Remembering and Remembering to Forget

To navigate our lives we all need to find ways both to remember and sometimes to forget aspects of our experiences that threaten us or cause us anxiety. Often patients need help in developing a capacity to hold in some dialectical tension, both remembering and forgetting. Some people are so frightened by the harsher realities of their lives that they turn to us to take on the remembering side of this dialectic, and, sometimes, to take on the forgetting side. Part of the work of their therapy is to help them develop the capacity to do more of both for themselves. Other patients come better prepared to take on this challenge and use us to witness and support their own efforts. This paper considers how patients use their hours with us to remember and to forget and ways in which psychoanalysts might participate in this undertaking.     

Flexible remembering

Although highly specific memory is critical in many contexts, the ability to recall knowledge in a more abstract or “gist-based” manner is crucial in allowing transfer of learning to new situations and to complex forms of thought such as using analogies and drawing inferences based on the classification of events and objects. Yet it is unknown whether we can flexibly and intentionally alternate on demand between recollection of gist and recollection of detail, particularly for events from a single context. In a randomly cued test of item-specific versus category-based recognition, younger—and to a lesser extent, older—adults demonstrated such flexible remembering. Gist control was higher in younger than in older adults, and in older adults it correlated with measures of frontal function.     

Direct remembering,mediated remembering,and atypical forgetting functions

Atypical forgetting functions have been demonstrated in several recent studies of delayed matching to sample, in which experimental conditions are altered partway through the retention interval. The forgetting functions are atypical in that accuracy or discriminability is not always a negatively accelerated monotonic function of increasing retention interval duration, but may increase at later times in the retention interval. Atypical forgetting functions reflect changes in levels of discrimination. A switch from a lower level to a higher level of discrimination, or vice versa, can occur at any time in the retention interval. The behavioral theories of remembering proposed by Nevin, Davison, Odum, and Shahan (2007), and White and Brown (2014), offer quantitative predictions of forgetting functions that differ in intercept or slope. Both theories are able to account for atypical forgetting functions, by assuming time‐independent changes in the mediating effect of attending to sample and comparison stimuli (in Nevin et al.'s model) or in the direct effect of the context of reinforcement of the conditional discrimination (in White & Brown's model). Despite differences in their main assumptions, the theories have an edge over any theory that assumes that forgetting is time‐dependent.     

Psychophysics of remembering

We present a new model of remembering in the context of conditional discrimination. For procedures such as delayed matching to sample, the effect of the sample stimuli at the time of remembering is represented by a pair of Thurstonian (normal) distributions of effective stimulus values. The critical assumption of the model is that, based on prior experience, each effective stimulus value is associated with a ratio of reinforcers obtained for previous correct choices of the comparison stimuli. That ratio determines the choice that is made on the basis of the matching law. The standard deviations of the distributions are assumed to increase with increasing retention-interval duration, and the distance between their means is assumed to be a function of other factors that influence overall difficulty of the discrimination. It is a behavioral model in that choice is determined by its reinforcement history. The model predicts that the biasing effects of the reinforcer differential increase with decreasing discriminability and with increasing retention-interval duration. Data from several conditions using a delayed matching-to-sample procedure with pigeons support the predictions.     

Remembering operations

Two commonplace assumptions about encoding are that sentences are encoded and recognized on the basis of their semantic features primarily and that information regarding form features such as typography is typically ignored or discarded. These assumptions were tested m the present experiment where, within a signal-detection paradigm, S sorted sentences according to whether he had seen them before or not (old vs new) and, if they were old, whether their reappearance was in the same typography as on the first occurrence or a different one. Of the two typographies, one was familiar and the other unfamiliar. Results show that a considerable amount of information regarding surface features is stored for many minutes and that ease of initial encoding is inversely related to likelihood of subsequent recognition: sentences in the unfamiliar typography were remembered better. The results are probably not due to time spent encoding; control tests suggest that time spent encoding a difficult typography does not by itself increase recognition of the semantic content embodied in the typography. Other control tests show that pictorial features or images of the sentences play no significant role in their subsequent recognition. One interpretation of the results is that the analytic activities or cognitive operations that characterize initial acquisition play a significant role in subsequent recognition.     

