Memory distortion: an adaptive perspective
TL;DR: This work considers recent cognitive and neuroimaging studies that link several types of memory distortions with adaptive processes, including simulation of future events, semantic and contextual encoding, creativity, and memory updating.
About: This article is published in Trends in Cognitive Sciences.The article was published on 2011-10-01 and is currently open access. It has received 338 citations till now. The article focuses on the topics: Memory errors & Adaptive memory.
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TL;DR: A number of key points are discussed, focusing in particular on the importance of distinguishing between temporal and nontemporal factors in analyses of memory and imagination, the nature of differences between remembering the past and imagining the future, the identification of component processes that comprise the default network supporting memory-based simulations, and the finding that this network can couple flexibly with other networks to support complex goal-directed simulations.
1,054 citations
Cites background from "Memory distortion: an adaptive pers..."
...…information to be used flexibly when simulating alternative future scenarios, the flexibility of memory may also result in vulnerability to imagination-induced memory errors, where imaginary events are confused with actual events (for further discussion, see Schacter et al., 2011; Schacter, 2012)....
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...A longstanding question concerns whether the constructive nature of memory serves any adaptive function (Bartlett, 1932; Hardt et al., 2010; Howe, 2011; Newman and Lindsay, 2009; Schacter, 2001; Schacter et al., 2011)....
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TL;DR: Both pitfalls and adaptive aspects of future event simulation are considered in the context of research on planning, prediction, problem solving, mind-wandering, prospective and retrospective memory, coping and positivity bias, and the interconnected set of brain regions known as the default network.
Abstract: Memory serves critical functions in everyday life but is also prone to error. This article examines adaptive constructive processes, which play a functional role in memory and cognition but can also produce distortions, errors, and illusions. The article describes several types of memory errors that are produced by adaptive constructive processes and focuses in particular on the process of imagining or simulating events that might occur in one's personal future. Simulating future events relies on many of the same cognitive and neural processes as remembering past events, which may help to explain why imagination and memory can be easily confused. The article considers both pitfalls and adaptive aspects of future event simulation in the context of research on planning, prediction, problem solving, mind-wandering, prospective and retrospective memory, coping and positivity bias, and the interconnected set of brain regions known as the default network.
303 citations
Cites background from "Memory distortion: an adaptive pers..."
...E-mail: dls@wjh .harvard.edu 604 November 2012 ● American Psychologist consequences (Loftus, 2005), Schacter, Guerin, and St. Jacques (2011) suggested that they can be viewed as a consequence of adaptive updating processes that are crucial for the operation of a dynamic memory system that flexibly…...
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...Imagination Inflation and the Simulation of Future Events The third kind of memory distortion that Schacter, Guerin, and St. Jacques (2011) discussed within an adaptive framework is known as imagination inflation: Imagining events can lead to false memories that the event actually occurred (e.g.,…...
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TL;DR: It is argued that the current practice of ascribing the term 'memory' to mental states and processes lacks epistemic warrant, and draws on phenomenological, historical, and conceptual considerations to make the case that an act of memory entails a direct, non-inferential feeling of reacquaintance with one's past.
Abstract: I argue that our current practice of ascribing the term 'memory' to mental states and processes lacks epistemic warrant. Memory, according to the 'received view', is any state or process that results from the sequential stages of encoding, storage, and retrieval. By these criteria, memory, or its footprint, can be seen in virtually every mental state we are capable of having. This, I argue, stretches the term to the breaking point. I draw on phenomenological, historical, and conceptual considerations to make the case that an act of memory entails a direct, non-inferential feeling of reacquaintance with one's past. It does so by linking content retrieved from storage with autonoetic awareness during retrieval. On this view, memory is not the content of experience, but the manner in which that content is experienced. I discuss some theoretical and practical implications and advantages of adopting this more circumscribed view of memory.
278 citations
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TL;DR: The counterintuitive findings that led to the development of fuzzy-trace theory and its most recent extensions to the neuroscience of risky decision making are reviewed and surprising implications for judgment and decision making in real life are discussed.
