Charles B. Stone

Building consensus about the past: Schema consistency and convergence in socially shared retrieval-induced forgetting

A large body of literature on “within-individual retrieval-induced forgetting” (WI-RIF; Anderson, Bjork, & Bjork, 1994) shows that repeatedly retrieving some items, while not retrieving other related items, facilitates later recall of the practised items, but inhibits later recall of the non-practised related items. This robust effect has recently been extended to “socially shared retrieval-induced forgetting” (SS-RIF; Cuc, Koppel, & Hirst, 2007). People who merely listen to a speaker retrieving some, but not other, items—even people participating as speakers or listeners in conversations—show the same facilitation and inhibition. We replicated and extended the SS-RIF effect with a structured story (Experiment 1) and in a free-flowing conversation about the story (Experiment 2). Specifically, we explored (1) the degree to which participants subsequently form a coherent “collective memory” of the story and (2) whether schema consistency of the target information influences both WI-RIF and SS-RIF. In both experiments, speakers and listeners showed RIF (that is, WI-RIF and SS-RIF, respectively), irrespective of the schema consistency of the story material. On final recall, speakers and listeners described similar renderings of the story. We discuss these findings in terms of the role of “silences” in the formation of collective memories.

Toward a science of silence: The consequences of leaving a memory unsaid

Silence about the past permeates acts of remembering, with marked mnemonic consequences. Mnemonic silence—the absence of expressing a memory—is public in nature and is embedded within communicative acts, such as conversations. As such, silence has the potential to affect both speakers—the source of the silence—and listeners—those attending to the speaker. Although the topic of silence is widely discussed, it is rarely mentioned in the empirical literature on memory. Three factors are employed to classify silence into different types: whether a silence is accompanied by covert remembering, whether the silence is intentional or unintentional, and whether the silenced memory is related or unrelated to the memories emerging in a conversation. These factors appear to be critical when considering the mnemonic consequences. Moreover, the influence of silence on memory varies between speaker and listener. Although rarely mentioned, recent empirical research on memory clearly has a bearing on a topic of such general interest as silence.

Forgetting our personal past: socially-shared retrieval-induced forgetting of autobiographical memories

People often talk to others about their personal past. These discussions are inherently selective. Selective retrieval of memories in the course of a conversation may induce forgetting of unmentioned but related memories for both speakers and listeners (Cuc, Koppel, & Hirst, 2007). Cuc et al. (2007) defined the forgetting on the part of the speaker as within-individual retrieval-induced forgetting (WI-RIF) and the forgetting on the part of the listener as socially shared retrieval-induced forgetting (SS-RIF). However, if the forgetting associated with WI-RIF and SS-RIF is to be taken seriously as a mechanism that shapes both individual and shared memories, this mechanism must be demonstrated with meaningful material and in ecologically valid groups. In our first 2 experiments we extended SS-RIF from unemotional, experimenter-contrived material to the emotional and unemotional autobiographical memories of strangers (Experiment 1) and intimate couples (Experiment 2) when merely overhearing the speaker selectively practice memories. We then extended these results to the context of a free-flowing conversation (Experiments 3 and 4). In all 4 experiments we found WI-RIF and SS-RIF regardless of the emotional valence or individual ownership of the memories. We discuss our findings in terms of the role of conversational silence in shaping both our personal and shared pasts.

Justifying Atrocities The Effect of Moral-Disengagement Strategies on Socially Shared Retrieval-Induced Forgetting

A burgeoning literature has established that exposure to atrocities committed by in-group members triggers moral-disengagement strategies. There is little research, however, on how such moral disengagement affects the degree to which conversations shape people’s memories of the atrocities and subsequent justifications for those atrocities. We built on the finding that a speaker’s selective recounting of past events can result in retrieval-induced forgetting of related, unretrieved memories for both the speaker and the listener. In the present study, we investigated whether American participants listening to the selective remembering of atrocities committed by American soldiers (in-group condition) or Afghan soldiers (out-group condition) resulted in the retrieval-induced forgetting of unmentioned justifications. Consistent with a motivated-recall account, results showed that the way people’s memories are shaped by selective discussions of atrocities depends on group-membership status.

Induced) Forgetting to form a collective memory

How communities forge collective memories has been a topic of long-standing interest among social scientists and, more recently, psychologists. However, researchers have typically focused on how what is overtly remembered becomes collectively remembered. Recently, though, Stone and colleagues have delineated different types of silence and their influence on how individuals and groups remember the past, what they termed, mnemonic silence. Here we focus on the importance of relatedness in understanding the mnemonic consequences of public silence. We begin by describing two common means of investigating collective memories: the social construction approach and the psychological approach. We subsequently discuss in detail a psychological paradigm, retrieval-induced forgetting, and demonstrate how this initially individual memory paradigm can and has been extended to social contexts in the form of public silence and may provide insights into larger sociological phenomenon, in our case, collective memories. We conclude by discussing avenues of future research and the benefits of including a psychological perspective in the field of collective memory.

