Memory Narratives Research Articles

Sleep and retrieval practice both strengthen and distort story recollection

Abstract Over time, memories lose episodic detail and become distorted, a process with serious ramifications for eyewitness identification. What are the processes contributing to such transformations over time? We investigated the roles of post learning sleep and retrieval practice in memory accuracy and distortion, using a naturalistic story recollection task. Undergraduate students listened to a recording of the “War of the Ghosts”, a Native American folktale, and were assigned to either a sleep or wake delay group, and either a retrieval practice or listen-only study condition. We found higher accuracy after sleep compared to wake in the listen-only condition, but not in the retrieval practice condition. This effect was driven by participants in the wake, retrieval practice condition showing superior memory compared to the wake, listen only condition. A similar pattern was found for memory distortion, with both sleep and retrieval practice being associated with more inferences of non-presented, but story related information, compared to the wake, listen only condition. These findings suggest both sleep and retrieval practice contribute to narrative memory stabilization and distortion. This paper is part of the Festschrift in honor of Dr. Robert Stickgold. The open access publishing fee for this paper was contributed by the Psychiatry Department at BIDMC.

Unadorned: An Essay on a Conjugal Spectacle in Postcolonial Zanzibar

Abstract This essay explores the historical, political and cultural lessons of a Shia Khoja diasporic account about the Forced Marriage Act, also known as Ndoa za Karume (NZK), in 1964 post-revolutionary Zanzibar. It examines how the pogroms committed by the Afro-Shirazi government against Arab and Asian communities in this period shaped the narration and transmission of memories of social suffering. In particular, the essay analyzes a work by a Zanzibari Khoja exile in the United Kingdom highlighting the experience of young forced brides. It argues that NZK constituted literal, legal and social harms and thus provides insight into the abuse of women and girls as spoils of war. By engaging with this voice, we gain not only a deeper understanding of a specific historical moment but also a more nuanced understanding of the political context of gendered experience in an island adrift.

Spatializing collective memory: The idea of home and the War and Women’s Human Rights Museum

Focusing on the idea of home, this article investigates collective memory embodied in the War and Women’s Human Rights Museum in Seoul, South Korea. Centering ‘comfort women’s’ trauma and resistance, it analyzes the museum’s memory narrative and spatial strategy, which guide visitors through an empathic journey from past to present, memory to action. I first define the museum’s site-specificity, examining how the idea of home emerged from its construction history. Thereafter, I analyze the museum’s spatial paradigm of collective memorialization through the lens of Gaston Bachelard’s interpretation of a house. Exploring visitors’ spatial awareness of ‘comfort woman’ victims, I argue that the museum, combining a metaphor of home with the victims’ memory, builds a strong emotional connection to the victims and thereby encourages visitors to act on their behalf.

Is Sharing One’s Personal Story of Victimization Preferred? Incarcerated Women’s Perspectives on Group Treatment for Sexual Trauma

Treatment preferences are an important part of evidence-based practice and have been shown to affect treatment outcomes. In this two-part study, incarcerated women were asked about their preferences for two versions of a trauma-focused group treatment: one that requires sharing their personal memory of sexual victimization (Sharing Required) and one that does not (Sharing Not Required). Study 1 enrolled 88 non-treatment seeking women who evaluated the treatments based on descriptions of the groups. Study 2 was a partially randomized patient preference trial with 85 treatment-seeking women who either agreed to be randomly assigned to one of the two therapy groups or declined randomization and instead were directly assigned to their preferred therapy. Participants in Study 1 evaluated the Sharing Not Required condition more favorably (p < 0.001, Cohen’s d = 0.39). However, the results were affected by PTSD symptom severity as those above the clinical cutoff for probable PTSD evaluated both group treatments more favorably than those below the cutoff (ps < 0.05, Cohen’s ds ≥ 0.46). Study 2 found no significant difference between the proportion of participants who chose Sharing Required, Sharing Not Required, or had no personal preference, and the results did not differ by PTSD symptom severity (ps ≥ 0.70). Outcomes suggest that a variety of forms of trauma-focused therapy may be acceptable to incarcerated women, including those that involve personal narration of trauma memories and those that do not.

On Victims, Heroes, and Gulag-gupvi Survivors

Abstract Employing a biographical, oral history approach, this article documents the life story of a war veteran and gupvi survivor in Hungary to illustrate the multiple synchronic as well as diachronic cleavages that exist between the official, societal, and collective memory regimes in postcommunist Eastern Europe. István Bicskei’s life story highlights, in a tangible way, the fact that the socially constructed notions of victimhood and heroism vary as a complex outcome of the interaction of multiple forms of human, institutional, and political agencies in an ever-changing historical context and in multi-layered cultural milieux. The article argues that these key cultural notions are closely tied to individual understandings of personhood, to national and collective identities, but also to ruling ideologies and political regimes. The article also highlights the glaring gap between official, scholarly, and local narratives about the past that exists in marginalized rural communities and points to the conspicuous lack of cultural “mediators” or “intermediators” between these distinct political, media, and social spheres, and between official and grassroots memory narratives.

