There is a lot of research that suggests that most of our memories are actually false, thus should not be treated as a reliable source of reference. These studies will be discussed in more detail, in order to improve the public’s understanding of memory formation and its fundamental errors. In order to understand false memory, it is necessary to know how memories are created in the first place. According to Schank, there are four different levels of memory: Event Memory (EM), Generalized Event Memory (GEM), Situational Memory (SM) and Intentional Memory (IM). Each of these levels consists of separate functions that are crucial for encoding information into the brain.
The great paradox of American culture is the need to redefine or create their past, likening themselves to the great and previous civilizations. Since America during this time just starts to take form, there is this sense that the culture and literature are inferior in comparison to preexisting, traditionally rich countries such as England. Being a new nation that encompasses a different history and ideals it, therefore, needs its own sense of identity. This desire to clarify and establish a national identity begets the creation of the American myth. The myth though fails because it does not embody the whole of American society or an accurate account of history.
The narratives also challenge the interpretation of history itself by implying it is an ulterior motive driven process and linear chronologies may not always be accurate. These twist and turns, makes it easy for us to add and subtract from the story. Therefore, History isn 't stable or true for that matter, it’s our perception of the
Up until the 19th century, trauma meant something psychical. Once limited to bodily wounds, trauma, in its contemporary understanding, is now also recognized as an injury to the mind, soul, or spirit. Though Sigmund Freud’s views of trauma evolved over time, what remains essential from his studies of “hysteria” and “shell-shock” is the inability of the mind to perceive the traumatic event as it occurs, resulting in a structure of delayed understanding. The traumatic memory cannot be processed on a linguistic level and as a result, surfaces through as somatosensory and involuntary responses. Studying these forms of embodied memory led those like French psychologist Pierre Janet to make the careful distinction between narrative and traumatic memory.
People would not be able to remember what they did, what have done and what they intend to do in their lives. Hence, memory is a significant element in our lives. Memory is the process where “we draw on our past experiences in order to use this information in the present” (Sternberg, 1999, p. 154). As elaborated by Sternberg (1999), there are three important stages in a memory process namely encoding information, storing encoded information and retrieving stored information (refer to Figure 1 in Appendix 1). The first stage in memory process is to encode information.
Why do people make an initial judgement about a person they have only seen or heard about? Without any information at all, the brain formulates an answer to the question they were pondering: who is that person? One of our greatest sins is to place people into boxes, defining them into one shape, into one dimension. Stereotypes are a very predominant part of reality as well as fictional works. In the novels The Hangman’s Daughter and The Dark Monk , by Oliver Pötzsch, one of the most prevalent themes presented is the idea that people do not necessarily reflect what society expects from them, either because of their role or position within the community.
The two critical theories studied this week, new historicism and cultural criticism, share many of the same concepts. Both theories are under the belief that history and culture are complex and that there is no way for us to fully understand these subjects because we are influenced by our subjective beliefs. Also, both theories believe that people are restricted by the limits society sets, and that people and these limits cause friction and struggle. Furthermore, both of these theories share from some of the same influences such as from the French philosopher Michel Foucault. New historicist believe that the writing of history is merely an interpretation, not an absolute fact, other than the big facts we know such as who was president at the time or who won a certain battle.
Cohen argues that social constructionist criticism also led to the disentanglement of concepts of home, homeland and diaspora. Avtar Brah argues that “the concept of diaspora offers a critique of discourses of fixed origins, while taking into account a homing desire. The homing desire, however, is not the same as the desire for a ‘homeland’”. This is because not all diasporas wish to (physically) return to their original
This one sin of the memory can be associated with the inability to grasp new information. One cannot remember facts he has read, or once he reads something new, the previous facts he already knew are lost. Interference c is the main cause of transience and can be classified into two: retroactive interference where new information prevents one from being able to remember old information, and proactive interference where old information prevents one from being able
However, Craps and Rothberg advocate the importance of making a connection between the Holocaust and other historical events like slavery and colonialism, since they regard these topics as interconnected (518). The scholars further argue that claims for the suffering of one victim group being unique denies “the capacity for, or the effectiveness of, transcultural empathy” (518). Therefore, they opine that it is important not to insist “on the distinctiveness and difference of one’s own history”, since this behaviour “can indicate a kind of blindness, a refusal to recognize the larger historical processes of which that history is a part” (518). As a result, Rothberg has introduced the term multidirectional memory in the process of studying “the significance of Holocaust memories in the age of decolonization” (Erll