Intersections in Basic and Applied Memory Research

David G. Payne, Frederick G. Conrad

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781134795413
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

In recent years there has been increasing interaction between basic and applied memory researchers, ranging from heated debates to highly productive collaborations. This collection of papers -- based on presentations at the Third Practical Aspects of Memory conference -- reviews the progress, as well as obstacles to progress, in the ongoing collaboration between basic and applied memory researchers. This volume represents the state of the art in memory research domains that straddle the basic-applied divide. The text is organized around three themes, including theoretical and metatheoretical issues concerning the interaction of basic and applied memory research, laboratory investigation of real world memory problems, and solutions of everyday problems using theoretical concepts derived from basic memory research. The first section illustrates why collaboration between basic and applied memory researchers should be beneficial and provides guidelines for avoiding some of the pitfalls. The second and third sections present some of the most significant, contemporary findings by researchers whose work is basic-yet-applicable or applied-yet-theoretically-based. Students and professional memory researchers will find the substantive results to be provocative and theoretically engaging, making the information presented in this volume invaluable. These examples of successful application will be of substantial, pragmatic value and researchers are certain to be grappling with these issues for years to come.

Part I

The Relationship Between Basic and Applied Research

1

How Basic and Applied Research Inform Each Other

Margaret Jean Intons-Peterson

Indiana University

As the media have portrayed, often in lurid detail, the recovery of childhood memories of sexual abuse may have far-reaching effects (e.g., Pressley & Grossman, 1994). These memories can be devastating if the recalled experiences are real and traumatic. They also can be devastating if the memories are false, for false memories may lead to erroneous allegations. Is it possible for memories to be truly false? If so, how do such “memories” arise? Might others “plant” them, intentionally or unintentionally? Might rememberers try to construct stories from fragmentary memories or even from suggestions made by others? Such memories would not be valid, veridical renditions of the past. Unfortunately, false memories are relatively easy to demonstrate. For example, if people read a list of words related to the concept of SLEEP (e.g., bed, rest, awake, tired) but that does not contain the word “sleep,” they are likely to recall the word “sleep” as being on the list. Moreover, they are confident that “sleep” was on the list (Lindsay & Read, 1994; Roediger & McDermott, 1995). Payne, Elie, Blackwell, and Neuschatz (Experiment 3, in press) used a similar technique, except that they videotaped either a woman or a man as the person spoke the words. After recalling the items, the participants were asked to indicate whether the male or the female read the word. Not only did they frequently misattribute nonpresented but conceptually related words, but they were so certain of their attributions that they asked the experimenter to replay the video! The ease of eliciting false memories is frightening and should serve as a warning about the fragility and fallibility of memory.

The incidence of false memories poses practical and theoretical problems. On the one hand, we want to aid sufferers of abuse and to minimize causes of such abuse. On the other hand, we do not want people to be unjustly accused. In effect, we need to distinguish real from false memories, a challenge not yet solved. The problem constitutes a practical need; its solution requires basic research. The solution would almost certainly require much deeper knowledge about the operation of human memory than we now possess. Thus, the dilemma of distinguishing true from false memories demonstrates the likely interdependence of applied and basic interests, the topic of this chapter.

Herrmann and Raybeck (1994, p. 14) concluded that “. . . applied knowledge without consideration of basic knowledge is witchcraft. Basic knowledge without consideration of applied knowledge is sophistry.” I am not ready to accept this extreme view, but it illustrates, graphically, the dichotomies involved. In spite of the fact that I represent what might be called the “basic” side of the equation, I suspect that applied interests are particularly likely to drive basic research in specific directions. Applied problems are persistent. Indeed, they are insistent in ways quite divorced from the gentler, but magnetic, enticements of basic research. How can we ignore the enormous problems of illiteracy, memory failure, and information overload when the media and even our own experiences impose them on us regularly? The mysteries we hope to unravel in the laboratory may pale by comparison. Regardless of whether the problems are applied or basic, solutions often have theoretical as well as practical implications.

The central purpose of this chapter is to consider the mutual interaction of basic and applied research, primarily in areas related to memory. Accordingly, I begin by considering why and how basic and applied research relate to each other, then digress briefly to discuss the rationale for the focus on memory-related research before moving to examples of interactions between basic and applied research. The examples were chosen to illustrate mutual interchanges and the diversity of areas demonstrating this very fruitful, profitable interaction. The chapter closes with a discussion of some of the difficulties that impede this interaction and possible solutions. The examples also lend support for assertions that basic and applied research do, in fact, interrelate and intereducate.

