The Construction of Memory 2: Martin Conway & Chris French

Martin Conway: False Memories in the Remembering-Imaging System

What do memories represent? At best they represent some fragments derived from our experience of a past event. That ‘experience’ may have intersected with ‘reality’ to some degree. So the fragments preserved in memory derive from our experience of reality, also to some degree. The brain non-consciously and automatically ‘fills in’, by making unconscious inferences, much of the detail of a ‘memory’. Memories are constructed in the remembering-imaging system (RIS), where future events are also imagined, as well alternative pasts. In this paper I consider how errors and false memories can arise in the RIS for past and future events.

 

Chris French: Memory for Trauma

This talk will present an overview of research investigating the nature of memory for traumatic events with a particular focus upon examining the Freudian notion of repression. The idea that the experience of trauma often results in the automatic and involuntary repression of memories into the unconscious mind is critically assessed and the risk that the search for such memories can result in the production of false memories is discussed.

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