The elusive search for the truth: A review of Pezdek, K. and Banks, W. P. (1996). The recovered memory/false memory debate.

Reviews the book, The recovered memory/false memory debate by K. Pezdek and W. P. Banks (see record 1996-98519-000). This book presents a series of articles, some of which are sympathetic to the "recovered" memory approach and others to the "false" memory approach. In the preface, the authors write: "We tried to hew a middle course, looking for value in all sides." Many of the articles in the book originally appeared in a special issue of Consciousness & Cognition, Volume 3, 1994, the journal which is edited by William Banks, one of the editors of this volume. A major strength of the book is that all the included articles argue their respective positions based on actual experimental data rather than on philosophical biases. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Memory, consciousness, and the brain: The Tallinn conference; and The Oxford handbook of memory.

Reviews the books, Memory, consciousness, and the brain: The Tallinn conference edited by Endel Tulving (see record 2000-07362-000) and The Oxford handbook of memory edited by Endel Tulving and Fergus M. Craik (see record 2000-00111-000). Memory, consciousness, and the brain (MCB) is an outgrowth of a conference organized by the editor and his wife, and held in Tallinn, the capital of Estonia. The organization of the book, accurately described by the editor as "largely illusory" (p. xv), blocks the 25 topic chapters into sections labeled Memory (11 chapters), Consciousness (7 chapters), and The Brain (7 chapters). The editor's hope is that the book will be useful as an introduction to representative research currently being conducted at the boundaries of memory, consciousness, and the brain. To what extent has this objective been achieved? The book certainly serves up a broad menu of topics. The reader looking for something intriguing in the way of research on memory and consciousness in the brain is likely to find it in this volume. What are MCB's weaknesses? The main sin is something that comes with the territory of all conference volumes: uneveness in quality, readability, and organizations, and uncertainty about the audience to be reached by each of the chapters. Regarding The Oxford handbook of memory (OHM), this book describes the growth of memory research from its nadir in the 1950s to the present, and presents summaries of contemporary scientific knowledge about a variety of memory topics. The focus is human memory (although the discussion of brain-memory relations is sometimes based on research with nonhuman primates) as studied from the perspectives of experimental cognitive psychology, cognitive neuropsychology, neuroscience, developmental psychology, theory and modeling, and the ecology of memory. Within this compass, the editors have attempted to ensure coverage of the current major theories, findings, and methods of memory. In the editors' words, the volume is intended to be "a major reference source for people who want to get started in the field, or who wish to check things outside their own regional area" (p. vii). Not only does the book hit its target, we expect that even specialists will benefit from the coverage of subjects in which they have expertise. For now, the OHM is the gold standard and all memory professionals are in the debt of the editors and authors for its existence. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Imagery, memory and cognition: Essays in honor of Allan Paivio.

Reviews the book, Imagery, memory and cognition: Essays in honor of Allan Paivio edited by John C. Yuille (1983). Future historians of cognitive psychology are likely to declare the 1970s the Decade of Imagery. The re-emergence of imagery as a valid topic of experimental concern was due in large part to the efforts of Allan Paivio. In his 1971 book, Imagery and verbal processes, Paivio provided a theory of symbolic processing that placed imaginal processes on a par with verbal processes. To mark the 10th anniversary of the publication of Paivio's book, a conference was held at the University of Western Ontario in 1981. The 14 chapters in the present volume are based on the presentations that were made at that conference. All of the conference participants had been associated with Paivio at some time in the past, either as students or as colleagues. Hence, the chapters reflect current developments in imagery research and theory primarily from the perspective of dual-code theory. As with any edited volume, the chapters varied greatly in style, emphasis, and, unfortunately, quality. In several cases, the relevant literature was reviewed minimally or not at all; in others, the details of empirical studies were reported in such sparse detail that I had difficulty following the arguments and evaluating the claims. Despite these problems, each chapter had something to offer, as each explicitly or implicitly raised a number of important questions. As such, any serious student of imagery will find much of interest in this book. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mundane remembering.