The Interchange between Basic and Applied Research

Basic and applied research inform each other in many ways. Each approach offers a particular set of attributes, not always shared by the other, or at least not to the same degree. Basic research, for example, emphasizes the generation and testing of theories. It venerates the acquisition of knowledge, without regard to the practical application of that knowledge. It tends to be driven by a quest for knowledge for knowledge’s sake, by a curiosity about the functioning of the human being. Basic research is often characterized by the careful control afforded by rigorous experimentation. This rigor may be achieved by narrowing the scope of the enterprise to easily managed and controlled situations. Hence, it may be considered atomistic.

Applied efforts are more likely to emphasize the big picture, the complexities and perplexities of real-life issues, even though these emphases may require relinquishing some experimental precision and control. Applied research often seems more relevant to daily life, or at least more consequential, than basic research does. Applied efforts may be used to test models and to identify situations that expand models or require their extension. Applied research thus may seem more holistic than basic research.

The reader will recognize immediately that these characterizations are overly simplified. This is true, just as it is for most dichotomies. The distinctions serve to magnify the differences. Our task is to ascertain whether the two lines of inquiry can span the chasm. In the interest of “truth in advertising,” I should state that I see the gap as narrower than I have portrayed it and as becoming smaller all the time.

Why Highlight Memory-Related Research?

Memory-related research is highlighted for two primary reasons. The first is that memory was the theme of the conference at which this paper was originally presented. That answer begs the question of why the conference addressed memory. The most compelling answer is that memory is one of our most precious abilities. Consider the alternative, if you can. What would a memory-less world be like? It seems impossible to contemplate such a world because virtually all human activity depends on memory. When memory falters, as it does in Alzheimer’s disease and other disease systems, individuals have difficulty functioning. Indeed, many—probably most—systems depend on some kind of memory, from cellular reactions (immunities) to the phenomenal verbatim retention of repertory actors.

Even though the reasons for the fallibility of memory are still being debated, it is clear that we need ways to overcome both transient and more permanent memory losses. To do this, we need to understand memory’s operation—how the neural circuitry, chemical environment, and external experience interact. We need to understand how to cope with the learning of concepts and classifications and how we can maximize human efficiency in such memory-taxing situations as instrument-laden airplane cockpits or rapidly presented lectures. We strive to explain complex events using theories and models crafted from narrowly contrived situations. These activities depend on mutual feedback from applied and basic research. This point is also relevant to other areas of applied work in psychology such as human factors. The examples in the next section have been selected to illustrate interaction between basic and applied research in diverse areas, all of which share a cognitive or memorial theme.

Examples of the Mutual Interaction of Basic and Applied Research

Lessons from Memory-Impaired Individuals

Historically, most memory research and related theoretical work focused on understanding methods and techniques that facilitated intentional (explicit) learning and memory. This focus was shaped by research suggesting that material learned incidentally, without clear intention, was not remembered well. The disregard for unintended learning was bolstered by some celebrated case histories of individuals with severe cerebral deficits who found it very difficult to learn and retain anything new.

More recent investigations of amnesias and other cerebral deficits that affect memory have brought about an interesting and instructive rapprochement between the basic and applied camps (e.g., reviews by Roediger & McDermott, 1993; Schacter, Chiu, & Ochsner, 1993). For example, severe amnesics typically have difficulty learning new material when they have been asked to try to learn and to remember the information, a situation thought to tap “explicit memory.” When the same subjects are exposed to the same material, but not specifically asked to learn and remember the words, they are later able to identify the original words reliably more often than other similar but nonpresented control words. For example, if given the word stem _{_}l_{_}p_{_}nt, participants are more likely to complete it with ELEPHANT if they had just been exposed to the word “elephant” than if “elephant” had not been presented. The latter situation does not ask the learners to try to remember the words; instead, the words are processed in a casual manner, but they still are registered, as shown by the final above-chance performance. The latter situation, called “implicit memory,” suggests that there are conditions under which memory-impaired individuals can learn and remember. Succinctly stated, the results indicated that amnesics exhibit above-chance recall in implicit memory tasks, even though they demonstrate minimal explicit recall.

