Conversationally Induced Forgetting: Reshaping Individual and Collective Pasts

对话诱发的遗忘：重塑个人和集体的过去

• 批准号: 0819067
• 负责人: William Hirst
• 金额: $ 35万
• 依托单位: The New School
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2008
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2008-09-01 至 2012-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0819067&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Conversationally; Induced; Forgetting; Reshaping; Individual

Memory does not merely record what occurred at a particular time in the past, but also reflects what intervenes between past and present. As a result, the frequent conversations people have with each other about a past event can radically influence the way they subsequently remember. Conversations cannot only impose new memories onto listeners, they can also reshape memories by, paradoxically, promoting forgetting, as the investigator's research has recently established. This socially induced forgetting is quite specific: The inevitable selective recounting emerging in a conversation will strengthen some memories, but will also weaken or induce forgetting, in both speaker and listener, for unmentioned memories related to what was mentioned, without having a similar effect on unmentioned, unrelated memories. The proposed research explores factors that might influence this socially induced forgetting, specifically, the position of power and expertise of the speaker, the trust the listener has in the speaker, and the goals of the conversation. By examining these factors, the investigator will specify critical conditions under which socially induced forgetting may occur and thereby further our understanding of how a memory becomes, to a substantial degree, a product of the conversations that mediate the initial experience and a subsequent act of remembrance. The expected findings will have a broad impact because they will underscore the danger of depending on the accuracy of memory and will articulate how something as commonplace as a conversation can reshape memory, not just through errors of commission, but also through errors of omission. Specifically, the expected findings will (1) add to growing reservations of the legal community about the reliability of eyewitness testimony, (2) identify how the conversations community members have about their community's past can shape its collective memory, and in turn, collective identity and collective actions, and (3) caution educators to limit their enthusiasm for distributed or collaborative learning. In each instance, the research will emphasize that the seemingly positive act of collaborative remembering will carry with it not just benefits, but also costs. In doing so, the proposed research will unravel the complex ways in which both individual and collective memories are held captive by social interactions, and help both institutions and individuals calibrate their assumptions about memory accuracy to better deal with learning and the effect that the past has on the present.

记忆不仅记录了过去某一特定时间发生的事情，还反映了过去和现在之间发生的事情。因此，人们彼此之间关于过去事件的频繁对话会从根本上影响他们随后记忆的方式。正如这位研究人员最近的研究所证实的那样，对话不仅可以给听众带来新的记忆，而且还可以通过促进遗忘来重塑记忆，这是矛盾的。这种社会诱导的遗忘是非常具体的：对话中不可避免的选择性叙述会加强一些记忆，但也会削弱或诱导说话者和听者忘记与提到的内容相关的未提及的记忆，而不会对未提及的无关记忆产生类似的影响。这项研究探讨了可能影响这种社会诱发遗忘的因素，特别是说话人的权力和专业知识地位，听者对说话人的信任，以及谈话的目的。通过研究这些因素，研究人员将明确社会诱发遗忘可能发生的关键条件，从而在很大程度上加深我们对记忆是如何成为最初经历和随后记忆行为的对话的产物的理解。这些预期中的发现将产生广泛的影响，因为它们将突显依赖记忆准确性的危险，并将阐明像对话这样司空见惯的事情如何重塑记忆，不仅通过失误，还通过遗漏错误。具体地说，预期的发现将(1)增加法律界对目击者证词的可靠性日益增长的保留意见，(2)确定社区成员关于其社区过去的对话如何塑造其集体记忆，进而形成集体认同和集体行动，以及(3)警告教育者限制他们对分布式或协作学习的热情。在每一种情况下，研究都会强调，协作记忆看似积极的行为不仅会带来好处，还会带来成本。通过这样做，这项拟议的研究将揭开个人和集体记忆被社会互动所俘虏的复杂方式，并帮助机构和个人校准他们关于记忆准确性的假设，以更好地处理学习和过去对现在的影响。