Remembering the Personal Past

ISBN-13: 9780195068948 / Angielski / Twarda / 1992 / 256 str.

Bruce M. Ross

Opis

In this resonant, scholarly work, Bruce Ross presents an encompassing theoretical framework and overview of autobiographical memory. Drawing on a wide range of ideas from academic psychology, the social sciences, psychoanalysis, and the humanistic disciplines, the author presents a stimulating and original perspective on this increasingly important topic. Ross' description encompasses the full range of subjective responsiveness to personal memories, both with and without awareness, including real-world social context and examples that can be compared with one's own experience; critical assessment of psychoanalytic memory concepts with a clear distinction drawn between Freud's ideas and those of his later followers; childhood memories dealt with from dual standpoints of initial origin and adult retrospection; explanations of problems and dilemmas in philosophy and the human sciences that determine both what is to be counted as a memory experience and how memories can be validated; and the phenomena of individual memories compared with characteristics of group-determined memories and socially structured memories that persist across generations. Cognizant of the rich intellectual history of the field, the book also calls on the works of James, Titchener, Freud, Piaget, Baldwin, Janet, Bartlett, Ellis, Bergson, Bloch, Halbwachs, and Merleau-Ponty, among others, to broaden our current understanding of the experience of autobiographical memory. Students and researchers from a number of disciplines concerned with the psychology of memory, cognition, and identity will find this volume both insightful and thought-provoking.

Recenzje

The strength of the book derives from Ross's scholarly ability to bring to light ideas and observations concerning autobiographical memory from sources that are little known to many contemporary psychologists, and to integrate them with the observations of more familiar figures from the past. Ross is to be commended for rounding out the historical picture ... a wide-ranging scholarly discussion of the issue that makes effective use of historical material to inform contemporary discussion ... Ross should be commended for his concern with the ideas of the past and his ability to discuss them in the content of contemporary concerns ... a significant contribution to scholarship on the history of ideas concerning autobiographical memory ... Ross's efforts are worthy of serious attention from students of memory and history.

Spis treści

Introduction; Memory observed by introspection; Freud's theory of memory; Additional Freudian memory concepts; Psychoanalytic continuations; Some psychoanalytic offshoots: summarizing trends; Developmental memory theories; Sociological and historical perspectives; Memory transmission and cultivation; Conclusions and possibilities; Index.