Chapter 3 More about Memory

This chapter picks up and elaborates a single topic from the previous two chapters: that of memory. Memory was discussed in those chapters sufficiently to support their argument, and to go into greater detail would have unbalanced them. However, there is more to say about memory that is relevant to the issues they raise, and this chapter continues the discussion of the topic on a broader front.

Two distinct views of memory appeared in Chapters 1 and 2. It may be considered as a process of recollection, reproducing accurately a record of experience that has been lodged in the mind, more or less unchanged, since the events in question happened. On the other hand, a person remembering can be seen as creating more actively in the present moment the experience of memory in relation to the past. Among researchers in the field of memory both these views have been held. The former has been referred to as the ‘reappearance hypothesis’ of memory (Neisser, 1967: 285). According to the latter view, by contrast, our recollections are not mere records of facts: they reflect the manner in which we elaborate our experience. ‘Memories are not simply activated pictures in the mind but complex constructions’ (Schacter, 1996: 209). This second view of memory is known as the ‘constructivist’ hypothesis.

The reappearance hypothesis is illustrated dramatically by the work of the neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield in the 1950s. In cases of intractable epilepsy, Penfield would surgically remove the cluster of cells in the brain which was generating the epileptic seizures. He determined the location of this focus by stimulating areas of the brain electrically, while the patient was still conscious. In the course of this work he observed that when particular areas in the temporal lobe were stimulated the patient would relive an experience from the past, crystal clear in the present moment. Restimulation of the same area would reliably bring back a vivid re-experiencing, in just the same form, of the