What is the nature of semantic memory? Philosophers and cognitive scientists have long held that semantic memory stores invariant knowledge structures to be retrieved as such. In this paper, I argue that this conception of semantic memory is likely false. In particular, I argue that if episodic and semantic memory share causal mechanisms, and episodic memory is (re)constructive, then semantic memory is likely constructive too. I review evidence that suggests that episodic and (...) semantic memory are subserved by a domain-general system that supports representing and navigating relations among various kinds of stimuli, including space, time, events, and semantic relations. I then review the supposed hallmark properties of constructivism in episodic memory and show that they appear in semantic memory as well. To increase the inductive support for my proposal, I show how the view predicts some of the evidence others have marshaled in favor of a constructivist semantic memory system. Finally, I close by providing a proof of concept for the view on offer, the semantic pointer architecture. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Truth‐telling has, in diverse contexts, been conceptualised as a vehicle for achieving reconciliation following injustice. As a social and political phenomenon, it involves the communication of narratives grounded in episodic memory. Such narratives may fail to reproduce the details of past events and may even include details that were not present in the original experience. To explore this issue, we examine the conservative backlash against the testimonies of the Stolen Generations in Australia, where perceived inaccuracies in remembering were (...) used to discredit victim‐survivor testimony. We argue that this backlash was based on epistemic and conceptual errors, relying as it did on a mischaracterisation of False Memory Syndrome (FMS) and a narrow view of memory that does not align with the current scientific understanding. We propose that a constructive view of memory is better suited to the task of truth‐telling and reconciliation, and we consider how the epistemic risks associated with this view might be addressed. (shrink)

The incorporation of post-event testimonial information into an agent’s memory representation of the event via constructive memory processes gives rise to the misinformation effect, in which the incorporation of inaccurate testimonial information results in the formation of a false memory belief. While psychological research has focussed primarily on the incorporation of inaccurate information, the incorporation of accurate information raises a particularly interesting epistemological question: do the resulting memory beliefs qualify as knowledge? It is intuitively plausible (...) that they do not, for they appear to be only luckily true. I argue, however, that, despite its intuitive plausibility, this view is mistaken: once we adopt an adequate (modal) conception of epistemic luck and an adequate (adaptive) general approach to memory, it becomes clear that memory beliefs resulting from the incorporation of accurate testimonial information are not in general luckily true. I conclude by sketching some implications of this argument for the psychology of memory, suggesting that the misinformation effect would better be investigated in the context of a broader “information effect”. (shrink)

Memory is studied at a bewildering number of levels, with a vast array of methods, and in a daunting range of disciplines and subdisciplines. Is there any sense in which these various memory theorists – from neurobiologists to narrative psychologists, from the computational to the cross-cultural – are studying the same phenomena? In this exploratory position paper, I sketch the bare outline of a positive framework for understanding current work on constructive remembering, both within the various cognitive (...) sciences, and across gulfs between the cognitive and the social sciences. I pinpoint some lines of psychological theory and research which offer promising and compatible ways of thinking about individual memory and shared or social memory simultaneously. These are obviously ambitious projects, and this paper seeks more to elicit help with forging these connections than to present firm results. The aim is to draw out some consequences of empirical work on social memory and in developmental psychology. (shrink)

Memories of our personal past are the building blocks of our narrative identity. So, when we depend on objects and other people to remember and construct our personal past, our narrative identity is distributed across our embodied brains and an ecology of environmental resources. This paper uses a cognitive niche construction approach to conceptualise how we engineer our memory ecology and construct our distributed narrative identities. It does so by identifying three types of niche construction processes that govern how (...) we interact with our memory ecology, namely creating, editing, and using resources in our memory ecology. It also conceptualises how identity-relevant information in objects and (family) stories is transmitted vertically, i.e., across different generations of people. Identifying these processes allows us to better understand the cultural information trajectories that constitute our memory ecologies. Thus, what I’ll argue is that our memory ecology distributes our narrative identity and that engineering our memory ecology is a form of narrative niche construction. (shrink)

