Memory is studied in the fields of neuroscience and cognitive psychology—a lot! In fact, it is hard to keep current with all the research and related articles. Today I will post a goulash of memory-related links. Why? Because the past, the stories we tell about what happened, are typically an integral part of conflict.
Therefore, a basic skill of mediation is the ability to integrate these memories into models of conflict resolution. In order to do so, it is helpful (probably essential) to understand memory's fallibility and choose how to navigate with our clients its slipperiness. Navigate is an apt verb because a memory changes like the ocean's waves, always new each time it forms.
To spur your thinking about memory today, let's start with a somewhat surprising article Anthony Barnhart, cognitive psychologist cum magician, was kind enough to bring to my attention. Abstract from "What People Believe about How Memory Works: A Representative Survey of the U.S. Population" (PLoS ONE):
Incorrect beliefs about the properties of memory have broad implications: The media conflate normal forgetting and inadvertent memory distortion with intentional deceit, juries issue verdicts based on flawed intuitions about the accuracy and confidence of testimony, and students misunderstand the role of memory in learning. We conducted a large representative telephone survey of the U.S. population to assess common beliefs about the properties of memory. Substantial numbers of respondents agreed with propositions that conflict with expert consensus: Amnesia results in the inability to remember one’s own identity (83% of respondents agreed), unexpected objects generally grab attention (78%), memory works like a video camera (63%), memory can be enhanced through hypnosis (55%), memory is permanent (48%), and the testimony of a single confident eyewitness should be enough to convict a criminal defendant (37%). This discrepancy between popular belief and scientific consensus has implications from the classroom to the courtroom.
Click here and here to read overviews of this article.
As you can see from the survey, many people believe memory works like a video camera. Want to demonstrate that it
Next, read or listen to an interview of guru of memory fallibity Elizabeth Loftus. From "Eyewitness Testimony Can Be Problematic At Trial" (NPR):
[Y]esterday, the supreme court of New Jersey issued instructions to judges in that state.
When they charge the jury in cases that include eyewitness testimony, they must inform the jury of potential problems with such accounts. New Jersey judges will be required to say, among other things, human memory is not foolproof. Research has revealed that human memory is not like a video recording that a witness need only replay to remember what happened. Memory is far more complex.
If you have been to any of my programs, you may recall that we discuss memory experimenter Hermann Ebbinghaus and his Curve of Forgetting. And speaking of Dr. Ebbinghaus, here's an article that is both fun and a good overview of some of the current science of memory. In "Updating Ebbinghaus on the Science of Memory" (Europe's Journal of Psychology), Dr. Loftus and her co-author Eryn Newman update Ebbinghaus (he is bit behind the times since he died in 1909) on what we now know about memory.
You can imagine our shock when one day we received a letter from Ebbinghaus asking us what had happened in the field of memory since his death over 100 years ago. We had so much to tell him, that we thought it would be more efficient to have a personal conversation. We located Ebbinghaus and managed to arrange a quick Skype conversation (Readers, please suspend for a few minutes your natural skepticism about our ability to Skype with those who have passed on).
And finally from a more philosophical point of view, an excerpt from "Do our lives need a narrative? The storytelling self is as real a part of us as the experiencing, fleeting self" (Financial Times Magazine):
Sceptics argue that this creation of a coherent narrative of self is a kind of Stalinism that rewrites the chaotic reality of lived life in order to tell a neat, straight story with a beginning, middle and end. We construct a biographical fiction and then mistake it for autobiographical fact. We may find narratives of self beneficial, but they are just fairy stories, crutches to help us deal with the confusing flux of existence.
What do you believe about the stories of our lives, of our pasts? There is certainly more than one opinion about their veracity and role in the present and future. How do you assimilate them into the way you facilitate conflict resolution? To me, that question is one each conflict professional must answer through a thoughtful process informed by the science.
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