Gender in the Archive: The Dialogic Potential of Public Memory in the Outtakes from Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah

The original version of the film Shoah had an enormous impact on the revival of Holocaust memory. However, women appeared only a few times over the course of those nine long hours. Even though Lanzmann’s film achieved complexity in its representation of places, it failed to equally represent the experiences of both women and men, which is a disservice to all survivors. In 2016, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) released over 220 hours of additional outtake footage from Shoah, never seen by the public. The outtakes reveal longer interviews with women, and these missing voices shed light on women’s experiences during the Holocaust in more detail. I argue that the “outtakes” of this film can be used by audiences to deconstruct gender “neutralities” around testimony to reimagine public memory narratives and spaces about the Holocaust as highly gendered. In the “rhetorical process of gendering” in public memory, so-called “neutral” public memory narratives can be challenged by newly discovered artifacts like the outtakes. Though Shoah had elements of ambiguity, there was no way to challenge its strict binary in gender representation— until now. This active audience engagement with Holocaust artifacts, what I call performative memorialization, marks a kairotic force in Holocaust memorialization; the past collapses into the present to elicit a dialogic of active audience participation.

Pictures in our heads: Politics of space, time, and memory in Polish virtual reality storyworlds

This article examines the entangled politics of space, time and memory in the virtual realm of extended reality (XR). The illiberal right-wing Law and Justice party (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość) has been investing in the creation and dissemination of virtual reality (VR) content centred on historical themes since 2018. By mapping out the experiential geography of populism in virtual places, the article aims to identify the main features of this new immersive mode of politics. The article argues three main points on space, time, and memory: (1) in VR, places are storylived spaces that are conceived and designed by their creators to elicit a specific sense of place, accompanied by specific emotions and thoughts; (2) from an experiential point of view, the past does not exist in VR, only the virtual present, turning VR into a contemporary technology of myth-making and myth-living; (3) since VR experiences become integrated into the autobiographical memory, VR is a technology that shapes the self. In effect, VR storyworlds establish places for the embodied rehearsal of cultural memory narratives.

The FinSwed study: Using verbal NEPSY-II subtests with a cultural minority group

While it has been established that cultural differences in test performance are common, few studies have compared groups from different countries that speak the same language. The aim of this study was to investigate the generalizability of selected linguistic and verbal memory subtests from the Swedish NEPSY-II to the Finland-Swedish minority group. The participants were 275 Swedish-speaking children from Finland aged 5–16-years. The performance was compared to the U.S. norms used in the test. The Finland-Swedish children scored around scaled score 12 and significantly higher than the normative mean on the subtests Comprehension of Instructions, Phonological Processing, Word Generation Semantic, List Memory, and Sentence Repetition, whereas no significant differences to the norms emerged for the subtests Word Generation Initial Letter, Narrative Memory, and Word List Interference. There was a significant age effect for two subtests, with scaled scores increasing with age. Lower parental education and male sex were associated with lower test scores on some subtests, whereas bilingualism was not. The findings were viewed in relation to previous comparison studies involving the NEPSY-II/NEPSY. The differences were suggested to relate to cultural, educational, and test-related differences between Finland, Sweden, and the U.S. The results add to the clinical utility of the NEPSY-II.

Motifs of human hippocampal and cortical high frequency oscillations structure processing and memory of naturalistic stimuli.

The discrete events of our narrative experience are organized by the neural substrate that underlies episodic memory. This narrative process is segmented into discrete units by event boundaries. This permits a replay process that acts to consolidate each event into a narrative memory. High frequency oscillations (HFOs) are a potential mechanism for synchronizing neural activity during these processes. Here, we use intracranial recordings from participants viewing and freely recalling a naturalistic stimulus. We show that hippocampal HFOs increase following event boundaries and that coincident hippocampal-cortical HFOs (co-HFOs) occur in cortical regions previously shown to underlie event segmentation (inferior parietal, precuneus, lateral occipital, inferior frontal cortices). We also show that event-specific patterns of co-HFOs that occur during event viewing re-occur following the subsequent three event boundaries (in decaying fashion) and also during recall. This is consistent with models that support replay as a mechanism for memory consolidation. Hence, HFOs may coordinate activity across brain regions serving widespread event segmentation, encode naturalistic memory, and bind representations to assemble memory of a coherent, continuous experience.

