“Women Don't Get AIDS,They Just Die From It”: Memory,Classification, and the Campaign to Change the Definition of AIDS

In this paper, I examine activist group ACT UP's campaign to change the US Centers for Disease Control surveillance case definition of HIV and AIDS. This campaign's effects included a profound shift in how AIDS is understood, and thus in some real way in what it is. I argue that classification should be understood as a political formation with material effects, attending to the words of activists, most of them women, who contested the way AIDS was defined in a moment when no one else thought that definition needed to be changed. I argue that philosopher Sue Campbell's work on the importance of understanding memory and feeling as relational helps understand the histories of death and loss, resistance and fierce joy, crystallized in activist responses to HIV and AIDS.     

MEMORY ALTERING TECHNOLOGIES AND THE CAPACITY TO FORGIVE: WESTWORLD AND VOLF IN DIALOGUE

I explore the impact of memory altering technologies in the science fiction drama (2016–2020) in order to show that unreconciled altered traumatic memory may lead to a dystopian breakdown of society. I bring Miroslav Volf's theological perspectives on memory into conversation with the plot of Westworld in order to reveal connections between memory altering technologies and humanity's responsibility to remember rightly. Using Volf's theology of remembering as an interpretive lens, I analyze characters’ inability to remember rightly while recalling partial memories of their trauma. In virtue of this examination, I contend that memory altering technologies may inhibit individuals from relational processes of healing, such as forgiveness. Consequently, I argue that this study leads to a richer understanding of the potential that memory altering technologies have for undermining humanity's ability to interact in a relational capacity, specifically in terms of forgiveness.     

Remembering Karbala in the diaspora: religious rituals among Iraqi Shii women in Ireland

Memory studies have gained much popularity in the humanities and social sciences since the 1980s. Particularly after the seminal work of Danièle Hervieu-Léger on ‘religion as a chain of memory’, discussions arose around how theories of memory can be applied in the Study of Religions. Few scholars, however, have discussed the intersection between religion, particularly Islam, and memory. In this article, the focus lies on Shii Muslim communities in Ireland, for whom remembering constitutes an important part of their identity and legitimises their particular sectarian existence within Islam in general. This article discusses Iraqi Shii women's engagement in ‘collective remembering’ (Paul Connerton, How Societies Remember, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989; J.V. Wertsch, Voices of Collective Remembering, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002) expressed through constantly performed religious rituals and practices.     

From Blind to Creative: In Defense of Donald Campbell's Selectionist Theory of Human Creativity

Both Perkins and Sternberg recognize Campbell's selectionist theory of knowledge generation as accounting for certain types of learning and human creativity. However, they argue that his theory cannot account for the full spectrum of human creativity, with Sternberg having more serious reservations than Perkins. I argue in this commentary that while blind variation and selective retention (BVSR) may not be involved in all forms of human behavior and thought, Campbell has made a compelling (if often misunderstood) case that all genuine forms of human creativity and invention involve BVSR. To support this broad application of Campbell's theory, I argue for the complementarity of among-organism and within-organism BVSR as well as for the complementarity of prior and current BVSR in all forms of creative human endeavor.     

Contiguity and the causal theory of memory

In Memory: A Philosophical Study, Bernecker argues for an account of contiguity. This Contiguity View is meant to solve relearning and prompting, wayward causation problems plaguing the causal theory of memory. I argue that Bernecker’s Contiguity View fails in this task. Contiguity is too weak to prevent relearning and too strong to allow prompting. These failures illustrate a problem inherent in accounts of memory causation. Relearning and prompting are both causal relations, wayward only with respect to our interest in specifying remembering’s requirements. Solving them requires saying more about remembering, not causation. I conclude by sketching such an account.     

