The Memory-History-Popular Culture Nexus: Pearl Harbor As a Case Study in Consumer-Driven Collective Memory

In this paper I examine the fusing of collective memory, history and popular culture by analyzing current trends in American-made commercial films with historical events as subject matter that have also been distributed to a global audience. Pearl Harbor is the primary case study. Analysis shows that dominant historical narratives are reified by the use of what I term an 'anticipatory-driven' film experience where audience members engage in an interaction with pre-existing mainstream collective memory while their anticipation for impending climactic trauma is systematically heightened. Comparisons are made to other widely released US films about national and international events and 'non-events.' Questions are also raised about the increasing global importance of the memory-history-popular culture nexus post 9-11, and, how US produced films about 9-11 may or may not engage in the practices detailed in this analysis. In this vein the paper concludes with a discussion of how Pearl Harbor was marketed, edited and received in Japan, the second largest audience for Hollywood films and what this implies about social memory construction in a global commercial context.Collective Memory, Film, Hollywood, National Identity, Pearl Harbor, Social Memory

Explaining change in content of life narratives over time

© 2020, © 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. Aiming to further the understanding of stability and change of the life story, we investigated memory age and valence of life events as possible factors influencing life narrative stability. Additionally, we examined personal memories that 145 participants ranging in age from 16 to 69 years had told four years earlier but omitted from their current life narratives. In particular, we tested the accessibility of these omitted memories and explored the reasons for omission from life narratives. Younger age of memories but not valence predicted omission. Further, omitted memories could be remembered when aided with memory prompts. Both remembering and including life events in the current life narrative appeared to be related to personal relevance at the time of telling, supporting prior research that emphasises the role of motivation, ongoing goals, and concerns for the construction of personal narratives

Emergence of Human Episodic Memory and Future Thinking

Episodic memory and future thinking are crucial capacities that emerge and undergo substantial development during the preschool years. However, their relationship has rarely been examined in tandem within development. Narratives were elicited from 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old children (n = 36) to assess episodic memory and future thinking. The richness of children’s memory and imagined future episodes was measured by the number of episodic details in their narratives. Non-narrative measures of episodic memory and future thinking were also administered. As hypothesized, children’s ability to recall personal events and generate possible future events underwent substantial development during the preschool years on three of the four memory and future thinking tasks, with the exception of narrative future thinking. Nevertheless, narrative memory and narrative future thinking remained correlated even after controlling for working memory, inhibition, verbal ability and narrative fluency. These results suggest the possibility of a common neurocognitive basis underlying narrative memory and narrative future thinking in preschool development. Mental time travel and scene construction are identified as possible common mechanisms underlying this relationship

Their memory:exploring veterans’ voices, virtual reality and collective memory

This paper focuses on the virtual reality (VR) project Their Memory and details the development and evaluation of virtual reality environments and experiences with respect to its impact on young people (14-35 demographic) with the narratives of veterans in Scotland. As part of the AHRC Immersive Experiences program, Their Memory was created to explore how game design techniques and immersive technology could be used to enhance existing historical research and enrich narratives to bring expansive experiences to hard-to-reach audiences. The project worked directly with the veterans’ charity, Poppyscotland, to create an environment and experience that would resonate with new audiences, and explore documentary and storytelling techniques for the commemoration of war and conflict. The design of the project evolved through co-design sessions with veterans and young people and culminated in the creation of a short, thought-provoking, narrative-driven experience. The VR experience enabled players to connect with the memories of veterans in Scotland and exploring the different conflicts or situations they experienced and how they make sense of them. The project brought together cross-sector expertise to research how immersive experiences can help memory-based organizations in engaging with wider audiences, raise awareness, and diversify current learning outputs. The paper details the design and development of the Virtual Reality project, through co-design, and how this engaged the audience and evolved the experience created. The paper includes a summative evaluation of events conducted with schoolchildren to assess the project and concludes with how the project evidences impact upon audiences and the potential for both technology and the experience