Abstract: Combining meaning, memory, and development, the perennially popular topic of intuition can be approached in a new way. Fuzzy-trace theory integrates these topics by distinguishing between meaning-based gist representations, which support fuzzy (yet advanced) intuition, and superficial verbatim representations of information, which support precise analysis. Here, I review the counterintuitive findings that led to the development of the theory and its most recent extensions to the neuroscience of risky decision making. These findings include memory interference (worse verbatim memory is associated with better reasoning); nonnumerical framing (framing effects increase when numbers are deleted from decision problems); developmental decreases in gray matter and increases in brain connectivity; developmental reversals in memory, judgment, and decision making (heuristics and biases based on gist increase from childhood to adulthood, challenging conceptions of rationality); and selective attention effects that provide critical tests comparing fuzzy-trace theory, expected utility theory, and its variants (e.g., prospect theory). Surprising implications for judgment and decision making in real life are also discussed, notably, that adaptive decision making relies mainly on gist-based intuition in law, medicine, and public health.
242 citations
TL;DR: This review considers the findings from patient studies and the neuroimaging literature with respect to a new framework that highlights three component processes of simulation: accessing episodic details, recombining details, and encoding simulations and suggests that different component process of future simulation may be differentially affected by hippocampal damage.
Abstract: Recent neuroimaging work has demonstrated that the hippocampus is engaged when imagining the future, in some cases more than when remembering the past. It is possible that this hippocampal activation reflects recombining details into coherent scenarios and/or the encoding of these scenarios into memory for later use. However, inconsistent findings have emerged from recent studies of future simulation in patients with memory loss and hippocampal damage. Thus, it remains an open question as to whether the hippocampus is necessary for future simulation. In this review, we consider the findings from patient studies and the neuroimaging literature with respect to a new framework that highlights three component processes of simulation: accessing episodic details, recombining details, and encoding simulations. We attempt to reconcile these discrepancies between neuroimaging and patient studies by suggesting that different component processes of future simulation may be differentially affected by hippocampal damage.
221 citations
Cites background from "Memory distortion: an adaptive pers..."
...…we had participants generate memories of past events and simulations of future events in response to word cues and found that the number of episodic details comprising events in older or demented adults was reduced relative to appropriate control groups (for a review, see Schacter et al., 2011a)....
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...We hypothesized that the flexible use of episodic details from memory during imaginative simulations of the future can help to understand constructive aspects of memory, such as its susceptibility to distortion (see also Schacter et al., 2011b)....
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...HUMAN NEUROSCIENCE REVIEW ARTICLE published: 04 January 2012 doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2011.00173 The hippocampus and imagining the future: where do we stand?...
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References
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TL;DR: Past observations are synthesized to provide strong evidence that the default network is a specific, anatomically defined brain system preferentially active when individuals are not focused on the external environment, and for understanding mental disorders including autism, schizophrenia, and Alzheimer's disease.
Abstract: Thirty years of brain imaging research has converged to define the brain’s default network—a novel and only recently appreciated brain system that participates in internal modes of cognition Here we synthesize past observations to provide strong evidence that the default network is a specific, anatomically defined brain system preferentially active when individuals are not focused on the external environment Analysis of connectional anatomy in the monkey supports the presence of an interconnected brain system Providing insight into function, the default network is active when individuals are engaged in internally focused tasks including autobiographical memory retrieval, envisioning the future, and conceiving the perspectives of others Probing the functional anatomy of the network in detail reveals that it is best understood as multiple interacting subsystems The medial temporal lobe subsystem provides information from prior experiences in the form of memories and associations that are the building blocks of mental simulation The medial prefrontal subsystem facilitates the flexible use of this information during the construction of self-relevant mental simulations These two subsystems converge on important nodes of integration including the posterior cingulate cortex The implications of these functional and anatomical observations are discussed in relation to possible adaptive roles of the default network for using past experiences to plan for the future, navigate social interactions, and maximize the utility of moments when we are not otherwise engaged by the external world We conclude by discussing the relevance of the default network for understanding mental disorders including autism, schizophrenia, and Alzheimer’s disease
8,448 citations
TL;DR: The concept of false memories is not new; psychologists have been studying false memories in several laboratory paradigms for years as discussed by the authors and Schacter (in press) provides an historical overview of the study of memory distortions.
