The Memory Science Debate Essay Example

(Banks, 1998). An example is that if an ancestor had the amnesia for an event that is traumatic like an attack by the lion, there would be the least likelihood of surviving in the event. Therefore, there will be a strong recalling of the memories on the event encountered even if it happened at their early ages. However, in case the event that took place had no strong emotions, there would be no easy recalling of the memories of the event. The other incidence is that the recovered memories and the repressed memories do not operate in a similar way as memories that are ordinary.

Repression is a concept of the reasons why an individual may fail to remember his abuse while the idea of recovered memory entails recalling the events that had strong emotions about the life of an individual. Repression is a natural psychological mechanism of the defense which serves to keep out of awareness the painful and the traumatic memories of the past. There is the viewing of the memory as a form of the short video recorder on which there is the storage of all the events. They are therefore not ordinary memories.

Also, the popular culture has the significant role to play in the recovered memories. It has significantly propelled the belief in the recovered memories (Nebraska, 2012). There is the skyrocketing of the recovered memories as a result of the popular culture. For instance, there may be the recalling of the memories by an individual on how the parents may abuse an individual from the childhood all the way to adulthood.

There may also be the recalling of the memories concerning the

sex violation of an infant by either the parent or any member of the culture. There is also the cultural influence on the recovery of the memories. The other issue concerning the recovered memory is that the memory is malleable. Despite the fact that the video recorder view of the recovered memories is found in the popular self-help books and the media, there is no consistency with the findings of the research concerning the theories of the functioning of the memory.

There is the capacity of the brain to construct and invent the reality from the information that the brain processes. The here is the belief that the memory is a process always undergoing the process of reconstruction and adjustment, therefore, considered flexible. It consists of the fragments of events, the subsequent readings and discussions, the suggestions and recollections by the other people as well as the present beliefs regarding the past. There may be the alterations of the recovery of the memories of the past by the outside factors.

There may be the changing of the recovered by the passage of time, in the process of retelling or by the present knowledge and the expectations. In the recovered memories, there is no encoding of all the features but only a few features that are salient. The other evidence is that the high emotions create the intrusive or the unwanted emotions as opposed to blocking the recovered memories. For example, from the victims of the war, the survivors and the victims of the disaster usually suffer from hypermnesia and the unbidden intrusive recollections. Under the situations that are highly emotional, there are the memories for the peripheral

rather than the central details of the episode that may have been lost. The amnesia rarely covers the entire event.

In the study of the memory science, numerous issues come into focus. Such matters include the recovered, the repressed or the false memories. Each of the issues has its debate and the facts relating to each of them. There is, therefore, the examination of the discussion of the recovered memories in the dissertation.

References

1. Banks, W. P., & Pezdek, K. (1998). The recovered memory/false memory debate. San Diego u.a.: Acad. Press.
2. Nebraska Symposium on Motivation, & Belli, R. F.

   (2012). True and false recovered memories: Toward a reconciliation of the debate. New York: Springer.