Customer Reviews

Searching For Memory: The Brain, The Mind, And The Past

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Your memory is certainly the most crucial aspect of who you are. Without it, arguably at least, consciousness itself borders on irrelevance, and identity no longer exists. Most of us think of memory, metaphorically, as shining a spotlight on images, sounds, and emotions from our past. Reading Daniel Schacter's fascinating text, Searching for Memory, The Brain, the Mind, and the Past, I realized just how deceptive and simplistic that notion is. In fact, every time you speak, or write something, or read, or drive a car, you're calling on "procedural" memory which allows you to learn skills and acquire habits, and/or "semantic" memory, which includes conceptual and factual knowledge. Even the spotlight-type memories you do have can be divided into "field" memories, which mimic your perceptions at the time of the original experience, and "observer" memories, which where you actually see yourself from the outside. (The latter is common when recalling early-childhood experiences.) Searching for Memory is beautifully written, and teeming with stories and anecdotes that illustrate the nature of memory in a way that makes the absorption of its insights effortless. My only complaint about this book is that my wife kept trying to read it over my shoulder. If you're married, I suggest you order two copies

The title of this book is not very helpful in understanding what this book is about. There is a translation of Schacter's book (ISBN 3498063243) in German titled "Wir sind Erinnerung", meaning "we are recollections". These three words sum up the essence of the whole book much better than the original title. Really.

Schacter seems to be one of the leading scientists in the field of research on memory. He coined several technical terms of the field and built theories about how humans remember, what they remember and how they fail to remember. This book is a summary of Schacter's work over the period 1980 to 1995 in plain words. While the main text uses very few technical terms, there are many many references to scientific papers. The Notes section stretches over 40 pages, the bibliography covers 35 pages, and the index is excellent. All in all a well written book about a scientific subject.

If you are a scientist in the field, this book is not for you. You should read scientific papers instead of reading 400 pages of a paperback book. There are some other things I do not like about this book (which others seem to like). Schacter often refers to paintings of artists which are reproduced (in black and white, no colour) in the book. These pictures illustrate the way some artists feel about several aspects of memorizing. Well, I am not interested in such poor black and white reproductions, but perhaps you like it. Another annoying feature of this book is that there is often too much story telling in it. I would have liked more conciseness and precision instead of the many many cases a clinician sees through his career. Anyway, it was good enough to keep me reading it from the first to the last page.

this is the best review of the cognitive psychology of memory, by one of the leading experts in the field. I personally did not enjoy the artistic aspest of the book, but many say it was complementing. Now there are much better cognitive neuroscience books on memory -Kandel and Squires books, Steven Roses, among others- but as for the psychological aspects, this book stands above all others. At times it reads too much like a collection of case studies, but few would deny that lesion studies have contribuited a lot to an understanding of the brain/mind.
Most of the memory field is covered: recogntion vs. recall, implicit vs. explicit, episodic vs. procedural, short -long term, working memory, genral,emotional, semantic, etc..... but there is also a welcome and thorough discussion of false and recovered memories. In no other field can one see better the imediateimpact that cognitive psychology of memory has on legal and social issues. Schacter effectively explains everything we know about the phenomenon. As for the other themes, adequate and sufficient reviews are given. I personally would have liked a bit more of neuroscience, but it is a great read nontheless. There is also not much mention of the relationship between memory and other higher cognitive processes, like consciousness (a good place for speculation) or attention. But Schacter sticks to what is known, and does it well.
AS an introduction to any aspect of memory studies, few texts are better than this one. But I would tell anyone interested to also read other Schacter books, as well as more pure psychology and neurological texts on the subject. (see Seven Sins of Memory by the same author, Kandel and Squires Memory:from Minds to Molecules and Roses The Making of Memory among others).

Memory has so much to do with WHO WE ARE. If you've ever wondered how it works and what the various memory systems do in the human brain, this book explains it in a delightful way that helps explain who we are and how we 'tick' (as thinking, remembering human beings.)