Reviews the book, Remembering Reconsidered: Ecological and Traditional Approaches to the Study of Memory by Ulric Neisser and Eugene Winograd (see record 1988-98127-000). This volume is the second in a series known as The Emory Symposia in Cognition. The first volume addressed the question of "ecological and intellectual factors in categorization" and this second collection of papers pursues the ecological theme into the challenging realm of memory. As often happens with published symposia, the collection of chapters is greatly enlivened by the integrative commentary of thoughtful critics. In this volume this function is particularly well served with separate contributions by Neisser, Winograd, McCauley, Fivush, and by Rubin. My only regret is that none of them managed to bring order into the chaotic use of the term functional as it appears in various parts of the symposium. These commentaries add to the primary contributions in a way that results in a volume that is thematically more integrated than many such symposium collections. None of the contributions digs deeply into the real issues underlying the relationship between naturalistic and laboratory studies, but most of them demonstrate by way of example that the two approaches can serve complementary roles and a common goal. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Evaluating models of working memory through the effects of concurrent irrelevant information.

Working memory is believed to play a central role in almost all domains of higher cognition, yet the specific mechanisms involved in working memory are still fiercely debated. We describe a neuroimaging experiment with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and a companion behavioral experiment, and in both we seek to adjudicate between alternative theoretical models of working memory on the basis of the effects of interference from articulatory suppression, irrelevant speech, and irrelevant nonspeech. In Experiment 1 we examined fMRI signal changes induced by each type of irrelevant information while subjects performed a probed recall task. Within a principally frontal and left-lateralized network of brain regions, articulatory suppression caused an increase in activity during item presentation, whereas both irrelevant speech and nonspeech caused relative activity reductions during the subsequent delay interval. In Experiment 2, the specific timing of interference was manipulated in a delayed serial recall task. Articulatory suppression was found to be most consequential when it coincided with item presentation, whereas both irrelevant speech and irrelevant nonspeech effects were strongest when limited to the subsequent delay period. Taken together, these experiments provide convergent evidence for a dissociation of articulatory suppression from the 2 irrelevant sound conditions. Implications of these findings are considered for 4 prominent theories of working memory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Retraining memory: Techniques and applications.

Reviews the book, Retraining memory: Techniques and applications by Rick Parenté and Janet K. Anderson-Parenté (1991). This book, by rehabilitation neuropsychologist Rick Parenté and his wife, psychologist Janet Anderson-Parenté, was written as a practical manual of memory improvement strategies and approaches that anyone with difficulty remembering can use. The book was meant to serve a widely divergent audience: It was written to provide practical tips on improving memory and allied processes for cognitive rehabilitation therapists, psychologists, persons with head injury, or family members "anyone who feels that his or her memory is not what it used to be" (p. vii). While the book may not be the complete practical resource for "everyone" that was desired, it represents a valuable contribution to the cognitive rehabilitation literature by blending clinical and research aspects of memory retraining into a practical manual for psychologists and other professionals providing this form of training. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Memory in mind and culture.

Reviews the book, Memory in mind and culture edited by Pascal Boyer and James V. Wertsch (see record 2010-05180-000). This book rides the waves of two recent trends: interdisciplinarity and the effect of mind on culture. First, its psychologist and anthropologist editors deliberately chose an interdisciplinary panel of experts on memory, inviting highly respected psychologists, anthropologists, and historians to review cutting-edge memory research in their area of expertise. For psychologists, the resulting collection not only provides readable reviews of current psychology research in memory but also introduces concepts and issues from other disciplines that may open new avenues for research. Second, the book emphasizes the coconstitution of mind and culture, especially seeking evidence for how our minds structure culture. This unusual perspective is especially well developed in the last chapters of the book (Boyer; Rubin) but shows its influence throughout the book, with some authors exploring new ideas about how basic research on memory processes can connect to the study of culture. In summary, this book provides excellent reviews of up-to-date memory research in psychology—from brain structures to blogs—and also innovatively connects this research to larger questions about human culture. Though the coverage of eminent cognitive psychologists is admirable, I wish the book had included some of the new work by cultural and evolutionary psychologists on the topic. Nevertheless, the book advances the field in important ways, pointing the way to new research and theories. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Recollections of trauma: Scientific evidence and clinical practice.