Confabulation is a symptom central to many psychiatric diagnoses and can be severely debilitating to those who exhibit the symptom. Theorists, scientists, and clinicians have an understandable interest in the nature of confabulation—pursuing ways to define, identify, treat, and perhaps even prevent this memory disorder. Appeals to confabulation as a clinical symptom rely on an account of memory’s function from which cases like the above can be contrasted. Accounting for confabulation is thus an important desideratum for any candidate (...) theory of memory. Many contemporary memory theorists now endorse Constructivism, where memory is understood as a capacity for constructing plausible representations of past events (e.g., De Brigard in Synthese 191:155–185, 2014; Michaelian in Philos Psychol 24:323–342, 2012, 2016). Constructivism’s aim is to account for and normalize the prevalence of memory errors in everyday life. Errors are plausible constructions that, on a particular occasion have led to error. They are not, however, evidence of malfunction in the memory system. While Constructivism offers an uplifting repackaging of the memory errors to which we are all susceptible, it has troubling implications for appeals to confabulation in psychiatric diagnosis. By accommodating memory errors within our understanding of memory’s function, Constructivism runs the risk of being unable to explain how confabulation errors are evidence of malfunction. After reviewing the literature on confabulation and Constructivism, respectively, I identify the tension between them and explore how different versions of Constructivism may respond. The paper concludes with a proposal for distinguishing between kinds of false memory—specifically, between misremembering and confabulation—that may provide a route to their reconciliation. (shrink)

There is an emerging consensus that human behavior is governed by two types of processes: System 1 processes, which are quicker, automatic, and run in parallel, and System 2 (S2) processes, which are slower, more conscious, and run in serial. Among such “dual-process” theorists, however, there is disagreement about whether the premises we use in our conscious, S2 reasoning should be considered as beliefs. In this exchange, one facet that has been largely overlooked is how conscious beliefs are structurally and (...) functionally similar to episodic memories. This article will argue that the similarities between beliefs and episodic memories, specifically in light of Daniel Schacter’s widely influential constructive memory framework, highlight a heretofore unexamined empirical weakness of dispositional accounts of S2 beliefs. In addition, this perspective helps situate beliefs within our broader understanding of how information is encoded and retrieved in the brain. (shrink)

Based on a theoretical model of the mood-cognition interface, the prediction is derived and tested empirically that positive mood enhances constructive memory biases. After reading an ambiguous personality description, participants received a positive or negative mood treatment employing different films. Within each mood group, half of the participants were then questioned about the applicability of either desirable or undesirable personality traits to the target person. This questioning treatment was predicted to bias subsequent impression judgements in the evaluative direction (...) of the questioned attributes. As earlier research had shown that such a bias is stronger for negative than positive attributes (presumably because of the higher diagnosticity of negative attributes), a non-trivial test of the sup posed mood effect was possible. Positive mood should enhance constructive effects, but this should be most apparent for negative attributes. The empirical findings lend support to these predictions. Positive mood subjects' impression judgements were biased by the prior questioning even when they did not find the questioned attributes to be particularly applicable to the target person. By contrast, negative mood subjects' judgements were more consistent with their responses to the prior questioning and did not exhibit a constructive bias. (shrink)

The article offers a phenomenological account of constructive memory by combining Bartlett’s theory of remembering with Schutz’s theory of relevance and Husserl’s thoughts on misremembering. It demonstrates that the phenomenological approach to the structure of consciousness significantly illuminates Bartlett’s theory. According to Bartlett, memories are constructed from schemas of past experiences, but his account remains somewhat unclear as to the role that interests and attitudes play in the process. Conversely, drawing on Husserl, Schutz provides detailed insight into how (...) our motives and corresponding attitudes structure the establishment, organisation, and activation of schemas in perception. We argue that remembering and memory errors resulting from the constructive nature of memory are shaped by the thematic, interpretative, and motivational relevance of past experiences. More specifically: (1) memories are constructed by means of attentional shifts within their temporal and thematic horizons, and the fusion of different but related horizonal content; (2) this is an associative process governed by motivations and the social context at the time of recall. False memories are constructed from true memories, where the structure of this composition depends on the motivational context in which memories are generated. (shrink)

