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The importance of memories.
The importance of memories.
autobiographical memory episodic memory
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Critically assess the theory that our memory for the past is a crucial element in imagining the future.
Human beings do not have the ability to travel in time; therefore the only way to detach themselves from the present is through their mental world, where they can access past recollections as well as prospective expectations. The only memory system allowing individuals to mentally time travel is episodic memory. Bartlett (1932) proposed the idea that memory is not an actual reproduction of the past, but a constructive process in which distinct pieces of information from various sources are drawn together. Therefore episodic memory does not just hold and retrieve exact replicas of past experiences but rather holds detailed distinctive informations which allow individuals to recollect past events.
Schacter and Addis (2007) argued that details from the past episodes are also crucial for fabricating or imagining future scenes and occurring. This ability is referred to as prospection or episodic future thinking. Re-experiencing of past events and the capacity of the pre-experience episodes in the future are enabled by the same episodic memory system. However as the future is not an exact duplication of the past, they argue that simulating of the future happenings is enabled by a constructive, rather than reproductive system, able to extract and recombine elements from the past experiences in order to imagine the future. If this claim is correct there should be a considerable overlap in psychological as well as in neural processes involved in remembering the past and imagining the future.
Shao, Yao, Ceci and Wang (2010) reject Schacter and Addis’ idea, claiming that future scenarios are not merely a reflection of the past but ...
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...nd into the future operates on the same cognitive capacities. The argument was supported with presenting brief descriptions of behavioural studies and neuroimaging experiments, presenting evidence for the claims that recollecting the past and envisioning the future involve a shared brain network and that imagining future scenarios requires collecting and amending details from the past. Contradictory to this view, the essay presented Shao, Yao, Ceci and Wang’s theory of the importance of individual concept of self on envisioning future events, showing differences in peoples past and future self concepts. Furthermore, the essay was summed up with the idea that both views should meet on a common ground, as mental time travel into the past and the future is enabled by a shared brain network, however it is also influenced by acquired non personal knowledge of the world.
Musser, George. Time on the Brain: How You Are Always Living In the Past, and Other
The things we know now alter our perceptions of the past and the future. Similarly, how we feel currently about something is how we thought we felt about it in the past, and how we think we will feel about it in the future. We think about time on a timeline, and have a tendency to think of sequential occasions as happening all at on...
Memory is everything to the human society. We communicate and build relationships off of our memories through the stories we tell. We are natural story tellers and have been telling stories since the beginning of time. More than half of the human race lives their lives based off of stories told by others such as culture, religion, and our general history. Have you ever asked yourself how real are these stories? Not saying that they are false, but it has been recently revealed that memory is false. So if memories are false then that would mean the stories that are being told are false. You probably looking at me as if I’m crazy but if you pay attention you will understand by the end of this essay. “It has been proven
In addition, knowing about our past and our present gives us wisdom to see into the future. According to a student essay from springboard the author recalls, “With barely any mental effort, memory helps us travel back in time to important events in our life; with its aid we can see our first day of high school, smell last winter's fire or taste yesterday’s lunch.” (Springboard 167)
Definition of memory and it's functions is difficult to illustrate by a single sentence. Consequently we use several metaphors to describe memory implicitly. Our beliefs, perceptions and imagination influence memory. The fact gave rise to memory being described as a reconstructive process, explaining that memory is not an exact record of a particular experience. Instead we bring various components together and fill in the blanks with our predisposed schemas while recalling. The metaphor building "an entire dinosaur skeleton from fossils" is the indirect way to describe memory as cognitive reconstruction. Remembering includes using schemas which are the mental representations of a concept, person or an event.They rejuvenate an incomplete memory such that it is perceived to be an undiminished one. Of course there are errors experienced when recalling which supports the idea of imperfect memory. These can be errors of commission, adding details which were not a part of the experience and errors of omission, which is excluding some aspects of the experience. In this paper I will support the selected metaphor and will provide evidence approving it.
