Essential Info
The Memory Process
Overview
The Memory Process offers a groundbreaking, interdisciplinary approach to the understanding of human memory, with contributions from both neuroscientists and humanists. The first book to link the neuroscientific study of memory to the investigation of memory in the humanities, it connects the latest findings in memory research with insights from philosophy, literature, theater, art, music, and film.
Chapters from the scientific perspective discuss both fundamental concepts and ongoing debates from genetic and epigenetic approaches, functional neuroimaging, connectionist modeling, dream analysis, and neurocognitive studies. The humanist analyses offer insights about memory from outside the laboratory: a taxonomy of memory gleaned from modernist authors including Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, and William Faulkner; the organization of memory, seen in drama ranging from Hamlet to The Glass Menagerie; procedural memory and emotional memory in responses to visual art; music’s dependence on the listener’s recall; and the vivid renderings of memory and forgetting in such films as Memento and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. The chapters from the philosophical perspective serve as the bridge between science and the arts. The volume’s sweeping introduction offers an integrative merging of neuroscientific and humanistic findings.
Contributors: John Bickle, Jean-Pierre Changeux, Valérie Doyère, Yadin Dudai, Atillio Favorini, John Burt Foster, David Freedberg, Walter Glannon, Robert Stickgold, David Hertz, William Hirstein, Joseph LeDoux, Paul Matthews, James L. McClelland, Suzanne Nalbantian, Isabelle Peretz, Alan Richardson, Edmund Rolls, Séverine Samson, Alcino Silva, Barbara Tillmann, Fernando Vidal
About the Editors
Suzanne Nalbantian is Professor of Comparative Literature at Long Island University and the author of Memory in Literature: From Rousseau to Neuroscience, Aesthetic Autobiography, and other books.
Paul M. Matthews is Vice President at GlaxoSmithKline in London, Professor of Clinical Neurosciences at Imperial College, London, and the coauthor of The Bard on the Brain: Understanding the Mind through the Art of Shakespeare.
James L. McClelland is Professor of Psychology and Director of the Center for Mind, Brain, and Computation at Stanford University. He is the coauthor of Parallel Distributed Processing (1986) and Semantic Cognition (2004), both published by the MIT Press.
Table of Contents
- The Memory Process
- The Memory Process
- Neuroscientific and Humanistic Perspectives
- edited by Suzanne Nalbantian, Paul M. Matthews, and James L. McClelland
- The MIT Press
- Cambridge, Massachusetts
- London, England
- © 2011
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher.
- MIT Press books may be purchased at special quantity discounts for business or sales promotional use. For information, please email special_sales@mitpress.mit.edu or write to Special Sales Department, The MIT Press, 55 Hayward Street, Cambridge, MA 02142.
- This book was set in Stone Sans and Stone Serif by Toppan Best-set Premedia Limited. Printed and bound in the United States of America.
- Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
- The memory process : neuroscientific and humanistic perspectives / edited by Suzanne Nalbantian, Paul M. Matthews, and James L. McClelland.
- p. ; cm.
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- ISBN 978-0-262-01457-1 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Memory. I. Nalbantian, Suzanne. II. Matthews, Paul M. III. McClelland, James L.
- [DNLM: 1. Memory. BF 371 M5337 2011]
- BF371.M463 2011
- 153.1'2—dc22
- 2010005429
- 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
- Contents
- Acknowledgments vii
- Introduction 1
- Suzanne Nalbantian
- I Scientific Foundations 27
- 1 The Engram Revisited :
- On the Elusive Permanence of Memory 29
- Yadin Dudai
- 2 Molecular Genetic Approaches to Memory Consolidation 41
- Alcino J. Silva
- 3 The Epigenetic Variability of Memory :
- Brain Plasticity and Artistic Creation 55
- Jean-Pierre Changeux
- 4 Memory in Sleep and Dreams :
- The Construction of Meaning 73
- Robert Stickgold
- II Scientific Phenomena and Functioning 97
- 5 The Mnemonic Brain :
- Neuroimaging, Neuropharmacology, and Disorders of Memory 99
- Paul M. Matthews
- 6 Memory as a Constructive Process :
- The Parallel Distributed Processing Approach 129
- James L. McClelland
- 7 Emotional Memory Processing :
- Synaptic Connectivity 153
- Joseph E. LeDoux and Valérie Doyère
- 8 Functions of Human Emotional Memory :
- The Brain and Emotion 173
- Edmund T. Rolls
- III Crossroads to the Humanities 193
- 9 Memory and Neurophilosophy 195
- John Bickle
- 10 Confabulations about Personal Memories, Normal and Abnormal 217
- William Hirstein
- 11 The Neuroethics of Memory 233
- Walter Glannon
- IV Literary Data for Memory Studies 253
- 12 Autobiographical Memory in Modernist Literature and Neuroscience 255
- Suzanne Nalbantian
- 13 Memory and Imagination in Romantic Fiction 277
- Alan Richardson
- 14 Memory in the Literary Memoir 297
- John Burt Foster, Jr.
- 15 Memory in Theater :
- The Scene Is Memory 315
- Attilio Favorini
- V Manifestations in the Arts 335
- 16 Memory in Art :
- History and the Neuroscience of Response 337
- David Freedberg
- 17 Memory in Musical Form :
- From Bach to Ives 359
- David Michael Hertz
- 18 Neurocognitive Approaches to Memory in Music :
- Music Is Memory 377
- Barbara Tillmann, Isabelle Peretz, and Séverine Samson
- 19 Memory, Movies, and the Brain 395
- Fernando Vidal
- About the Authors 417
- Index 425
Reviews
“[A]n intriguing and well-written book that provides a groundbreaking overview of diverse approaches to understanding memory that sets the agenda for an interdisciplinary approach to the topic . We highly recommend this pioneering book to anyone interested in the nature of memory.” — Liane Gabora & Apara Ranjan, PsycCRITIQUES
Endorsements
"Memory has long been a topic of great interest to both neuroscientists and humanists, but the two groups have for the most part worked independently. The Memory Process bridges the gap by linking insights from leaders in both disciplines. This pioneering volume will help to set an agenda for the interdisciplinary study of memory, and is therefore essential for anyone interested in the nature of remembering and forgetting."
Daniel L. Schacter, William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Psychology, Harvard University, and author of The Seven Sins of Memory
"The last two decades have been stellar ones for neuroscience. In pursuing memory, a perfect subject for interdisciplinary dialogue, the editors of this breakthrough collection arrive at a new threshold of intellectual excitement and promise. Proponents of comparative approaches to literature and the arts will see why we should connect with crucial scientific developments; conversely, specialists in brain and mind research are encouraged to discover a treasury of data in artworks. Two orders of complexity are here brought together in exemplary creative fashion."
Gerald E.P. Gillespie, Professor Emeritus of Comparative Literature, Stanford University