Memory
as a way of knowing
Brainstorm
• Without talking to anyone or looking at your
notes, photos and/or artifacts collected on
Monday jot down all you can remember
about that day. Use only your memory.
• What kinds of things do you remember? What
do you not remember?
What do you think?
• What is memory?
• What different kinds of memories do you
have?
• What do you typically remember? What do
you forget?
• How does memory contribute to knowing?
Task: Write the history of Monday Nov 9
You will need: notebooks/laptops, cameras to document your day on Monday Nov 9.
In the next class (Thursday Nov 12) you will write down the history of this rainy
Monday collaboratively using your collected information and possibly other sources.
The history should have be at least 500 words long and read like a historical account
of an event; context, focus, arguments (if possible), evidence.
The assignment will be graded according to the following criteria:
•Evidence: Notes, artifacts, other sources from Monday Nov 9 (individual collection)
•The history of the school day (group effort)
•Reflection (minimum 250 words) which addresses one or all of the questions below.
Essential questions:
•How does one reliably document an event? Think about the relationship between
physical evidence and memory.
•Which facts do we choose in writing the history of an event? Why?
•How does personal experience affect knowledge about an event?
Three kinds of memory
• Personal memory
– What, when, where from the inside
– Internal recollection of events that make up your life;
significant, unusual, emotional and random events
– Provides a sense of identity
• Factual memory
– Meanings, facts and ideas; content
– Typically abstract and lacking in emotions
• Practical memory
– Skills and habits
Memory and knowledge
• A big part of knowing something is
remembering it
• Memory not the original source of knowledge
• Claim to remember  claim to know; of truth
• Memory is associated with intelligence
Mechanics of memory
• A false picture
– Storehouse vs. reconstruction model
• Encoding and selective attention
• Storage and decay
• Retrieval and interference
Short-term memory tests
• Look at the items on your table for 1 minute.
After they items have been covered, write
down as many as you can remember.
• Look at the items on your table for 1 minute.
Close your eyes/turn around. One item has
been removed – which one?
Eye witness game
• What details do you recall? What did X wear?
How long was X in the room? What book did X
take? Who did X talk to? What did X say?
• Compare how everyone's memory was the
same and different.
Try to remember these words:
• read, pages, letters, school, study, reading,
stories, sheets, cover, pen, pencil, magazine,
paper, words
How many do you remember?
• house, pencil, apple, shoe, book, flag, rock,
train, ocean, hill, music, water, glass, school
Try to remember these words:
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Sheets
Pillow
Mattress
Blanket
Comfortable
Room
Dream
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Lay
Chair
Rest
Tired
Night
Dark
time
How many do you remember?
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Door
Tree
Eye
Song
Pillow
Juice
Orange
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Radio
Rain
Car
Sleep
Cat
Dream
eat
Activity
• In what sense, if any, can you be said to know
something if you cannot remember it? What light does
the ‘tip-of-the-tongue’ experience throw on this
question?
• Do you really know something if you can passively
recognize the answer when you see it or hear it, but
are unable to produce it when asked?
• Does your mind ever go blank when you are under
pressure? To what extent could such ‘cognitive
choking’ explain why some people who are intelligent
and hard-working do poorly in exams?
How reliable is our memory?
• Forgetting
• Misremembering
• Flashbulb memory
The fiction of memory –
Elizabeth Loftus
• https://www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_loftus_t
he_fiction_of_memory?language=en#t-15427
Memory biases
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Egocentric bias
Narrative bias
Emotional bias
Vividness bias
Hindsight bias
Source amnesia