading international researchers, its chapters cover a broad array of issues concerning the changes that occur in memory as people grow older, including the mechanisms and processes underlying these age-related memory changes, how these changes interact with social and cultural environments, and potential programs intended to increase memory performance in old age. Similarly, the chapters draw upon diverse methodological approaches, including cross-cultural extreme group experimental designs, longitudinal designs assessing intra-participant change, and computational approaches and neuroimaging assessment. Together, they provide converging evidence for stability and change in memory as people grow older, for the underlying causes of these patterns, as well as for the heterogeneity in older adults’ performance. Memory and Aging is essential reading for researchers in memory, cognitive aging, and gerontology.

The past decade has witnessed a dramatic increase of interest in the practical applications of memory research: large numbers of psychologists who study memory are now interested in applying their work to the real world. Aspects of Memory brings together contributions by a team of internationally recognised experts, and reflects the major advances made in the past few years. Covering specific areas such as eyewitnessing and face recognitions, the problems of ageing and memory, memory improvement, prospective memory, and autobiographical memory, the bookd provides and excellent up-t-date review of current approaches to applied memory research. Contributors include: M. Gruneberg, P.E. Morris, A.E. Fruzzette, K. Toland, S.A. Teller, E. Loftus, H.D. Ellis, J.W. Shepherd, A. Mayes, D.M. Burke, D.J. Hermann, M. Palmisano, and J.A. Robinson

The strengths and weaknesses of human memory have fascinated people for hundreds of years, so it is not surprising that memory research has remained one of the most flourishing areas in science. During the last decade, however, a genuine science of memory has emerged, resulting in research and theories that are rich, complex, and far reaching in their implications. Endel Tulving and Fergus Craik, both leaders in memory research, have created this highly accessible guide to their field. In each chapter, eminent researchers provide insights into their particular areas of expertise in memory research. Together, the chapters in this handbook lay out the theories and presents the evidence on which they are based, highlights the important new discoveries, and defines their consequences for professionals and students in psychology, neuroscience, clinical medicine, law, and engineering.

Memory studies has become a rapidly growing area of scholarly as well as public interest. This volume brings together world experts to explore the current critical trends in this new academic field. It embraces work on diverse but interconnected phenomena, such as twenty-first century museums, shocking memorials in present-day Rwanda and the firsthand testimony of the victims of genocidal conflicts. The collection engages with pressing ‘real world’ issues, such as the furor around the recent 9/11 memorial, and what we really mean when we talk about ‘trauma’.

This book is grounded in psychosocial research that explores the complex intergenerational transmission of memories within families and the transgenerational social issues that form a part of those memories. The author demonstrates that the organising framework of moving back and forth between inter- and transgenerational processes is key to mapping those relationships leading to the ideas of generational companionship, a multigenerational self and intergenerational mentalisation. Drawing on sociological and psychoanalytic approaches, it provides a framework for thinking about continuity and discontinuity in the lives of individuals and in the longer sweep of the generations. The role and potential for a psychosocial approach in deep-level problem solving is addressed through chapters on psychotherapy and on psychosocial interventions. Social imagination in personal and social healing is a core theme, as is the study of the relationship between creative and destructive forces that play out in human life. The book will be an invaluable resource for students and scholars of psychosocial research and psychotherapy as well as in memory studies, history, genealogy and social theory.

Picture your 21st birthday. Did you have a party? If so, do you remember who was there? How clear are these memories? Should we trust them? Such questions have fascinated scientists for hundreds of years, and, as Alison Winter shows in this book, the answers have changed dramatically in just the past century.

These two volumes will form the largest single collection of current research in applied memory studies, one of the principle areas of expanding research in applied cognitive psychology. The books arose from the 2nd International Conference on Aspects of Memory held in Swansea in August 1987 - the first conference was held ten years ago - and contained selected and refereed papers from eminent psychologists working in the field of memory, and actively engaged in applied memory research.

In Social Memory and History, a group of anthropologists, sociologists, social linguists, gerontologists, and historians explore the ways in which memory reconstructs the past and constructs the present. A substantial introduction by the editors outlines the key issues in the understanding of social memory: its nature and process, its personal and political implications, the crisis in memory, and the relationship between social and individual memory. Ten cross-cultural case studies—groups ranging from Kiowa songsters, Burgundian farmers, elderly Phildelaphia whites, Chilean political activists, American immigrants to Israel, and Irish working class women—then explore how social memory transmits culture or contests it at the individual, community, and national levels in both tangible and symbolic spheres.