Collaboration inflation: Egocentric source monitoring errors following collaborative remembering

Following collaborative remembering, people may adopt their partner's contributions as their own memory. In two studies, we asked people to study partially overlapping lists of words. During collaborative remembering, dyads either worked to include all words no matter who studied them or limited recall to only words studied by both dyad members. This differential focus on source information during collaborative recall impacted performance on a later source memory test. Nonetheless we found frequent source monitoring errors that displayed an egocentric bias. People were more likely to claim their partner's contributions as their own memories than attribute their memories to their partners. In collaborative remembering, people work to construct an agreed upon version of the past that quickly becomes each individual's memory.     

IS FORGETTING REPREHENSIBLE? Holocaust Remembrance and the Task of Oblivion

“Forgetting” plays an important role in the lives of individuals and communities. Although a few Holocaust scholars have begun to take forgetting more seriously in relation to the task of remembering—in popular parlance as well as in academic discourse on the Holocaust—forgetting is usually perceived as a negative force. In the decades following 1945, the terms remembering and forgetting have often been used antithetically, with the communities of victims insisting on the duty to remember and a society of perpetrators desiring to forget. Thus, the discourse on Holocaust memory has become entrenched on this issue. This essay counters the swift rejection of forgetting and its labeling as a reprehensible act. It calls attention to two issues: first, it offers a critical argument for different forms of forgetting; second, it concludes with suggestions of how deliberate performative practices of forgetting might benefit communities affected by a genocidal past. Is it possible to conceive of forgetting not as the ugly twin of remembering but as its necessary companion?     

Memory Interventions for Persons with Dementia

It is possible to design effective, pragmatically useful memory interventions for persons with Dementia of the Alzheimer's Type (DAT). A review of successful memory interventions for such populations is presented. A particularly effective intervention technique, spaced-retrieval, is described and the theoretical basis for its effectiveness is discussed. A detailed account is presented of a spaced-retrieval intervention in which persons with DAT are trained to learn and utilize a strategy, i.e., remembering to use a calendar listing daily activities. Directions for future research in this area are offered.     

Collective memory: conceptual foundations and theoretical approaches

In order to outline the conceptual landscape that frames discussions of collective memory, three oppositions are proposed: collective memory versus collective remembering; history versus collective memory; and individual memory versus collective remembering. From this perspective collective remembering is viewed as an active process that often involves contention and contestation among people rather than a static body of knowledge that they possess. Collective remembering is also viewed as privileging identity formation and contestation over the sort of objective representation of the past that is the aspiration of formal historical analysis. And finally, while collective remembering involves individual minds, it also suggests something more in the form of socially situated individuals, a claim that can usefully be formulated in terms of how members of a groups share a common set of cultural tools (e.g., narrative forms) and similar content.     

The Chancellor's memory: Rhetoric and truth in discursive remembering

This paper explores the notion of truthfulness in research on conversational remembering. It argues that people's accounts of past events, before they can be taken as data on the cognitive workings of memory, need to be examined as contextualized and variable productions that perform pragmatic and rhetorical work; no one version can be taken as a person's real memory. The consequences of this discourse-analytical perspective are examined first through a critical discussion of Ulric Neisser's study of John Dean's testimony to the senate ‘Watergate’ committee. The issues are then explored more deeply in an analysis of reportings of a different event, in which similar (Watergate-like) issues of memory, truth and accuracy are also at issue. It is argued that: (a) all of Neisser's three kinds of memory–verbatim, gist and ‘repisodic’–involve problematical assumptions concerning their relation to some true, original event; and (b) that Dean's accounts of his memory and his displays of memory should be approached as occasioned productions oriented pragmatically to the assignment of guilt and avoidance of scapegoating. Through an analysis of newspaper reports (based on memory) of a controversial briefing given by the then British Chancellor of the Exchequer, Nigel Lawson, we then examine: (a) how discourse about what could be used as an arbiter of truth was rhetorically organized; (b) how participants' versions of events were constructed rhetorically, as parts of arguments; (c) that both sides in the dispute maintained the coherence of their positions by a form of error accounting similar to that used by Neisser with respect to Dean. It is suggested that cognitive psychologists, whether working in the laboratory or attempting to do real-world studies of everyday remembering, need to avoid simplistic notions of true original events, and can do so by addressing the rhetorical organization of participants' memory accounts.     