Memory for Emotionally Arousing Events Over Time in Autism Spectrum Disorder

Emotionally arousing events are typically better remembered and more resistant to forgetting than neutral events. Findings from word list paradigms suggest that this may not hold for individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), who also tend to be less accurate as eyewitnesses under some circumstances. To test whether attenuated effects of arousal on memory may be responsible for poorer eyewitness testimonies in ASD, we asked adults with and without the disorder to view either arousing or neutral versions of a narrated slide sequence (Experiment 1) or video clip (Experiment 2) before assessing their memory for the material. Both groups exhibited increases in psychophysiological arousal during the arousing compared with the neutral version of the narratives, and both groups also demonstrated a memory advantage for the arousing events. Contrary to predictions, these observations indicate that stimulus induced arousal modulates memory for naturalistic events relatively typically in ASD

Memory for Emotionally Arousing Events Over Time in Autism Spectrum Disorder

Emotionally arousing events are typically better remembered and more resistant to forgetting than neutral events. Findings from word list paradigms suggest that this may not hold for individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), who also tend to be less accurate as eyewitnesses under some circumstances. To test whether attenuated effects of arousal on memory may be responsible for poorer eyewitness testimonies in ASD, we asked adults with and without the disorder to view either arousing or neutral versions of a narrated slide sequence (Experiment 1) or video clip (Experiment 2) before assessing their memory for the material. Both groups exhibited increases in psychophysiological arousal during the arousing compared with the neutral version of the narratives, and both groups also demonstrated a memory advantage for the arousing events. Contrary to predictions, these observations indicate that stimulus induced arousal modulates memory for naturalistic events relatively typically in ASD

Specyfika postrzegania historii własnego życia. Rozważania nad tekstami autobiograficznymi J.-J. Rousseau

Autobiographical memory is a specific kind of memory concerning events and issues related to yourself. Your conception of your own life involves narratives in which all of yours experiences are interrelated. Autobiographical memory connects your present self with your past experiences (that’s why it’s important for theories about continuity of self). In this article I will analyse autobiographical texts of French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau in the context of autobiographical memory theories.Numer został przygotowany przy wsparciu Ministerstwa Nauki i Szkolnictwa Wyższeg

Mnemonic Waters

Mnemonic Waters is a body of work that explores elements of memory, personal mythology, and storytelling. Through the photographic process of wet plate collodion, images from the artist’s archive are used to visually re-interpret vivid memory narratives gathered from other individuals through an interview process. Personal mythology is a belief system created from the stories that make up autobiographical memory. The perspective of our memories evolve as we do and it is through the process of storytelling that an individual gives meaning and makes sense of past events in relation to the present and in anticipation of the future. The final pieces are intimate glass sculptures containing narratives of surreal imagery. Mnemonic Waters incorporates traditional mythology, the psychology of memory, ideas of the archive, and embraces the connections formed between people from the cyclical process of storytelling

The inherent dissonance of heritage in contemporary Polish museums

The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943 and the Warsaw Uprising in 1944 represent the bravery and courage that emerged during Europe’s darkest period. Despite both occurring in occupied Poland, the narratives have not both been universally accepted as part of the Polish collective memory, national identity, and heritage. In this thesis, I seek to analyze and understand how the narratives constructed by museums regarding the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and the 1944 Warsaw Uprising illustrate the inherent dissonance of heritage in contemporary Poland. The influence of political powers, the inability to confront the difficult reality of the past, the boundaries of Polish identity, and the manipulation of memory have led to the attempt to construct a single, linear narrative of heritage that does not reflect the diversity of memory and illustrates its dissonance. As the events of the Second World War and Polish-Jewish relations continue to evoke heated discussions, the narratives portrayed by two of Poland’s most prominent museums, the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews and the Warsaw Rising Museum, may provide a deeper understanding of how memory is selected, identity is formed, and heritage is constructed in contemporary Poland, and how dissonance is inherently part of these narratives