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Memory Distortion: How Minds, Brains, and Societies Reconstruct the Past
Hypnosis, confabulation, source amnesia, flashbulb memories, repression--these and numerous additional topics are explored in this timely collection of essays by eminent scholars in a range of disciplines. This is the first book on memory distortion to unite contributions from cognitive psychology, psychopathology, psychiatry, neurobiology, sociology, history, and religious studies. It brings the most relevant group of perspectives to bear on some key contemporary issues, including the value of eyewitness testimony and the accuracy of recovered memories of sexual abuse.
The distinguished contributors to this volume explore the full range of biological phenomena and social ideas relevant to understanding memory distortion, including the reliability of children's recollections, the effects of hypnosis on memory, and confabulation in brain-injured patients. They also look into the activity and role of brain systems, cellular bases of memory distortion, and the effects of emotion and trauma on the accuracy of memory. In a section devoted to the social aspects of memory distortion, additional essays analyze the media's part in distorting social memory, factors influencing historical reconstruction of the collective past, and memory distortion in religion and other cultural constructs. Daniel Schacter launches the collection with a history of psychological memory distortions. Subsequent highlights include new empirical findings on memory retrieval by a pioneer in the field, some of the foremost research on computational models, studies of the relationship between emotion and memory, new findings on amnesia by a premier neuroscientist, and reflections on the power of collective amnesia in U.S. history, the Nazi Holocaust, and ancient Egypt.
The distinguished contributors to this volume explore the full range of biological phenomena and social ideas relevant to understanding memory distortion, including the reliability of children's recollections, the effects of hypnosis on memory, and confabulation in brain-injured patients. They also look into the activity and role of brain systems, cellular bases of memory distortion, and the effects of emotion and trauma on the accuracy of memory. In a section devoted to the social aspects of memory distortion, additional essays analyze the media's part in distorting social memory, factors influencing historical reconstruction of the collective past, and memory distortion in religion and other cultural constructs. Daniel Schacter launches the collection with a history of psychological memory distortions. Subsequent highlights include new empirical findings on memory retrieval by a pioneer in the field, some of the foremost research on computational models, studies of the relationship between emotion and memory, new findings on amnesia by a premier neuroscientist, and reflections on the power of collective amnesia in U.S. history, the Nazi Holocaust, and ancient Egypt.
432 pages, Paperback
First published December 31, 1979
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February 7, 2026
Fascinating book. This book makes me appreciate the writing of Annie Duke (Thinking in Bets) even more.
In essence, the author argues that human brain is not a fact storing device. Due to the efficiency drive nature, human brain is a Heuristic algorithm machine. To make Heuristic consistent, human remembers in stories rather than specific facts, as cognitive error would render if contradicting facts occur in the forms of narratives (what if the bad guy is also a good guy, and a good guy is also a bad guy? Cognitive dissonance would occur, and selective memory would occur to prevent cognitive dissonance).
The secondary effect is that whenever there's a new societal change that human brain's Heuristic can't process, a new narrative (regardless of true or not) that can seemingly explain the dissonance wins over the old one (for instance, simple binary options such as nationalism). Then humans would collectively forgetting contradicting facts in order for their internal Heuristic to stay consistent.
The only way to combat this ineffiency would be bypassing the need for have collective narrative and focus solely on primary sources as well as first principal thinking (use systems thinking to understand the collective hallucinations). This way is immensely more cognitively taxing, but also immensely more satisfying and more likely to be actually "correct".
In essence, the author argues that human brain is not a fact storing device. Due to the efficiency drive nature, human brain is a Heuristic algorithm machine. To make Heuristic consistent, human remembers in stories rather than specific facts, as cognitive error would render if contradicting facts occur in the forms of narratives (what if the bad guy is also a good guy, and a good guy is also a bad guy? Cognitive dissonance would occur, and selective memory would occur to prevent cognitive dissonance).
The secondary effect is that whenever there's a new societal change that human brain's Heuristic can't process, a new narrative (regardless of true or not) that can seemingly explain the dissonance wins over the old one (for instance, simple binary options such as nationalism). Then humans would collectively forgetting contradicting facts in order for their internal Heuristic to stay consistent.
The only way to combat this ineffiency would be bypassing the need for have collective narrative and focus solely on primary sources as well as first principal thinking (use systems thinking to understand the collective hallucinations). This way is immensely more cognitively taxing, but also immensely more satisfying and more likely to be actually "correct".
Displaying 1 of 1 review