Memory and Emotion: The Making of Lasting Memories (Hardcover)

by James L. McGaugh (Author) "I am standing backstage, closely watching my fellow actors in the play and waiting for the line that is a cue for my entry onstage..." (more)
Key Phrases: William James, New York, Mark Packard (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
This has a press date of 24 July and we've had the first wonderful review from THE GUARDIAN 'he writes plainly and evocatively, illuminating dark cornerswhile at the same time keeping a healthy respect for the mind's magic.'Andrew Motion THE GUARDIAN More reviews to follow --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"In Memory and Emotion, James L. McGaugh gives a rich and insightful overview of modern memory research in the context of seminal discoveries of the past. Perhaps no one alive today is better suited to have written such a book.... Although I too work in the field, I learned many things about its history from this a concise, well-written book, which nonexperts will also enjoy.... superb." -- Joseph E. LeDoux, American Scientist

"McGaugh, one of the world's leading experts on the neurobiology of memory and emotion... offers a basic history of the research on learning and memory...This is a fine book for academic and larger public libraries." -- Library Journal

"The book blends scientific research with personal anecdotes and even examples from literature for an absorbing read on the mysteries of memory." -- The Daily News of Los Angeles

"This readable book provides easy access to the dramatic progress that has taken place in the scientific understanding of memory. The writing style is engaging and the material fascinating. Highly recommended." -- Choice

"McGaugh has issued an invitation to adventure for any reader who has wondered about how our brains achieve one of their most extraordinary -- and still mysterious -- feats." -- Guy M. McKhann, Cerebrum

"The book provides a succinct and lucid summary of many facts related to memory... [and] will almost inevitably reward readers with facts or points of view not previously considered." -- Robert W. Doty, Quarterly Review of Biology

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Columbia University Press (June 25, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0231120222
• ISBN-13: 978-0231120227
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 5.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #514,997 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Memory Primer, October 13, 2003

By	R. Hardy "Rob Hardy" (Columbus, Mississippi USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

One of the faculties of mind that is extremely puzzling is our capacity to remember. Jane Austen knew this. In _Mansfield Park_, she wrote, "If any one faculty of our nature may be called more wonderful than the rest, I do think it is memory... We are, to be sure, a miracle every way; but our powers of recollecting and of forgetting do seem peculiarly past finding out." Past finding out two hundred years ago, yes, and not nearly fully found out now, but memory is gradually yielding its secrets. James L. McGaugh is the director of the Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory at the University of California, and he has written a primer, _Memory and Emotion: The Making of Lasting Memories_ (Columbia University Press), which is a fine summary of how some of the mysteries of memory are being tackled. He has written "for a general readership" (the book is in the "Maps of the Mind" series), but the subject will be a foreign one for most readers, and there are pithy pages that his general readers may have to struggle through. For the most part, though, McGaugh tells good anecdotes and admirably makes clear some of the most hidden of mental processes, and the explanations help us wonder anew at the remarkable capacities that every one of us takes for granted.

It is certainly a field in which people are interested. There are plenty of books with titles like _Boost Your Memory Now_, and the health stores do a fine business in herbal treatments that are supposed to make our memories better, with little evidence they work. There may be drugs that improve specific memories, however, or decrease their consolidation. Much of the research has been done on rats; evolutionarily, their brains wound up much like ours, just smaller and less complex. Rats can be trained to do such memory-requiring tasks as maze-running and then can be fiddled with in ways that humans cannot. Such drugs as strychnine, a central nervous system stimulant, can be given immediately _after_ maze training (that is, after all the learning exercise has been done), and the rats remember better what they learned during the training. Giving the strychnine hours after the training does nothing; the brains must have a consolidation phase during which the memory is laid down. Other experiments show that a drug like propranolol, used to lower blood pressure because it counteracts the body's store of epinephrine (also known as adrenaline), can counteract epinephrine's capacity to help consolidate memories. Giving propranolol after an emotional memory test blocks the enhancement boost that emotion gives to memory. This is not an academic exercise. Emergency room victims of trauma, if given propranolol, are less likely to have symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.

In such ways is memory yielding its secrets. In his review, McGaugh quite rightly refers to the important work of Susan Loftus that shows that false memories can be implanted, especially in children. If you go to a family reunion, it does not take long to learn that some people remember important events one way, and others another contradictory way, but the memories are really there, false or not. Implanting such seemingly real memories is the way that bogus therapists convince their patients that, say, they have received Satanic abuse as children. Eyewitness testimony has been shown to be terribly fallible, now that we have video cameras and DNA testing. But McGaugh and others have been able to discover some secrets about how generally reliable a servant memory is and how it is able to do its job. His volume allows us the pleasing exercise of picking up from a leader in the field just how much research has been accomplished, and of catching a bit of his enthusiasm for his work.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The scientific exploration of memory, February 24, 2005

By	R. Dallas Linley (Sudbury, Ontario, Canda) - See all my reviews

The functioning of our mind to record our past and allow us to live as we do in this world has been explored scientifically for over 100 years. James L. McGaugh reviews much of the critical literature on memory and its consolidation in this book. The book should be required reading for anyone studying or interested in memory function.
In Memory and Emotion, McGaugh reviews the different brain systems/regions involved in memory and how they operate with regard to time while recording our lives. But he also writes of how emotional arousal affects the strength of our memories and explores how memories can be influenced and completely false memories can be created. McGaugh attempts to make this literature interesting to the common reader; but his attempts are still very technical and he quickly shifts to the use of multiple acronyms. The book is saved by his great enthusiasm in writing about his own field of interest, and through his attempt to relate research to more common experiences. He writes about highly technical investigations giving only the very minimum in terms of methodology, while stating the major conclusions of these studies in a well organized and coherent manner.
While I would not recommend this book to a common readership, it is an impressively condensed volume of information for those who are interested in some of the more scientific aspects of memory and its function in our daily lives.