Rebecca's Interview with
Daniel L. Schacter
Author of
The Seven Sins of Memory

Rebecca :
How can I recite the St. Crispin's Day speech from Henry V which I learnt in my teens & I can't remember what I ate for dinner yesterday?

Daniel :
You describe a very common - and seemingly puzzling - aspect of memory. There are a couple of possible reasons why this occurs.

One is that you probably repeated the St. Crispin Day's speech many times, whereas memory for a recent meal requires recall of a single event; memory benefits greatly from repetition.

Another possible reason is that you have dinner every day, & these similar events may interfere with one another, whereas there was only a single St. Crispin Day's speech. Distinctiveness generally improves memory.

Rebecca :
If it is A Blessing Bestowed by the Gods, why is the state of our memory so worrying & what is the biology of memory?

Daniel :
Memory has two faces. On the one hand, it is a remarkably powerful system that is essential for our survival & is the basis for our entire sense of self. In that sense it is a blessing.

On the other hand, memory has vulnerabilities - what I call the seven sins - that can cause a great deal of trouble. In our information rich society, many people are overloaded with information, which may in turn lead them to worry about the state of their memories, perhaps fearing a descent into Alzheimer's disease. But as I explain in the book, these worries are often unfounded.

At a biological level, forming new memories of personal experiences depends importantly on a structure tucked away in the middle of our brains that is called the hippocampus; when this structure is damaged, people have great difficulty forming & retaining new memories. However, retrieval of old memories - such as your St. Crispin Day's speech - depends on other regions in the cortex. Different parts of the brain are involved in different forms of memory.

Rebecca :
Why did you use the word sin in your title?

Daniel :
My book began as an attempt to answer a question that nobody had previously posed: What are the different ways in which memory can get us into trouble? After thinking about this problem for some time, I came to the conclusion that there are seven basic categories of memory imperfections; the book explains why I believe that this is so.

I couldn't resist the analogy to the seven ancient deadly sins, & hence called them the seven sins of memory. Also, the word “sin” (I'm told) originates from archery: when an archer missed the mark, it was called a “sin”. So, the term seems particularly appropriate because I'm concerned with cases in which memory misses the mark.

Rebecca :
I used to be able to call up telephone numbers whenever I needed or unerringly locate them on my Rolodex - nowadays I can't remember any of my friends' digits until I see them in writing & then I mumble: “Oh yes, that's it!”

Daniel :
You may simply have more phone numbers to remember nowadays. Or, depending on your age, you might be feeling the effects of an age-related weakening of memory. As I discuss in the book, this sort of thing is totally normal.

Rebecca :
Yeah, right! Thanks Doc - now you're telling me I'm old! I knew I was in trouble when I couldn't remember where I'd put your book! What really is deja vu?”

Daniel :
It is not well understood, but it may relate to the memory sin that I call “misattribution”, where we assign a memory to the wrong time or place.

When we experience deja vu, we may be recalling some aspect of an event from a different time & place that is in some ways similar to the present time & place. We then misattribute the feeling of familiarity to having had the identical experience before.

Rebecca :
We had a game we played at parties when I was a kid in those forgotten pre-television days, when a trayful of ordinary household items was set before us & we had a specific time period in which to memorize them before they were taken away. Whoever wrote down the most items remembered won a prize. I was quite good at this, being able to “see” the tray in my memory. What kind of sin is it when I can't remember the name of an item even though I can “see” it?

Daniel :
This kind of thing may involve the memory sins I call “transience” (fading of memory over time - memory for the name may fade more quickly than memory for the tray) & “blocking” (a temporary inability retrieve information that is stored in memory - we are particularly susceptible to blocking on names).

Rebecca :
What is so dramatic about the Sin of Persistence?

Daniel :
Persistence occurs when emotionally arousing or traumatic events result in memories that haunt us - perhaps keeping us awake at night or intruding on our waking thoughts, despite our best efforts to forget them.