Collaborative remembering of emotional events: The case of Rabin's assassination

Individual and collaborative remembering of the assassination of Israel's Prime Minister, Itzhak Rabin, were compared. In line with previous laboratory findings on memory of neutral stimuli, it was hypothesised that collaborative remembering (three individuals reaching a common response) and nominal remembering (three individual responses pooled together) of the assassination would be more accurate than individual remembering. A total of 146 participants responded (115 individually and 120 in groups of three) to open-ended and multiple-choice questionnaires (among them, 89 responded twice with a week of intertest interval) about Rabin's assassination and the events that preceded and followed it. Data analysis showed that the collaborative responses to the open-ended questionnaire contained more details (both accurate and inaccurate) than the individual responses, and that the responses to the multiple-choice questionnaire were more accurate than the individual responses. However, the collaborative responses contained fewer details (both accurate and inaccurate) than the nominal responses. Responses to the two questionnaires were more accurate on the retest when they followed collaborative rather than individual responses on the original test. The inferiority of the collaborative relative to the nominal remembering was attributed to collaborative inhibition, whereas the positive effect of collaborative remembering on performance on the retest was attributed to the contribution of contextual cues.     

Conversation and remembering: Bartlett revisited

Bartlett's book Remembering (1932) is frequently cited as a major forerunner of the information processing approach to memory and cognition. This approach has itself been criticized by one of its founders, Ulric Neisser (1982), for its narrowness and artificiality compared with the nature of remembering in natural contexts. A re-examination of Bartlett's work demonstrates that it offers little basis for an information processing approach, but rather that it offers the foundation of a much broader, culturally contextualized and functional approach to the study of everyday remembering. Three particular themes are discussed: the integration of social judgements and affective reactions with cognition, the role of conventional symbols in the coding and communication of experience, and the importance of conversational discourse. Bartlett's best-known studies, involving the method of serial reproduction, are shown to be microcosmic demonstrations of the process that he was most concerned with—that of conventionalization of symbols rather than of the workings of an individual's memory. It is argued, again beginning with Bartlett, that everyday remembering may be most fruitfully studied in terms of its personal and social functions, and particularly through its realization in discourse.     

TOUCH,SOUND, AND THINGS WITHOUT THE MIND

Abstract: Two notable thought experiments are discussed in this article: Reid's thought experiment about whether a being supplied with tactile sensations alone could acquire the conception of extension and Strawson's thought experiment about whether a being supplied with auditory sensations alone could acquire the conception of mind‐independent objects. The experiments are considered alongside Campbell's argument that only on the so‐called relational view of experience is it possible for experiences to make available to their subjects the concept of mind‐independent objects. I consider how the three issues ought to be construed as raising questions about woulds, coulds, or shoulds—and argue that only on the normative construal of them are they resolvable as intended by the a priori methods of the philosophers who pose them.     

Together in Need: Relational Selfhood,Vulnerability to Harm,and Enriching Attachments

Connections between one's own welfare and that of others abound if we pause to look for them, although philosophical theories of selfhood have only very recently begun to incorporate these connections. This essay draws on recent work on need to argue that one of the strongest expressions of these connections is to be found in the relational needs that they can generate. While paying heed to needs that arise from the relational nature of selfhood at large, this essay pays particular attention to what I call “transpersonal needs”: needs that occur when one's experience of the needs of others gives rise to certain needs of one's own. I argue that the best criterion for defining need is vulnerability to harm, but this does not mean that having a need is something that is purely harmful. Having certain needs can also enrich one's life. Further, while every need entails a corresponding vulnerability to harm, some of these potential harms are more detrimental to one's welfare than others, with some relational needs standing among those that can result in the greatest harm if unanswered.     