Memory perspectives on past events allegedly take one of two shapes. In field memories, we recall episodes from a first-person point of view, while in observer memories, we look at a past scene from a third-person perspective. But this mere visuospatial dichotomy faces several practical and conceptual challenges. First, this binary distinction is not exhaustive. Second, this characterization insufficiently accounts for the phenomenology of observer memories. Third, the focus on the visual aspect of memory perspective neglects emotional, agential, (...) and self-related social aspects. Fourth, the focus on the time of recall neglects the fact that visual, emotional, agential, and social aspects of perspective can also be dissociated in the original experience. In this chapter, we move away from the standard visual dichotomy. Instead, we propose that memory perspective is better understood along four lines: visual, agential, emotional, and social. Drawing on empirical research, we argue that these dimensions predict a disposition to recall a past event based on the present situation of the memorizer. This account supports seeing episodic memory as a natural kind, supported by scenario construction mechanisms and minimal memory traces. By remapping the classic distinction between field and observer perspectives along four dimensions, our proposal provides explanatory advantages and secures practical gains by enabling testable hypotheses. (shrink)

Episodic memories can no longer be seen as the re-activation of stored experiences but are the product of an intense construction process based on a memory trace. Episodic recall is a result of a process of scenario construction. If one accepts this generative framework of episodic memory, there is still a be big gap in understanding the role of the narrative self in shaping scenario construction. Some philosophers are in principle sceptic by claiming that a narrative self cannot (...) be more than a causally inefficacious attributed entity anyway. Thus, we first characterize a narrative self in detail and second we clarify its influential causal role in shaping our episodic memories by influencing the process of scenario construction. This happens at three stages, namely at the level of the input, the output and the process of scenario construction. (shrink)

This text, the first of a planned series, sets out a general theory of psychotherapy and therapeutic change. It borrows from developmental, cognitive and social psychology, and mingles theories of human development, conversation, memory and construction theories of the self.

This paper responds to Hirai’s attempt to provide a simulationist interpretation of Bergson’s theory of memory (BTM). Hirai argues that BTM and the simulation theory of memory (STM) give converging answers to two key questions—regarding the constructive character of remembering and the continuity of memory and imagination—and that, while they do not agree with respect to a third question—regarding the necessity of a certain sort of causation for remembering—they also do not disagree with respect to it. (...) The paper argues that, while Hirai is right to suggest that BTM and STM agree with respect to construction, he is wrong to suggest that they do not disagree with respect to causation, and he is likewise wrong to suggest that they agree with respect to continuity. It therefore concludes that a properly simulationist interpretation of BTM is unlikely to be viable. (shrink)

This paper explores the implications of the psychology of constructive memory for philosophical theories of the metaphysics of memory and for a central question in the epistemology of memory. I first develop a general interpretation of the psychology of constructive memory. I then argue, on the basis of this interpretation, for an updated version of Martin and Deutscher's influential causal theory of memory. I conclude by sketching the implications of this updated theory for (...) the question of memory 's status as a generative epistemic source. (shrink)

Observer memories involve a representation of the self in the memory image, which is presented from a detached or external point of view. That such an image is an obvious departure from how one initially experienced the event seems relatively straightforward. However, in my book on this type of imagery, I suggested that such memories can in fact, at least in some cases, accurately represent one’s past experience of an event. During these past events there is a sense in (...) which we adopt an external perspective on ourselves. In the present paper, I respond to a critical notice of my book by Marina Trakas. Trakas argues that my account of observer memory unfolded against the background of a problematic preservationist account of episodic memory, and that I failed to adequately account for the presence of self in observer memory. I respond these worries here, and I try to clarify key points that were underdeveloped in the book. (shrink)