Persistence occurs most often after emotional trauma, such as war experiences, rape, or abuse. These are dramatic experiences, & the memories they produce are equally dramatic. I tell a number of stories in the book about people whose lives were destroyed by persisting memories, & they very compelling tales. On a happier note, I also describe steps that people can take to deal with persistence.

Rebecca :
My mother had a little ritual she'd enact when the family lost something; in front of all of us she'd take a handkerchief & with a stirring Portuguese invocation (not unlike the Witches in Macbeth) slowly & excruciatingly tie a knot in one corner, symbolizing knotting up the Devil's unmentionable so that in time, in desperation, he would release the lost item & it would be found. I never actually learnt the secret incantation, yet when I re-enact the ritual, surprisingly enough it works - why?

Daniel :
Explaining this one may require someone other than a memory researcher!

It's hard to understand why the ritual you describe would be helpful, but losing things is often the result of the memory sin I call “absent-mindedness”. We can counter this problem by using external memory aids - notes, journals, Palm pilots, & so forth. As I explain in the chapter on absent-mindedness, there are a number of important “do's” & “don'ts” when it comes to making use of external memory aids.

Rebecca :
What really is a stereotype & The Sin of Bias?

Daniel :
Let's start with bias: the fact that our current knowledge, feelings, & beliefs can influence on our memories of past experiences. For instance, how we feel now about the state of a relationship may skew our memories for how we felt about that relationship in the past. A stereotype is a belief about the general qualities of a type of individual or object.

Stereotypes can exert a powerful influence on how we perceive & remember the world. In the chapter on bias, I consider five different types of memory biases, including stereotype bias (which is particularly relevant to racial prejudice), egocentric bias (when we remember the past in a self-serving manner), & consistency bias (when we recall past experiences in a way that makes them fit with our current beliefs and feelings).

Rebecca :
In my professional life there have been occasions when I've had to “forget” as part of the discretion of my position, when is a vice a virtue?

Daniel :
I argue that each of the seven sins is as much a virtue as a vice - that the sins are costs we pay for benefits that help memory to work as well as it does most of the time. We tend to complain about forgetting, but would we want a memory system that records every detail of every experience in our lives? My answer to this question is an emphatic “no”: our minds would be flooded with useless trivia if we never forgot anything.

Rebecca :
What is The Sin of Suggestibility?

Daniel :
Suggestibility refers to false memories that are implanted in our minds as a result of leading questions & suggestions; it is probably the most dangerous of the seven sins.

Suggestibility occurs with alarming frequency in legal settings, when investigators who have a hunch about a suspect & use leading questions to interview a witness. These leading questions can influence people to remember events inaccurately, or even remember things that never happened. I argue that suggestibility has played a major role in some of the preschool tragedies where people have been convicted of abusing young children, in the absence of physical evidence, based on children's recollections that were likely tainted by suggestive questioning.

Research conducted during the past several years indicates that it is easier than we once thought to create false memories through suggestive questioning in both children & adults.

Rebecca :
I learnt a lot about how my mind works from The Seven Sins of Memory: How the Mind Forgets and Remembers, before I forget, Respected Author, is there anything else you would like to mention?

Daniel :
I'd like to emphasize that while The Seven Sins of Memory tries to explain memory's imperfections & how to deal with them, the book is not an indictment of memory. I'm very much in awe of memory's amazing feats & accomplishments - as I mentioned earlier, it is the basis for our entire sense of self. I believe that understanding its imperfections allows us to understand better how memory works, & that provides us with a deeper understanding of who we are.

Rebecca :
On this deep moment we'll leave the good Professor to his summer vacation. I do, however, recommend you read his book The Seven Sins of Memory:: How the Mind Forgets and Remembers if you're at all interested on how your mind works & why you're not as rememberful as once you thought you were!

Pick up a copy today at Amazon.Com.

(Published July 15, 2001)