Making Epistemologists Nervous: Relational Memory and Psychological Individualism

We cannot rethink the ethical and political dimensions of memory—especially its role in constituting persons and identities—without rethinking the nature of memory itself. I first describe a traditional epistemological view of memory, according to which memory is a faculty for preserving knowledge of the past, and then juxtapose a relational theory of memory developed by Sue Campbell. The relational theory is represented in terms of a distinction between actions and achievements; this distinction enables us to both clarify and defend the shift from an epistemological to a political conception of memory. On the resulting view, accuracy, not truth, is the appropriate norm for evaluating memory, and remembering is no longer conceived as an interior process. In the penultimate section I confront an objection to a relational theory of memory—and to relational theories of cognition generally—and suggest a strategy of response.     

A CULTURAL DIFFERENCE IN VISUAL MEMORY: ON LE VOIT,ON NE LE VOIT PLUS

Further to the debate between Kearins (1978) and Drinkwater (1978), visual memory skills of Aboriginal and white Australian children were examined using Drinkwater's version of Kim's game with desert Aboriginal and rural white children. Older children remembered more than younger ones, and Aboriginal children recalled more natural objects than white children. There was no difference between the groups in recall of manufactured objects, nor between recall of manufactured and natural objects within each group. Aboriginal children remembered significantly more objects overall than white children when the task was first administered. On a second occasion, after a procedure designed to orient children towards the use of predominantly visual rather than verbal memorising strategies, there was no significant difference between the groups.     

Donald Campbell's Model of the Creative Process: Creativity as Blind Variation and Selective Retention

This special issue honors Donald Campbell, who died on May 6, 1996. Although Campbell became best known for his methodological contributions, he also published a classic 1960 paper in which he developed a blind-variation and selective-retention model of the creative process. Not only does this Darwinian model accurately describe Campbell's own creative modus operandi, but in addition it may provide the basis for a comprehensive theory of creativity. The articles collected for this special issue are devoted to evaluating Campbell's theoretical proposal from the hindsight of nearly 40 years of research and thinking on the creative process.     

Memories of ‘The Rivalry’: Differences in How Fans of the Winning and Losing Teams Remember the Same Game

Berntsen's social identity model of flashbulb memory was applied to recall of the 2008 Lafayette–Lehigh (‘The Rivalry’) football game, which Lehigh won. Consistent with Berntsen's theory, Lehigh fans found the game to be more emotional and therefore rehearsed the event more frequently. They also remembered the factual details of the game more accurately than did Lafayette fans, particularly those facts that enhanced positive social group identity. Although students from both schools recalled the event equally vividly initially, the Lehigh fans maintained that vividness over time, whereas Lafayette fans' memories decreased in vividness. Surprisingly, both teams' fans were equally consistent in describing their personal circumstances during the event, were equally confident in the accuracy of those recollections, and felt an equally high degree of reliving the event while remembering it. The significant influence of emotional affect on vividness, reliving, and confidence was partially mediated by rehearsal, consistent with Berntsen's model. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Effect of Culture on a Visual-Spatial Memory Task

The visual-spatial memory ability of 25 Zairian elementary school children was compared with that of 23 Scottish children, using a variation of Kearins's (1976) object placement task. The Scottish children demonstrated significantly better visual-spatial memory than the Zairian children when the easiest (small household objects) of three arrays was presented. The Scottish and Zairian children demonstrated a similar level of visual-spatial ability when the other two arrays (geometric shapes and a variety of natural pieces of wood) were presented, and there were no significant gender differences. Although the Australian Aboriginal children's performance on the visual-spatial task in Drinkwater's (1976) study was superior to the White children's performance (Kearins, 1976, 1981), the Zairian children's performance in this study was not. Perhaps the Aboriginal groups, over countless generations navigating the trackless desert of western Australia, were forced by their environment to develop an aptitude for direction finding that Zairians (whose ecological situation more closely resembles that of Europeans) have not.