Not only does the book explain the latest scientific information about memory, but it presents this in very *human terms* (complete with many examples of artwork which express the feelings and perspectives that some patients and/or artists have about their memories.)

I found the subject matter fascinating and the book a pleasure to read. (I also liked the several 'word games' in the book which came from samples of psychology experiments.)

Highly recommend this book!

I was required to read this for a graduate course in Cognitive Theory. I was not interested in the topic of memory, and was interested in the other course material. I was wrong. Everyone should read this book. Schacter provides a clear and well articulated story of memory research, which will broaden everyone's view on what it means to remember and more importantly what it means to be human.

Daniel Schacter brilliantly interweaves scientific findings, artistic representations, philosophical reflections and his own personal history into a non-stop tour de force exposition of the study of memory. Proust, Ebbinghaus, Larry Squire and Isabel Allende all find their places in this remarkable volume. An effortless, informative, and stimulating read for anyone interested in the human mind.

Your memory is certainly the most crucial aspect of who you are. Without it, arguably at least, consciousness itself borders on irrelevance, and identity no longer exists. Most of us think of memory, metaphorically, as shining a spotlight on images, sounds, and emotions from our past. Reading Daniel Schacter's fascinating text, Searching for Memory, The Brain, the Mind, and the Past, I realized just how deceptive and simplistic that notion is. In fact, every time you speak, or write something, or read, or drive a car, you're calling on "procedural" memory which allows you to learn skills and acquire habits, and/or "semantic" memory, which includes conceptual and factual knowledge. Even the spotlight-type memories you do have can be divided into "field" memories, which mimic your perceptions at the time of the original experience, and "observer" memories, which where you actually see yourself from the outside. (The latter is common when recalling early-childhood experiences.) Searching for Memory is beautifully written, and teeming with stories and anecdotes that illustrate the nature of memory in a way that makes the absorption of its insights effortless. My only complaint about this book is that my wife kept trying to read it over my shoulder. If you're married, I suggest you order two copies

I HAVE JUST RECIEVED THIS BOOK , BUT FROM WHAT I HAVE READ SO FAR IT APPEARS TO BE QUIT INTERESTING AND WORTH CONTINUING WITH EACH CHAPTER.
AUTHOR PROVIDES MANY EXAMPLES OF TESTING OR SEARCHING FOR MEMORY. MANY VIEWS FROM PASSED SCIENTIST AND DOCTORS.

Make no mistake, this is an excellent read regarding memory. In many ways, however, it acts to spotlight more what we DON'T know about memory than what we do. It focuses on location of activity in the brain insofar as discussing how memories are made, rather than the nuts and bolts of HOW they are crafted. In other words, it's as if you were an observer on a hill far above a town and you, not knowing any history of transactions or how stores work, watched many people enter a building, and coming out with items. If you didn't know how monetary exchanges worked, you could still hypothecize that "something" occurred in that building that enabled people to go in empty-handed but come out loaded with goods. But you might have no idea about how money worked or how barter might work. You simply wouold have no way of really knowing what took place in those mysterious locations. So it is with Schacter's book: repeatedly he talks about the hippocampus or other location in the brain as being a spot of brain activity when memories are recalled, but that says nothing about how they are recorded. Thus, the book does not address the specifics of how immaterial subjects such as ideas could be remembered in the physical world of the brain. I for one liked the constant usage of paintings to make his points about the "fragile power" of memory--it is through painters and novelists (creators) that we can learn a great deal of the depth of power, angst, and despair that memories (or the lack thereof) can cause. Seems perfectly appropriate to me. A good read and focuses more on breadth than depth, which again, perfectly appropriate for a lay audience.

Schacter has written a superb overview of the working so the brain and memory. I read this book in one night! I can highly recommend it!
Other recent great reads: "Decoding Darkness" (Tanzi and Parsons) on how Alzheimer's affects the brain -- fascinating stuff!