First person comparison between autobiographical and orally transmitted memories

In discussing the 1947 rebellion in the Zafimaniry village in Madagascar, cultural anthropologist Maurice E. Bloch [1] observed that children who have not been involved in the events of that period but who have had these events narrated to them by their elders, appear to ´remember´ these events in a qualitatively similar manner to the elders who have actually experienced them. Specifically, Bloch argues that the hearers of the narratives engage in an imaginative play of “what it was like” thus forming a mental mode which contains both imagery and emotion. In this way, the form, if not necessarily the content, of autobiographical and ´transmitted´memories is alike. In a related field of research in psychology, imagination has been implicated in the formation of false memories. One study has found that imagining performing a simple action can lead to false remembrance of having performed that action [2]. The authors propose that this may be because imagination and the intention to perform an action involve similar cognitive functions. Similarly, another study has demonstrated that imagination is also involved in the formation of more complex false memories involving childhood events [3]. Moreover, both of these studies indicate that while there are some qualitative differences between true and false memories, these differences disappear or diminish as the frequency of imaginings increases. Transmitted memories are not false memories, however it is not unreasonable to propose that the process of their formation is similar. Namely, the aid of imagination during the encoding stage and the repeated recollection of that imaginary scene may lead to transmitted memories being experienced in a qualitatively similar way to autobiographical memories. Thus, the present study will examine the experience of autobiographical and orally transmitted memories for the same events. The focus of events will be from the war in former Yugoslavia in the 1990s. !! References: [1] Bloch, M.E.F. (1996). Autobiographical Memory and the Historical Memory of the More Distant Past. In Bloch, M.E.F., How We Think They Think (pp. 114 - 127). Cumnor Hill, OX: Westview Press. [2] Lampinen, J.M., Odegard, T.N., & Bullington, J.L. (2003). Qualities of Memories for Performed and Imagined Actions. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 17, 881 – 893. [3] Heaps, C.M., & Nash, M. (2001). Comparing Recollective Experience in True and False Autobiographical Memories. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 27, 920 – 930.