Recapturing the Past: The Role of Historical Memory in Polish and Hungarian Populism

Collective memory is a driving force in populist and nationalist politics. The emotional appeals of a shared history, particularly relating to notions of victimhood and resistance, are deeply influential in national identity formation. In this essay, Hungary’s Fidesz party and Poland’s Law and Justice party (PiS) are explored in relation to their tendency to manipulate history to construct self-serving collective memories. Both Fidesz and PiS successfully employ selective interpretations of historical events to not only mobilize support but also to quell dissent, employing emotive appeals and moral justifications deeply rooted in the national psyche. In order to combat the illiberal and anti-democratic tendencies of populist manipulations of collective memory, this essay argues that strong civil societies and the promotion of alternative narratives of collective memory are necessary. Editorial Note: This final version of this piece was to be titled "The Past Reimagined: The Role of Historical Memory in Polish and Hungarian Populism". Due to an editorial error, a draft title was published in the print edition. In the spirit of continuity between the print and online edition, we have kept the title of the print edition's in the online version, but have included this note to explain the discrepancy. Our apologies to the author for the error.

Enhancing Autonomous Agents Through Narrative Memory: A Comprehensive Framework for Improved Performance and Interaction

The process of organizing information and experiences into a narrative style is known as narrative memory, and it presents a cutting-edge method for improving the performance of autonomous agents. This essay describes the idea of narrative memory, as well as its elements, construction of narrative structures, and uses. The four main elements of narrative memory are timelines, characters, events, and context. Events are important things that happen, such interactions or acts, and characters are people, other agents, and the autonomous agent. The context gives the underlying knowledge required to comprehend these events and individuals, while the chronology sets the order of occurrences, creating a cause-and-effect link. The process of creating narrative frameworks includes gathering data, identifying events, crafting stories, and refreshing memories. Three methods are used to collect data: external sources, user input, and sensors. This data is used to identify significant events, which are subsequently arranged into logical tales. New situations and experiences are constantly added to the narrative memory. Improved predictive analysis, easier learning and adaptability, and improved human-robot interaction are just a few of the uses of narrative memory in autonomous agents. Robots can interact with people more successfully if they can comprehend human narratives and reply with responses that are contextually relevant. Agents may learn and adapt by identifying patterns in their prior experiences, and they can make better decisions by forecasting future occurrences with the help of historical narratives. Managing the complexity of real-world events, addressing ambiguity and uncertainty, and guaranteeing the ethical use of narrative data are challenges in the implementation of narrative memory. In order to improve narrative memory frameworks, future research options include creating sophisticated story generating tools, integrating narrative memory with other memory systems, and working across disciplines. The goal of this roadmap is to enhance autonomous systems' comprehension, communication, and decision-making skills by utilizing the power of tales.

Unusual times: Remembering Turkey’s long sixties

The two decades spanning from 1960 to 1980 in Turkey marked a period of profound socio-political change, characterized by the emergence of new ideas, movements, and transformations that significantly influenced the entire society. This era, punctuated by three coups d’état and other pivotal historical events, shaped the formative experiences of diverse members of the young generation of time, regardless of their level of involvement. This article seeks to present a pluralistic memory narrative of Turkey’s long sixties, derived from the lived experiences of ordinary people, rather than solely focusing on the perspectives of activist individuals of the time. In doing so, the article aims to provide a more nuanced understanding of Turkey’s long sixties, shedding light on both the violence and utopian ideals that characterized the era. Furthermore, it seeks to contribute to an “agonistic memory” narrative of this contested period by acknowledging its complexity and bringing to light other perspectives alongside the dominant narratives.

Historical Memory and Personal Trauma in Yu Hua s Novels

This paper explores the intertwining of historical memory and personal trauma in Yu Hua s novels and their profound impact on individual and societal interactions. By analyzing works such as To Live and Brothers, the paper reveals how Yu Hua intricately integrates historical memory into individual lives, demonstrating how historical events leave imprints on the inner world of characters and form psychological trauma. Historical memory not only alters individuals material conditions but also shapes their emotions and behaviors on a psychological level. The paper further delves into how individuals cope with these traumas amidst societal changes and how social environments shape individual destinies. Yu Hua s works illustrate the complex interaction between individuals and society, revealing the deep impact of social structures and cultural values on personal lives. Through detailed depictions, this paper provides profound insights into individual and societal interactions, highlighting the significant role of historical memory and personal trauma in literary narrative and offering a rich perspective on understanding the impact of social change on individual lives.