Remembering democracy

A proper sense of history and the past is often held to be essential to democracy. Current attitudes to history and the past in the United Kingdom, particularly but not only in the context of formal education, show signs of strain, just as many other aspects of democracy do. Conceptions of history as heritage or as a site for the exercise of skills deserve critical examination. We need to look for a fresh basis for the relationship of democracies with their past. Perhaps this can be found in the essentially oppositional or ironical structure that both democracy and remembering require for their full flourishing.     

Two routes to remembering (and another to remembering not)

In this article, the author presents evidence about 2 mechanisms of remembering that occur when target stimuli are presented in meaningful contexts. One occurs when the context has been seen previously; the other occurs when the context is new in the test. Both appear to result from the construction of expectations and evaluation of outcomes, but the former appears to depend on the formation of definite expectations, whereas the latter appears to depend on indefinite expectations. These 2 routes to remembering are affected by different factors and cause dissociated patterns of remembering. They also have differential significance for claims of clear recall versus a feeling of familiarity. The results are discussed in terms of the SCAPE framework of memory.     

Remembering Herb

Abstract

This paper discusses treatment of an incest survivor who suffered a crippling sense of guilt. The work of discovering and understanding the unconscious fantasies that accompanied the patient's early traumatic experiences led to the alleviation of her misplaced guilt and to more adaptive compromise formations. It is necessary to understand and address the unconscious fantasies attached to the incest, as intellectual awareness of inappropriate guilt does not suffice to diminish it.     

Remembering Gorbachev

The American Journal of Psychoanalysis - Since the middle of last century the so-called “rational actor” models in international and domestic affairs (von Rochau, 1853) supported the...     

Autobiographical remembering and self-composing

A interpretive synopsis based on our empirical research and theoretical perspectives on autobiographical remembering and self-composing is presented. Conceptual links are made among Kelly's notions of personal constructs, autobiographical remembering, and self. The influences of attitudes on remembering personally significant information, either by oneself or with others, are emphasized. The possible functions of autobiographical remembering are explored through an ecological perspective. Two functions are identified: a coherence or unity function and an interpersonal function. A sense of coherence is achieved in (re)constructive or productive remembering; intimacies are established and maintained in productive interactions. It is proposed that a sense of self can be instantaneously experienced directly through an improvisational process of self-composition in autobiographical remembering and interacting.     

Generating and remembering passwords

A survey evaluating the generation and use of passwords revealed that students have 8.18 password uses. With 4.45 different passwords to cover these functions, the average password has 1.84 applications. Two thirds of passwords are designed around one's personal characteristics, with most of the remainder relating to relatives, friends or lovers. Proper names and birthdays are the primary information used in constructing passwords, accounting for about half of all password constructions. Almost all respondents reuse passwords, and about two thirds of password uses are duplications. Passwords have been forgotten by a third of respondents, and over half keep a written record of them. We found empirical confirmation of some ‘bad password practices’ discussed in the literature, and provide suggestions for password construction and use. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Remembering the Historical Roots of Remembering the Personal Past

As scholars, remembering the historical past in one's area of study provides a foundation for purposefully pursuing knowledge. As individuals, remembering our personal past provides direction and purpose in everyday life. Taken together, these percepts provide the impetus for the current paper, which traces the contributions of six early pioneers who wrote about how humans remember their personal past. Analysis demonstrates how their historical ideas support current literatures focused on the personal past: reminiscence‐based mental health interventions, the adaptive psychosocial functions of autobiographical remembering, and the construction of identity as a life story. Three future research directions are also briefly presented: the human ability for mental ‘time travel’, a lifespan approach to remembering the personal past, and reflection on one's past as a route to wisdom. Understanding the human phenomenon of remembering the personal past has long‐standing historical roots that continue to stimulate basic and applied research. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Introspection &; remembering

We argue that episodic remembering, understood as the ability to re-experience past events, requires a particular kind of introspective ability and understanding. It requires the understanding that first person experiences can represent actual events. In this respect it differs from the understanding required by the traditional false belief test for children, where a third person attribution (to others or self) of a behavior governing representation is sufficient. The understanding of first person experiences as representations is also required for problem solving with images. In support of this argument we review developmental evidence that children’s episodic remembering is independent of and emerges after mastery of the false belief task but emerges together with the use of imagery for solving visual rotation tasks.