False claims about false memory research

Pezdek and Lam [Pezdek, K. & Lam, S. (2007). What research paradigms have cognitive psychologists used to study “False memory,” and what are the implications of these choices? Consciousness and Cognition] claim that the majority of research into false memories has been misguided. Specifically, they charge that false memory scientists have been (1) misusing the term “false memory,” (2) relying on the wrong methodologies to study false memories, and (3) misapplying false memory research to real world situations. We review each of these claims and highlight the problems with them. We conclude that several types of false memory research have advanced our knowledge of autobiographical and recovered memories, and that future research will continue to make significant contributions to how we understand memory and memory errors

Critique of memory research

The present relation between theory and experimentation in the area of memory is discussed, and as a result it is suggested that there is a crisis in thin field of work. On the one hand, there are some theories which are supposed to be guides for research as exemplified by the theory of Shiffrin and Atkinson and on the other bond there are a great deal of problems, or phenomena, which are open to research and cannot be explained using contemporary theories. It in concluded that the lack of relation between the explanation and the phenomena is the major source of the crisis. This conclusion is supported here with on experimental analysis of the ideas of trace, flow of information and stores. One of the indications of possible solution to the crisis, is the experimental evidence in favour of the idea of memory as a reconstructive process. A conceptual structure for further work is presented, which could be considered as an intermediate step to relate in the future, in a clearer way, several phenomena and explanations. This conceptual structure suggests the use of a different interpretation of memory functions; suggest the use of the idea of processes of manipulation of information, and points out the difficulties in trying to elaborate account, of representation

International Visibility of Bulgarian Memory Research

Contemporary neuroscience is characterized by intensive internationalization of basic and applied memory research. A scientometric analysis of the publications by Bulgarian authirs abstracted in MEDLINE from 1966 till 2004 was carried. A total of 94 papers authored by 61 Bulgarian authors and published between 1980 and 2004 became internationally 'visible' through this widely used data-base. Four Bulgarian journals contain 38 articles but 25 foreign ones from 10 countries - 56 articles. A total of 50 papers were published in 22 mono-disciplinary journals from 11 countries, 36 - in 4 two-disciplinary journals from 4 countries, and 7 - in 2 journals from two countries. In 11 journals containing the term 'pharmacology' in their title a total of 65 papers by Bulgarian authors were published. Acta Physiologica et Pharmacologica Bulgarica (Bulgaria) contained 32, Methods and Findings in Experimental and Clinical Phamracology (Spain) - 15 and European Neuropsychopharmacology - 5 papers. International collaboration resulted in 5 papers published in Bulgarian and in 12 papers published in foreign journals. V. D. Petkov and V. V. Petkov from the Institute of Physiology of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (Sofia) were the most productive authors in this field with 36 and 30 papers, respectively. Recently, there is a trend of gradually improving international visibility of Bulgarian pharmacology dealing with memory in man and animals

Does memory research have a realistic future?

How do we remember our past experiences? This question remains stubbornly resistant to resolution. The next 25 years may see significant traction on this and other outstanding issues if memory researchers capitalise on exciting technological developments that allow embodied cognition to be studied in ways that closely approximate real life

Interactions between the hippocampus, prefrontal cortex, and amygdala support complex learning and memory.

One of the guiding principles of memory research in the preceding decades is multiple memory systems theory, which links specific task demands to specific anatomical structures and circuits that are thought to act orthogonally with respect to each other. We argue that this view does not capture the nature of learning and memory when any degree of complexity is introduced. In most situations, memory requires interactions between these circuits and they can act in a facilitative manner to generate adaptive behavior

INTERNATIONALIZATION OF CLINICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL MEMORY RESEARCH

A problem-oriented retrospective information search in MEDLINE on CD-ROM in 1981-1993 revealed the relevant publications devoted mainly to physiology and pharmacology of human and animal memory. The annual dynamics of a set of bibliometric parameters (number of articles and journals containing these articles; number of countries of authors and journals; number of publications in own and foreign journals; number of interdisciplinary and international journals, language of papers, etc.) was studied to identify some essential patterns of internationalization of the interdisciplinary memory research. There were a total of 5597 papers by authors from 48 countries in 809 journals from 40 countries. In 1988-1993 only, there were 1361 papers (48,47 %) in foreign journals. In 42 international journals from 9 countries a total of 231 papers were published while 50 interdisciplinary journals from 13 countries contained 579 papers. Bulgarian memory research was relatively insufficiently presented in this data-base