Theories of autobiographical memory emphasise effortful, generative search processes in memory retrieval. However recent research suggests that memories are often retrieved directly, without effortful search. We investigated whether direct and generative retrieval differed in the characteristics of memories recalled, or only in terms of retrieval latency. Participants recalled autobiographical memories in response to cue words. For each memory, they reported whether it was retrieved directly or generatively, rated its visuo-spatial perspective, and judged its accompanying recollective experience. Our (...) results indicated that direct retrieval was commonly reported and was faster than generative retrieval, replicating recent findings. The characteristics of directly retrieved memories differed from generatively retrieved memories: directly retrieved memories had higher field perspective ratings and lower observer perspective ratings. However, retrieval mode did not influence recollective experience. We discuss our findings in terms of cue generation and content construction, and the implication for reconstructive models of autobiographical memory. (shrink)

The article proposes a kind of imaginary chess match in seven moves between memory and oblivion in which the construction of collective identity is at stake. Starting from the experience of unexpected changes, such as the collapse of political regimes, it aims to show how the failure to nourish established memory provokes oblivion. Memory and forgetting do not represent neutral territories, but actual battlefields in which identity – especially collective identity – is decided, molded, and legitimized. Moreover, (...) every victorious power or faith has always organized a kind of “vertical forgetting” in the sense of superimposing itself literally on old beliefs in the places where these traditionally held their celebrations. However, the defense of memory’s preciseness also has an ethical dimension, that of protecting a more conscious – and therefore, freer – identity. The final move of this game consists in understanding the conflicting complicity of the logic of forgetting and the logic of remembering. Together, they operate according to the formula of “neither with you nor without you.” And despite their mutual bitterness, forgetting is just as indispensable to memory as memory is to forgetting. (shrink)

The article attempts to account for some conversational strategies for the thematic construction of discourse in a 30,000 word corpus of contemporary oral French. The sub-genre studied is that of the ‘memory-activation interview’, a speech situation, or ‘activity-type’ in which dialogues and meaning are co-constructed with the purpose of reviving memories. The general analytical framework is that of ‘interactional sociolinguistics’ as defined by Schiffrin, in which the more specific aspects of ratification, legitimization and modes of contribution are redefined and (...) diversified. Also central in the memory-activation process is the interviewer%'s role which, although not of a therapeutical nature is shown as being fully involved both at macro- and micro- levels. The article also tries to widen the range of the currently available tools for the analysis of speech seen as a thematic–rhematic process through the alternation of speech turns. The notion of thematic-discursive perimeter is introduced to account for thematic consistency. (shrink)

Historical memory is considered in this article as one of the most important pillars of national identity. In addition to identifying some of the characteristic features of national, historical memory, the author shows that historical memory is influenced by two factors—the direct experience of the witnesses and participants of past events and official propaganda. As the direct witnesses of events disappear, the possibility of reconstructing and distorting historical memory increases. The ideas put forth in this article (...) are formulated based on the historical memory of World War II in the United States, Russia, Germany, and other European countries. (shrink)

Various kinds of observations show that the ability of human beings to both consciously relive past events – episodic memory – and conceive future events, entails an active process of construction. This construction process also underpins many other important aspects of conscious human life, such as perceptions, language and conscious thinking. This article provides an explanation of what makes the constructive process possible and how it works. The process mainly relies on attentional activity, which has a discrete and (...) periodic nature, and working memory, which allows for the combination of discrete attentional operations. An explanation is also provided of how past and future events are constructed. (shrink)

Collective memory is neither spontaneous nor random, but the result of a series of selective practices. It establishes group identity and sets power relations between groups. The author considers the process of selection through a case study of the transformation of Franco’s regime in Spain into a democracy. Collective memory of the time is shown to be organized around an event (the Munich Coalition or contubernio) and around the democratic transition. The author traces two opposing notions, negationist (denying (...) any importance to Munich) and the pro-democratic, and concludes that the memory of the transition is only the memory of those who won the civil war, who were also those who engineered the transition itself. (shrink)