Reviews the book, Recollections of trauma: Scientific evidence and clinical practice edited by J. Donald Read and D. Stephen Lindsay (1997). This book is a serious and ambitious attempt to bring various forms of professional expertise to bear on the vexed issue of psychotherapeutically recovered versus false memories of childhood sexual abuse and trauma. The volume is the outcome of a NATO Advanced Studies Institute (ASI) that took place over an 11-day period at Les Jardins de l'Atlantique in France. It reflects the input of no fewer than 95 participants, most of them psychologists, with a minority of contributors from other relevant fields such as anthropology and the legal profession. The explicit aim of this collaborative undertaking was to promote productive dialogue among the various stakeholders in the recovered memory debate, especially among researchers and clinicians, whose views on these issues are often highly divergent. The final product bears witness to the successful achievement of this aim. This volume will stand as a definitive reference on the topic of recovered memory for the more serious researchers in this area. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of The Molecular Basis of Memory.

Reviews the book, The Molecular Basis of Memory by E. Gurowitz (1969). Everyone would agree that there is a biochemistry of brain functioning. Not everyone would agree, however, that there is evidence to indicate that the physiological memory trace depends directly upon changes in either DNA, RNA or protein molecules. On the premise that the molecular approach is valid, the first part of this book is concerned with just what molecule is involved. Anyone looking for a summary of work in this area will find it in this book. Anyone looking for a penetrating discussion of the nature of memory and memory mechanisms will have to look elsewhere. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Tulving's memory.

Reviews the book, Elements of Episodic Memory by Endel Tulving (1983). The book is organized into three major sections presenting, in turn, a discussion of the distinction between episodic and semantic memory (Chapters 2-6), an outline of a general framework (Chapters 7-9), and an application of the framework to experiments (Chapters 10-14). In the first major section, Tulving goes to great lengths to clarify the distinction between the two memory systems. Semantic memory is knowledge of the world, including language, and could be called generic or categorical knowledge. Episodic memory, in contrast, is recollection in which the recollector is part of the memory, and is thus personal and autobiographical memory for events occurring in particular places at particular times. In addition to clarifying the distinction, Tulving directly addresses some possible misinterpretations. For example, the episodic and semantic systems are interdependent rather than exclusive, and they share many properties that are properties of memory in general. Additionally, the two systems are not exhaustive, but rather are two facets of an overall memory system that includes, for instance, procedural memory as an important system. Tulving thus presents the episodic and semantic systems as but two interdependent pieces from some as yet unknown picture of the whole memory system. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Clinical management of memory problems.

Reviews the book, Clinical management of memory problems by Barbara A. Wilson and Nick Moffat (1984). This short and serviceable volume amalgamates a series of papers presented at the University of Nottingham, England, in 1982. Its editors have brought together contributors from both academic and clinical settings in an attempt to bridge current theoretical models of human memory with practical approaches to memory assessment and its remediation. This book offers sound guidelines for anyone working with clients who present with memory deficits secondary to cortical dysfunction. Its brevity, easy reading style, and practical approach make it a useful reference for students and clinicians alike. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Memory, war and trauma.

Reviews the book, Memory, war and trauma by Nigel C. Hunt (see record 2010-17048-000). Hunt’s book presents a very different perspective on how memory, war, and trauma interface, drawing upon a variety of sources not frequently accessed by psychologists. He promotes an interdisciplinary approach to studying memory and war; however, rather than drawing upon the usual fields, such as biology or sociology, Dr. Hunt suggests that a careful examination of history and literature are also integral to developing a complete understanding of memory and war. This book is not designed for individuals unfamiliar with the field of trauma and war. Memory, war and trauma highlights the limitations of current empirical approaches to studying war trauma and presents a narrative methodology that he argues will better capture the unique individual experience of trauma. Hunt rightly demonstrates weaknesses of current methods, and suggests that the narrative method may be the solution to some of the problems with current methods. Though his argument is likely that the narrative method should supplement rather than replace current experimental method, one is left feeling that he believes current methods are wholly inadequate and his method is better. Despite this central weakness, this book will be a benefit to psychologists who study and treat individuals touched by war because it will encourage them to think beyond traditional approaches to research and treatment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of La Capacite D'Apprehension Verbale.