These and similar results showing that normal, memory-unimpaired individuals also exhibit implicit memory contradict the view that memory-impaired individuals cannot learn new material. They also challenge the notion that material learned incidentally will not be retained. Instead, it is important to understand the conditions under which information is acquired and tested. These realizations have led to substantial modifications of memory theory. By now, inclusion of implicit memory has become essential for a comprehensive model of memory. Indeed, models of implicit and explicit memory now appear regularly in textbooks and in major journals. This flurry of theory modification has led, in turn, to an interest in practice—in trying to teach amnesics how to improve their memories (Glisky & Schacter, 1987; Harrell, Parentié, Belligrath, & Lisicia, 1992; Kreutzer & Wehman, 1991; and McEvoy, 1993). In brief, the influence has cycled from applied to basic and back to applied spheres.

This is not the end of the story, however, for demonstrations that some memory-impaired individuals could learn new materials have had another effect: that of furthering interests in the neurological underpinnings of human perception and learning. Early observations made on patients with various cerebral deficits suggested that the neural encoding of memory is localized in areas distributed throughout the brain—an outcome that offers hope for explaining the ability of some sections to take over functions of other, sometimes damaged areas.

Understanding Neural Circuitry

The whole area of neuroscience offers much promise for understanding memorial representations and input-output alliances. For example, neuro-scientific research has shown that (a) the environment and experience have interdependent developmental effects on gene expression, (b) the cerebral representation of memory is both distributed and local, and (c) facial movements can trigger the physiological expression of emotion.

The Role of Environment and Experience on Gene Expression. As Wiesel indicated in his editorial on genetics and behavior (1994), there is an “enormously complex interaction between the genetic information that flows out from DNA into developing and mature brains and the experiential information that flows in through our nervous system as we perceive and act in the world” (p. 1647). He continued:

Studies have shown that many of the genes a nerve cell expresses can be regulated by environmental stimuli. Genes controlling embryonic development shape the structure of the infant brain; the infant’s experience in the world then fine-tunes the pattern of neural connections underlying the brain’s function. Such fine-tuning of the fabric of connections making up the brain must surely continue through adulthood. (p. 1647)

Wiesel obviously tossed a challenge to the field to extend the developmental mapping of this fine-tuning of experience on neural expression. The knowledge gained from such investigations offers hope for practical uses, just as it does for the theoretical understanding of the neural basis of memory.

Cerebral Representation Is Distributed and Localized. Posner, in an article aptly titled “Seeing the Mind” (19931, described the use of Positron Emission Transmission (PET) and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scans to trace mental activity such as thinking of the use of a noun, processing color, motion, and so forth.

According to Posner, cerebral reactions are distributed, yet at the same time show a “beautiful localization”:

In word-reading studies, words activate specific posterior visual areas that are not affected by consonant strings, and specific frontal and temporoparietal areas are active when subjects are required to indicate the use of a noun or its classification into a category (“hammer-tool”) (McCarthy, Blamire, Rothman, Gruetter, & Shulman, 1993; Peterson, Fox, Snyder, & Raichle, 1990). The new brain imaging techniques have revealed a convergence of what we see and what we think; thinking about a telephone activates some of the same brain areas as seeing a telephone. . . . When subjects are instructed to attend to color or motion, there is an increase in activation in the same prestriate areas that process these sensory dimensions (Corbetta, Meizin, Dobmeyer, Shulman, & Petersen, 1991). Moreover, if subjects are asked to create a visual image based on their remembered knowledge of a visual form, areas in the visual system also show increased activation (Goldenberg et al., 1989; Kosslyn, Alpert, Thompson, & Maljovic, 1993). These findings support the general idea that processes initiated internally from instructions can activate the same sensory areas where these computations are performed on actual sensory events. (1993, pp. 673–674)

These kinds of exciting observations encourage one to indulge in such seemingly science fiction type visions of...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Part I: The Relationship Between Basic and Applied Research
• Part II: Exploring Real-World Memory Problems from a Basic Memory Perspective
• Part III: Applications of Basic Memory Research Findings and Techniques in Dealing With Real-World Problems
• Author Index
• Subject Index