Those in the openness movement believe that access to information is inherently democratic, and assume the effects of openness will all be good from the movement’s perspective. But means are not ends, nothing is inevitable, and just what will be done with openly available information once achieved is rarely specified. One implicit goal of the openness movement is to create and sustain politically useful memory in situations in which official memory may not suffice, but to achieve this, openness (...) is not enough. With the transition from a panopticon to a panspectron environment, the production of open information not only provides support for communities but also contributes to surveillance. Proprietary ownership of information is being challenged, but there is erosion of ownership in the sense of being confident in what is known. Some tactics currently in use need to be re–evaluated to determine their actual effects under current circumstances. Successfully achieving tactical memory in the 21st century also requires experimentation with new types of tactics, including those of technological discretion and of scale as a medium. At the most abstract level, the key political battle of the 21st century may not be between particular political parties or ideologies but, rather, the war between mathematics and narrative creativity. (shrink)

In connection with the contemporary debates in political philosophy between liberal, republican and proceduralist–deliberative views of democratic politics, I deal with the question of how the different concepts in these debates can be related to the particular national history, memories and expectations of a polity. I shall concentrate on one German example of the relationship between constitutionalism and democracy, in order to show that political philosophy must pay more attention to the different shared practices and understandings within each liberal society.

In connection with the contemporary debates in political philosophy between liberal, republican and proceduralist–deliberative views of democratic politics, I deal with the question of how the different concepts in these debates can be related to the particular national history, memories and expectations of a polity. I shall concentrate on one German example of the relationship between constitutionalism and democracy, in order to show that political philosophy must pay more attention to the different shared practices and understandings within each liberal society.

This article discusses pilot data for a major research project into the discursive construction of identity in three-generation families living in border communities where each generation has experienced fundamental changes in their socio-political environment. The oral data on which the analysis is based were triggered by photographs from the communities in question, and are being analysed with discourse-analytical procedures. The article demonstrates how an innovative method of using symbolically-charged photography as triggers for oral narratives can solve a major dilemma for (...) discourse analysts interested in oral data. It also demonstrates the processes of identity construction under highly conflictual circumstances. Using examples mainly taken from the narratives of three individuals from three different generations, living in a town on the border between the former GDR and West Germany, the article discusses the discursive means of coming to terms with different kinds of difficulties encountered by each generation in constructing for themselves an identity in the new Germany. (shrink)

Temporal disorientation in episodic memory includes recalling episodes we struggle to posit in time. In this paper, we theorize how this disorientation arises by arguing for a constrained functional analogy between mental time travel and spatial navigation. We characterize temporal orientation as coordination between egocentric anchors and temporal structure (order, interval, and calendrical constraints); and, consequently, temporal disorientation as the breakdown of this coordination. Drawing on constructive accounts of episodic memory - and more specifically, the Scenario Construction (...) Framework - we identify two distinct experiences of temporal disorientation. First, when attempting to situate a memory in time, we may become uncertain whether an event actually occurred. Second, we may struggle to construct the temporal sequence of events within remembered content. We propose that navigation in mental time and the feeling of temporal disorientation scaffold episodic construction. Our framework opens new paths for investigating the role of mental navigation in episodic memory construction. (shrink)

Psychologists have often been criticized for their reluctance to engage with history, so it is interesting to find that historical accounts play an important role in the recovered memory/false memory syndrome debate. Using techniques of rhetorical and discursive analysis, we examined accounts of the historical origins of repression and of battlefield trauma in popular texts. The flexible and selective nature of these accounts was highlighted, and was discussed in terms of the rhetorical practice of ontological gerrymandering. Also, the (...) employment of discursive practices similar to Gilbert and Mulkay's (1984) `empiricist' and `contingent' repertoires was noted. We also comment upon how different understandings of the nature of history (as linear, cyclical, or geographical) were rhetorically employed by participants, and suggest that historical contexts are constructed for rhetorical effect. (shrink)

The idea that episodic memory is memory of particulars is prominent in philosophy. The particularity of remembering, as I will call it, has been taken for granted in most recent theorizing on the subject. This is because the classical causal theory of memory, which has been extremely influential in philosophy, is said to provide a straightforward account of particularity. But the causal theory has been criticized recently, in particular due to its inability to make sense of the (...) constructive character of remembering. In this paper, I argue that recent attempts to account for the constructive character of remembering have failed to account for its particularity. This is either because they depart in important senses from the classical causal theory’s account of mnemonic causation or because they give up on mnemonic causation altogether. I then proceed to consider the question of whether we should go back to the classical causal theory of memory to account for particularity. I argue that, despite the widespread idea that the classical causal theory offers a straightforward account of particularity, there are good reasons to reject it. The upshot is that philosophers of memory should consider alternative accounts of particularity that do not revolve around mnemonic causation. (shrink)