Abstract: False memories—either remembering events that never happened, or remembering them quite differently from the way they happened—have recently captured the attention of both psychologists and the public at large. The primary impetus for this recent surge of interest is the increase in the number of cases in which memories of previously unrecognized abuse are reported during the course of therapy. Some researchers have argued that certain therapeutic practices can cause the creation of false memories, and therefore, the apparent "recovery" of memories during the course of therapy may actually represent the creation of memories (Lindsay & Read, 1994; Loftus, 1993). Although the concept of false memories is currently enjoying an increase in publicity, it is not new; psychologists have been studying false memories in several laboratory paradigms for years. Schacter (in press) provides an historical overview of the study of memory distortions. Bartlett (1932) is usually credited with conducting the first experimental investigation of false memories; he had subjects read an Indian folktale, "The War of the Ghosts," and recall it repeatedly. Although he reported no aggregate data, but only sample protocols, his results seemed to show distortions in subjects' memories over repeated attempts to recall the story. Interestingly, Bartlett's repeated reproduction results never have been successfully replicated by later researchers (see Gauld & Stephenson, 1967; Roediger, Wheeler, & Rajaram, 1993); indeed, Wheeler and Roediger (1992) showed that recall of prose passages (including "The War of the Ghosts")
3,277 citations
TL;DR: Sleep has been identified as a state that optimizes the consolidation of newly acquired information in memory, depending on the specific conditions of learning and the timing of sleep, through specific patterns of neuromodulatory activity and electric field potential oscillations.
Abstract: Sleep improves the consolidation of both declarative and non-declarative memories. Diekelmann and Born discuss the potential mechanisms through which slow wave sleep and rapid eye movement sleep support system and synaptic consolidation. Sleep has been identified as a state that optimizes the consolidation of newly acquired information in memory, depending on the specific conditions of learning and the timing of sleep. Consolidation during sleep promotes both quantitative and qualitative changes of memory representations. Through specific patterns of neuromodulatory activity and electric field potential oscillations, slow-wave sleep (SWS) and rapid eye movement (REM) sleep support system consolidation and synaptic consolidation, respectively. During SWS, slow oscillations, spindles and ripples — at minimum cholinergic activity — coordinate the re-activation and redistribution of hippocampus-dependent memories to neocortical sites, whereas during REM sleep, local increases in plasticity-related immediate-early gene activity — at high cholinergic and theta activity — might favour the subsequent synaptic consolidation of memories in the cortex.
2,983 citations
TL;DR: The "warm look" as mentioned in this paper is a synergistic approach to the roles of "hot" motivations and "cold" cognitions in the production of behavior, and it can be seen as an attempt to bridge the gap between thought and action.
Abstract: The apparent success of cognitive principles in accounting for several behaviors has led social psychologists to question the need for motivations and other "hot" dispositional constructs. In their place, they postulate nonmotivational "cold" cognitions. Behavioral variations between individuals are thus reduced to differences in information processing abilities, while biases and other apparently motivated behaviors are explained on the "faulty computer" model. However, as many cognitive psychologists now acknowledge this mechanistic theory fails to tie the processing of information to the performance of actions. In a creative attempt to bridge this gap, the editors and investigators have begun to challenge the prevailing hot/cold, either/or dichotomy. Instead, they propose the "warm look" - a synergistic approach to the roles of "hot" motivations and "cold" cognitions in the production of behavior. In their view, neither one alone is sufficient to explain social phenomena. In fact, outside of theory, the two are inseparable. This comprehensive handbook attempts an integration of contrasting approaches to behavior discusses the dual contributions of cognition and motivation to affective states, the development and evaluation of the self, and the setting and attainment of goals. Central themes include the notion of different public and private selves forming distinct influences on motivational behavior; the key role of affect in mediating social information processing; and the differences between informational and affective value, or between behavior geared to finding out versus behavior prompted by a desire to feel good. While much remains to be learned about the complex interplay of motivation and cognition, these studies demonstrate that the two can no longer be treated as separate, unrelated factors. Subjective states and goals clearly influence information processing, while the acquisition of information alters affect and behavior. An ambitious and original attempt to bridge the gap between thought and action, the Handbook is an indispensable reference for all social cognitive and developmental psychologists, investigators of personality and motivation, and advanced students in these areas.
2,554 citations
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