Reviews the book, La Capacite D'Apprehension Verbale by Stéphane Ehrlich (1972). Ehrlich has chosen the range of apprehension as the point of departure and central focus of this work. The author's main theme follows the basic ideas proposed by Miller in his famous "Magical number 7" paper, as well as by Fraisse in his much earlier work on perception (1944-45) which is largely unknown to English-language psychologists. Given the limitations and general invariance of the immediate memory span, how is the capacity to increase the repertoire of correct responses during learning to be accounted for? For Ehrlich the answer lies in the structuration of originally independent stimuli into higher-order groupings (Miller's chunks). Starting with relatively brief presentations of the various types of theories of memory (fading of traces versus interference), it goes on to outline general problems of methodology and definition. The last three of the six chapters examine in considerable detail the concept of structuration as the basic process responsible for learning, integrating Ehrlich's own work with that of North-American researchers. The book presents an extremely lucid, detailed and well-organized evaluation of the state of the art in this field. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Order Information in Working Memory: An Integrative Review of Evidence From Brain and Behavior.

Evidence about memory for order information comes from a number of different methodologies: human cognition, patient studies, neuroimaging studies, and animal lesion and behavioral studies. The present article discusses (a) evidence that order and item memory are separable; (b) proposed mechanisms for order memory (interitem associations, direct codes, hierarchical codes, feature codes, and magnitude codes) and evidence for each; (c) evidence for the neural substrates of order memory from patient, neuroimaging, and animal lesion and single-cell recording studies; (d) barriers to integration between the disciplines; and (e) suggestions for better coordination of efforts between the different disciplines. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Neuropsychological Interventions: Clinical Research and Practice.

Reviews the book, Neuropsychological Interventions: Clinical Research and Practice by Paul J. Eslinger (Ed.) (2005). The pessimistic assumption that the mature human brain lacks any physiological mechanism to support recovery of function beyond that attending the dissipation of diathesis is now thankfully relegated to the (recent) past. Advances in neuroimaging have provided striking evidence of the brain's capacity for functional reorganization, and fueled interest in rehabilitation treatments that may facilitate this process. This book addresses an important facet of this rapidly evolving field, the link between clinical research and practice. The basic science underpinning our emerging appreciation of the brain's plasticity is avowedly not the focus of this volume but is tied with varying degrees of success to the treatment strategies covered. The book contains 14 chapters organized into three parts covering Foundations of Neuropsychological Impairments, Models of Interventions for (specific) Neuropsychological Impairments, and Future Directions, respectively. The reviewer suggests that this is a book that should occupy the most accessible part of the bookshelf of those who work with or have an interest in patients with neuropsychological deficits. It is a concise, thoughtful, well researched, and authoritative resource that can be strongly recommended as a core text for graduate-level rehabilitation psychology courses. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Developmental reversals in false memory: A review of data and theory.

Can susceptibility to false memory and suggestion increase dramatically with age? The authors review the theoretical and empirical literatures on this counterintuitive possibility. Until recently, the well-documented pattern was that susceptibility to memory distortion had been found to decline between early childhood and young adulthood. That pattern is the centerpiece of much expert testimony in legal cases involving child witnesses and victims. During the past 5 years, however, several experiments have been published that test fuzzy-trace theory's prediction that some of the most powerful forms of false memory in adults will be greatly attenuated in children. Those experiments show that in some common domains of experience, in which false memories are rooted in meaning connections among events, age increases in false memory are the rule and are sometimes accompanied by net declines in the accuracy of memory. As these experiments are strongly theory-driven, they have established that developmental improvements in the formation of meaning connections are necessary and sufficient to produce age increases in false memory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Working memory and aging: Separating the effects of content and context.

In 3 experiments, we investigated the hypothesis that age-related differences in working memory might be due to the inability to bind content with context. Participants were required to find a repeating stimulus within a single series (no context memory required) or within multiple series (necessitating memory for context). Response time and accuracy were examined in 2 task domains: verbal and visuospatial. Binding content with context led to longer processing time and poorer accuracy in both age groups, even when working memory load was held constant. Although older adults were overall slower and less accurate than young adults, the need for context memory did not differentially affect their performance. It is therefore unlikely that age differences in working memory are due to specific age-related problems with content-with-context binding. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)