Induced forgetting and reduced confidence in our personal past? The consequences of selectively retrieving emotional autobiographical memories

People build their sense of self, in part, through their memories of their personal past. What is striking about these personal memories is that, in many instances, they are inaccurate, yet confidently held. Most researchers assume that confidence ratings are based, in large part, on the memorys mnemonic features. That is, the more vivid or detailed the memory, the higher the confidence people have in its accuracy. However, we explore a heretofore underappreciated source on which confidence ratings may be based: the accessibility of memories as a result of selective retrieval. To explore this possibility, we use Anderson, Bjork, and Bjorks retrieval-induced forgetting (RIF) paradigm with emotional (positive and negative) autobiographical memories. We found the standard RIF effect for memory recall across emotional valence. That is, selective retrieval of emotional autobiographical memories induced forgetting of related, but not retrieved emotional autobiographical memories compared to the baseline. More interestingly, we found that the confidence ratings for positive memories mirrored the RIF pattern: decreased confidence for related, unpracticed autobiographical memories relative to the baseline. For negative memories, we found the opposite pattern: increased confidence for both practiced autobiographical memories and related, unpracticed autobiographical memories. We discuss these results in terms of accessibility, the diverging mnemonic consequences of selectively retrieving positive and negative autobiographical memories and personal identity.

Remembering President Barack Obama's inauguration and the landing of US Airways Flight 1549: A comparison of the predictors of autobiographical and event memory

We examined and compared the predictors of autobiographical memory (AM) consistency and event memory accuracy across two publicly documented yet disparate public events: the inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th president of the United States on January 20th 2009, and the emergency landing of US Airways Flight 1549, off the coast of Manhattan, on January 15th 2009. We tracked autobiographical and event memories for both events, with assessments taking place within 2½ weeks of both events (Survey 1), and again between 3½ and 4 months after both events (Survey 2). In a series of stepwise regressions we found that the psychological variables of recalled emotional intensity and personal importance/centrality predicted AM consistency and event memory accuracy for the inauguration. Conversely, the rehearsal variables of covert rehearsal and media attention predicted, respectively, AM consistency and event memory accuracy for the plane landing. We conclude from these findings that different factors may underlie autobiographical and event memory for personally and culturally significant events (e.g., the inauguration), relative to noteworthy, yet less culturally significant, events (e.g., the plane landing).

Contextualizing human memory

While research methodologies across the social sciences may differ, those social scientists interested in remembering in the “real world” agree that such remembrances occur in particular contexts and that these contexts have profound influences on how the past is remembered. Moreover, if human cognitive activity is the result of contextualized interactions with culturally and historically organized material and social environments (Huchins, 2010), then an explicit description of these contexts is essential toward understanding when and how individuals and groups remember the past at any particular moment (see, for example, the work by the psychologist, Endel Tulving on the encoding specificity principle, Tulving and Thomson, 1973; see also Surprenant and Neath, 2009). This Special Issue integrates cutting-edge research from memory scholars across disparate disciplines who, in general, have remained largely ignorant of each others’ research. Thus, a central goal of this Special Issue is to explicitly examine how different but interrelated contexts (e.g. bodily, intercorporal, psychological, conversational, technological, societal, and political) shape the way individuals and groups remember the past in natural, applied, and experimental settings. To this end, this Special Issue brings together diverse perspectives in memory and communication research—from discursive, social, and cognitive psychologists, to philosophers, cognitive linguists, and technological designers. In doing so, we hope and believe that the sum of this Special Issue will ultimately provide, not only a description of the breadth of memory studies research being conducted across disciplines but also a better understanding of how different contexts shape the way individuals and groups remember the past and help provide the basis for an interdisciplinary model of how the past is remembered. In June 2012, a 3-day workshop was held on “remembering in context” at the Center for Interdisciplinary Memory Research (ZiF), Bielefeld University, Germany, to explore the varieties of contexts across disciplines that shape the way individuals and groups remember the past. The

The interplay between collective memory and the erosion of nation states – the paradigmatic case of Belgium: Introduction to the special issue

The main goal of the special issue on ‘the interplay between collective memory and the erosion of nation states: The paradigmatic case of Belgium’ is to examine the erosion of the Belgian State as an exemplary illustration of the way memories of past events can influence current attitudes, emotions, representations and behaviours. We believe that the recent political crisis in Belgium, with no government for more than one year after the 2010 general elections, could be partly illuminated by the diverging and sometimes contradictory memories each linguistic group (Dutch- vs. French-speakers) in Belgium holds about the past. These issues will be examined through different disciplines from the social sciences and humanities: social psychology, history, psychoanalysis, political sciences, and literature.

Forgetting history: The mnemonic consequences of listening to selective recountings of history

Our aim here is to delineate the connection between selective remembering and selective forgetting as it applies to lay historians listening to selective recountings of history. How does what a speaker remembers about a nation’s past shape what is forgotten about the nation’s past for the listener? To address this question, we will discuss psychological research demonstrating the mnemonic consequences of this selectivity with an emphasis on retrieval-induced forgetting within social settings. In particular, we highlight how selectively remembering nationally relevant, historical events may induce forgetting of related historical information for the listener, and this forgetting may not only have important implications for individual and national identities but said identities may influence both what is remembered and forgotten. We end with some concluding thoughts and areas of future research.