Conversationally Induced Forgetting: Reshaping Individual and Collective Pasts

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的关系。因此，人们之间关于过去事件的频繁对话会从根本上影响他们随后的记忆方式。正如这位研究者最近的研究所证实的那样，谈话不仅能给听者带来新的记忆，而且还能通过促进遗忘来重塑记忆，这是自相矛盾的。这种社会诱导的遗忘是非常具体的：在谈话中不可避免地出现的选择性复述会加强一些记忆，但也会削弱或诱发说话者和听者对未被提及的与被提及内容相关的记忆的遗忘，而对未被提及的、不相关的记忆却没有类似的影响。该研究探讨了可能影响这种社会诱导遗忘的因素，特别是说话者的权力地位和专业知识，听者对说话者的信任程度，以及谈话的目标。通过检查这些因素，研究者将明确社会诱导遗忘可能发生的关键条件，从而进一步我们对记忆如何在很大程度上成为调解初始经验和随后记忆行为的对话的产物的理解。预期的研究结果将产生广泛的影响，因为它们将强调依赖记忆准确性的危险，并将阐明像谈话这样常见的事情是如何重塑记忆的，不仅是通过错误的行为，还通过错误的遗漏。具体而言，预期的研究结果将(1)增加法律界对目击者证词可靠性的保留意见，(2)确定社区成员对其社区过去的对话如何塑造其集体记忆，进而塑造集体身份和集体行动，以及(3)告诫教育工作者限制他们对分布式或协作学习的热情。在每一个例子中，研究都将强调，看似积极的协作记忆行为不仅会带来好处，也会带来代价。在此过程中，拟议的研究将揭示个人和集体记忆被社会互动俘虏的复杂方式，并帮助机构和个人校准他们对记忆准确性的假设，以更好地处理学习和过去对现在的影响。

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.