Retelling the past crisis: Crisis memory and its influences on organizational reputation and public responses

Past crises are often collectively retold, recalled, and reconstructed on social media when a new crisis occurs, resulting in a special form of collective memory in crisis communication contexts: crisis memory. Through the lens of social constructionism, this study explores the crisis memory of SARS co-created on Chinese social media during COVID-19. First, based on a content analysis of 5677 Weibo posts, seven types of crisis memory narratives are identified (nationalism, heroism, identity, trauma, criticism, historical reference, and personal experience), and their differential usages by multiple users are analyzed. Second, with an online survey of 785 Chinese netizens, the influences of these crisis memory narratives on various perceptions (perceived organizational reputation, perceived threats, and perceived self-efficacy) and behaviors (protective behaviors) in the unfolding public health crisis are examined. Overall, this study provides a new perspective for crisis communication research that moves beyond the strategic communication of current crises to involve constructed narratives of past crises.

L’ús pòstum de les figures literàries en l’esfera pública: pràctiques i processos commemoratius en la cultura catalana contemporània

This special issue brings together a series of in-depth case studies of commemorative discourses and practices dedicated to some of the most important figures in contemporary Catalan literature from the beginning of the 19th century onwards, which contributed to transform selected writers (including Antoni Capmany, Jaume Balmes, Jacint Verdaguer, Àngel Guimerà and Josep Maria de Sagarra, as well as female authors, such as Josepa Massanés, Mercè Rodoreda, Anna Murià, Maria Aurèlia Cap-many and Montserrat Roig) into collective memory sites for the Catalan community. It aims to contribute critically to the burgeoning international scholarship on “cultural saints”, that is, the (generally male) writers, artists and intellectuals marked out as representative of cultural-national community identities in the age of consolidation of the nation-state. The bodies and corpora of the symbolic figures and cultural icons examined across the nine articles commissioned and collected here both served to confer legitimacy on diverse projects and agents in the public sphere and were the site of sometimes heightened debate over contested cultural memory narratives. In other words, they show the ways in which Catalan commemorative practices and processes are both a vehicle for the construction of a distinctive community imaginary as well as reflecting the divisions and dissensus between different agents and sub-groups, according to social, political, geographical, linguistic, generational and gender affiliation, among other factors.

Beyond memory: The transcendence of episodic narratives.

Humans have a proclivity for storytelling and narration. Although a lot of attention in the field of episodic memory focuses on the mnemonic content of narratives, memory narratives are not just for conveying the past. Instead, narratives provide a vehicle for meaning-making, social connection, and other complex facets of human cognition and thinking. This short reflection piece discusses the importance of narratives in these diverse realms. In addition, it briefly touches on the role of memory narration in the modern digital era. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Vision of transmedia narratives of memory. Case study of the digital platform Museum of Memory and Human Rights of Chile

Vision of transmedia narratives of memory. Case study of the digital platform Museum of Memory and Human Rights of Chile

The age of digital memory, the meaning of human ‘narrative memory’

The age of digital memory, the meaning of human ‘narrative memory’

Memory Writing and Cosmopolitan Identity in Timothy Mo’s Pure

ABSTRACT In his recent novel Pure (2012), Timothy Mo maps the complex interaction between memory and identity in the post-9/11 context. The novel interweaves the memory narratives of four protagonists and mainly describes the protagonist Snooky’s attempts to negotiate between the Islamic world and the West. This essay draws on memory studies to explore how memory shapes the protagonists’ cosmopolitan identity. The novel contests the binarism prevalent in both Western and fundamentalist Islamic discourses and proposes a cosmopolitan identity that extends beyond the established narrative. This paper argues that the novel explores the otherness inherent in seemingly homogeneous memory narratives and thus nuances the self-versus-other narrative. It suggests that the normative role of collective memory in identity formation may compromise cultural reconciliation. Pure criticizes the constraints of collective memory and reveals the challenges to cosmopolitan identity in a conflict-ridden world.

Semantic details in autobiographical memory narratives increase with age among younger adults

ABSTRACT It is well documented that older adults, compared to younger adults, produce fewer episodic details and more semantic details when recalling autobiographical memories. However, group comparisons have provided limited insight into the trajectories of detail generation across the lifespan. Utilising an open source dataset [Clark, I. A., & Maguire, E. A. (2023). Release of cognitive and multimodal MRI data including real-world tasks and hippocampal subfield segmentations. Scientific Data, 10(1), 1–29. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-022-01899-x], we examined how episodic and semantic detail generation varied with age among 194 younger adults, ages 20-41. We tested whether age differences were mediated by hippocampal subfield volumes and MTL resting-state functional connectivity. Results indicated that semantic details increased with age, while episodic details remained stable. We observed age differences in hippocampal subfield volumes and MTL connectivity, but these measures did not mediate age effects on semantic detail. Based on these and prior findings [Matijevic, S., Andrews-Hanna, J. R., Wank, A. A., Ryan, L., & Grilli, M. D. (2022). Individual differences in the relationship between episodic detail generation and resting state functional connectivity vary with age. Neuropsychologia, 166, 108138. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2021.108138], we suggest a model of diverging episodic and semantic detail generation trajectories across the adult lifespan.