Gaston Bachelard's philosophical exploration challenges conventional assumptions regarding the relationship between time and memory. Departing from the common perception of time as a passive container for memories, Bachelard introduces an idea of the past that is predicated on a relational understanding of time. This paper will begin by contrasting Bachelard's relational view of time with Henri Bergson's substantivalist stance. Bachelard's metaphysical position on time provides the conceptual groundwork for his challenging of the fixity of past temporal experiences, and his (...) redefining of duration as a rational construct. Finally, this paper will explore Bachelard’s concept of rhythmanalysis, or the process by which the individual is able to make sense of the different rhythms or frequencies of time. Bachelard does not define the past as a fixed temporal series of memories. Rather, memories and the past are fluid and continually open to interpretation by the individual. The relationship between time and memory, for Bachelard, is subsequently predicated on a constructive process which is characterized by the ability of the individual to reframe or reinterpret that process. (shrink)

Half a century after Halbwachs laid the foundations of a sociology of memory, a new edition of his work Les cadres sociaux de la mémoire has allowed scholars both to understand it more fully and to appreciate its limitations. This article attempts to elucidate the problem of collective memory, distinguishing different forms of memory in the state and civil society. In this dialectic between state and society, collective memory is constructed. This is the main hypothesis of (...) the article. The author uses Fromm’s classic work on Mexican peasants as well as Borges’s Funes the Memorious. Both texts – one socio-psychoanalytic, the other literary – illustrate forms of social memory, its achievements and its limitations. (shrink)

In this article, we present the contemporary conceptualization of metamemory as beliefs, accurate and naive, about memory. We discuss the implications of metamemory for memory construction in general and for suggestibility and the recovery of memories in particular. We argue that beliefs about memory influence the probability that suggestions will be incorporated into memory and judgements about the veracity of subsequent recollections. Implications for research on the role of beliefs in suggestibility and memory recovery are (...) outlined. (shrink)

We challenge the idea that a cognitive perspective on therapeutic change concerns only memory processes. We argue that inclusion of impairments in more generative cognitive processes is necessary for complete understanding of cases such as depression. In such cases what is identified in the target article as an “integrative memory structure” is crucially supported by processes of mental model construction.

This article investigates the online information practices of persons grieving and mourning via Facebook. It examines how, or whether, these practices and Facebook’s terms of use policies have implications for the bereaved and/or the memory of the deceased. To explore these questions, we compared traditional publicly recorded asynchronous modes of grieving (i.e., obituaries) with Facebook’s asynchronous features (i.e., pages, photos, messages, profiles, comments). Additionally, by applying observational techniques to Facebook memorial pages and Facebook profiles, conducting a survey, and interviewing (...) respondents as a follow-up to the survey, we examined the benefits of and issues surrounding online information sharing via Facebook when coping with the loss of another. We found that the immediacy of publishing comments, messages, wall posts, and photos provides Facebook mourners with a quick outlet for their emotions and a means of timely group support; however, these actions directly affect the online curation of the deceased’s self and memory and also create an environment of competition among mourners. The aforementioned benefits and complications of using Facebook during bereavement are shaped by the policies outlined by the social media platform. (shrink)

Memory is currently an important concern for our societies, as well as for the social and human sciences. This article discusses aspects of memory and history. Never have memory’s tools been more powerful or more efficient, yet never has the relationship between history and memory seemed more uncertain. History has lost its monopoly over the production and conservation of memory; memory has developed independently and is inspiring new partners, for example in science and literature.

"The analogy between memory and a repository, and between remembering and retaining, is obvious and is to be found in all languages; it being natural to express the operations of the mind by images taken from things material. But in philosophy we ought to draw aside the veil of imagery, and to view them naked.".