...These specifics recalled consist of things which, under normal conditions, we probably would not have ever remembered. The number of detailed facts retained about a particular situation is usually commensurate to the intensity of involvement or proximity to the action in question; therefore, it can be reasonably concluded that while these memories are not always perfectly engrained into our minds, interesting arguments exist which support the possibility of substantial and long-term recall of these matters.
Have you ever wondered what allows us to be aware of the present? It is actually the past! Without knowledge of past information, we would be constantly confused during the present and incapable of almost everything. Hockenbury & Hockenbury (2012) describes memory to be, “…the mental processes that enable us to acquire, retain, and retrieve information”. Without the presence of either of these three processes, the other two would be obsolete. Many experiments have been conducted to better understand these processes and break them down into their basic components.
Memory is the tool we use to learn and think. We all use memory in our everyday lives. Memory is the mental faculty of retaining and recalling past experiences. We all reassure ourselves that our memories are accurate and precise. Many people believe that they would be able to remember anything from the event and the different features of the situation. Yet, people don’t realize the fact that the more you think about a situation the more likely the story will change. Our memories are not a camcorder or a camera. Our memory tends to be very selective and reconstructive.
The first issue that needs to be addressed however is what exactly is memory? “ Without memory we would be servants of the moment, with nothing but our innate reflexes to help us deal with the world. There would be no language, no art, no science, no culture. Civilization itself is the distillation of human memory” (Blakemore 1988). The simple interpretation of Blakemore’s theory on what memory is that a person’s memory is at least one of the most important things in their life and without it civilization itself could not exist.
The findings of Timothy A. Allen along with Norbert J. Fortin, and Erika Hayasaki, reveal further insight into the role episodic memory plays in everyday life for humans. Episodic memory can be understood as memory for personal experience. Episodic memory is a type of long term memory that individuals are consciously aware of; making it an explicit memory. With that being said, this type of memory allows people to relive and re-experience memories from their personal past in their mind. This is why many refer to episodic memory as mental time travel. Through mental time travel, individuals are able to recall the circumstances under which they encountered specific experiences. Circumstances can include concepts such as what, where, and when an experience happened. Given the power that this form of memory provides, it is argued that
According to Sternberg (1999), memory is the extraction of past experiences for information to be used in the present. The retrieval of memory is essential in every aspect of daily life, whether it is for academics, work or social purposes. However, many often take memory for granted and assume that it can be relied on because of how realistic it appears in the mind. This form of memory is also known as flashbulb memory. (Brown and Kulik, 1977). The question of whether our memory is reliably accurate has been shown to have implications in providing precise details of past events. (The British Psychological Association, 2011). In this essay, I would put forth arguments that human memory, in fact, is not completely reliable in providing accurate depictions of our past experiences. Evidence can be seen in the following two studies that support these arguments by examining episodic memory in humans. The first study is by Loftus and Pickrell (1995) who found that memory can be modified by suggestions. The second study is by Naveh-Benjamin and Craik (1995) who found that there is a predisposition for memory to decline with increasing age.
Suddendorf, T. & Corballis, M.C. (2007) The evolution of foresight: What is mental time travel, and is it unique to humans? [On-line] Available from: http://www.memorylab.org/Files/Corballis_MTT_BBS_2007.pdf, [accessed 5th May 2011].
This creates the illusion, at any given moment, that the past already happened and the future doesn 't yet exist, and that things are changing. But all that anyone is ever aware of is their brain state right at that moment. The only reason anyone feels like they have a past is that their brain contains memories."(Max Tegmark, "Is Time Fundamental")
It has idea about the future & memories of the past that shape present action.
The sites of memory tell that we must create archives, preserve memories because the memories will not occur again naturally. Memory becomes a history with each passing moment. In modern societies today, memory is archival through recording, taking pictures. With the advent of modern technology, people are creating memories and preserving them as well. As today it is very difficult to draw a line of distinction where we can say what to remember and what not to. The prediction is impossible what we should therefore remember. “Memory transforms from historical to psychological, social to individual, from repetition to creating re-memories.”(Nora: 15)