Post by lonelocust on Jul 9, 2009 3:08:28 GMT -5
And here comes some bibliography with notes on what in my arguments I think said articles support. These basically break down into support of two arguments. 1)Memory works in a way that allows what we would very literally call forgetting especially in cases of items that are done every day. The importance or lack thereof is not relevant to what kind of memory functions are used by the brain. 2)The emotional and intuitive surety of what you (generic or specific you) could do accidentally is not a good indicator of what you could actually do accidentally, and the emotional and intuitive surety assigned to others intentionality is not a good indicator of actual intentionality or lack thereof.
The specific references are given with a * before the citation itself and a - before my statement summarizing in what way the citation informs my opinion on the matter at hand. Other relevant commentary is interspersed.
I have not yet read what has transpired on the thread since I last posted. It looks like it might be near being moved to Flame and Burn. Dantesvigil, I will probably start a new thread to continue discussion with you if you respond and wish to continue the discussion.
---
The existence of memory dissociation seems to be taken as a given in papers related to memory. I cannot seem to locate citations of the actual establishment thereof. It is not disputed amongst psychologists to any extent that is noticeable.
*Dissociation Of Working Memory from Decision Making within the Human Prefrontal Cortex
Antoine Bechara, Hanna Damasio, Daniel Tranel, and Steven W. Anderson
The Journal of Neuroscience, January 1, 1998, 18(1):428-437
-Functions related to working memory (daily tasks) are distinct from those related to
decision making. Demonstrably use different parts of the brain.
Intact Perceptual Memory in the Absence of Conscious Memory
Stephan B Hamann and Larry R Squire
-Conscious memory (memory of what you have specifically done) is distinct from perceptual memory (memory of the gist of what you have done/the construction of the memory of what you must have just done) and in fact are handled very differently by the brain. (The study in question is about identifying the brain differences; it takes the cognitive existence of the difference as a given.)
www.socialtext.net/data/workspaces/hamannlab/attachments/publications:20070906173515-19-26944/original/Hamann_Squire_1997_PercepMemWOConscious.pdf
*Know thy memory: The use of questionnaires to assess and study memory.
Herrmann, Douglas J.
Psychological Bulletin. Vol 92(2), Sep 1982, 434-452.
-People are bad at self-assessing their memory performance.
Implicit Memory: History and Current Status
Daniel L Schacter
-On the differences in explicit and implicit memory.
pages.pomona.edu/~rt004747/lgcs11read/Schacter87.pdf
-There is a difference in explicit memory (recall of actual specific events), implicit memory (the actual knowledge gained from learning events. e.g. not remembering the act of studying a math book but having the ability to do the math in question), and procedural memory (tying your shoe, riding a bike, driving between home and work). Incidentally, my friend's stated dissent to the commonly-believed extreme commonness of memory dissociation is related to procedural memory. She puts forth that uses of procedural memory are mistaken for memory dissociation, that is that no actual memory is LOST but that the cognitive functions of procedural memory are being used instead of those of explicit memory in procedural situations (that is, things one does all the time). This seems like semantic hair-splitting to me, but I am not a research psychologist. And semantic hair-splitting is useful for distinguishing folk useages of words (like "I remember") to scientifically-useful terms.
-I looked for anything indicating that there is a difference in the congnitive functions we use for people-related memory and non-people-related memory. I can find no such indications. There ARE a good number of studies specifically on memory and relating to other individuals (generall experiments with rats). These mostly seemed to revolve around figuring out how individuals identify and remember one another as individuals. This seems to be the main avenue of exploration in social memory.
*Flawed Self-Assessment: Implications for Health, Education, and theWorkplace
David Dunning, Chip Heath, and Jerry M. Suls
Department of Psychology, Cornell University; Graduate School of Business, Stanford
University; and Department of Psychology, University of Iowa
-People are bad at self-assessing in general (not just related to memory)
*Finding Positive Meaning in a Stressful Event and Coping
Suzanne C. Thompson
Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 1532-4834, Volume 6, Issue 4, 1985, Pages 279 – 295
-People need to blame something in tragic situations. People do not naturally accept that
things happen on accident.
*Risk and Blame
Mary Douglas
-There is a cultural need to assign blame in negative situations regardless of cause for
(There is a lot of generally off-our-topic content in this book.)
believing anything intentional. Portions of the book available online through google books.
books.google.com/books?id=4sWA-n_7OJgC&lpg=PP1&pg=PP1
(Specifics of experiment consider VERY different situations, but I find these applicable.)
*Intentional Action and Moral Considerations: Still Pragmatic
Analysis 2004 64(3):268-276; doi:10.1093/analys/64.3.268
Fred Adams and Annie Steadman
-The casual concept of intentionality is not well-defined in folk useage, outside of legal contexts.
-People conflate blame with intentionality. This conflation is USEFUL, but does not effectively determine objective truth.
-People are more likely to believe that actions were intentional when those actions have
moral repurcussions regardless of the evidence. (Specifically intentionality is attributed
when there are negative consequences.)
(One of the experiments cited in this paper has a few papers written in criticism. I will additionally make the comment that most of the items more
accurately portrayed analogues to the situation in which we both attribute blame - leaving a
child in the car on purpose, and THEN forgetting them - that is, actions that were made with
admitted knowledge but caused more harm than intended.)
www.unc.edu/~knobe/AS_FolkConcepts.pdf
*Asymmetry in judgments of moral blame and praise: The Role of Perceived Metadesires
David Pizarro, Eric Uhlmann, and Peter Salovey
Yale University
-People consider actions to merit blame whether they are considered or non-considered, but
to merit praise only when considered. Whether the action is uncontrollable or not does
significantly affect the likelihood that the action-taker is blamed.
The specific references are given with a * before the citation itself and a - before my statement summarizing in what way the citation informs my opinion on the matter at hand. Other relevant commentary is interspersed.
I have not yet read what has transpired on the thread since I last posted. It looks like it might be near being moved to Flame and Burn. Dantesvigil, I will probably start a new thread to continue discussion with you if you respond and wish to continue the discussion.
---
The existence of memory dissociation seems to be taken as a given in papers related to memory. I cannot seem to locate citations of the actual establishment thereof. It is not disputed amongst psychologists to any extent that is noticeable.
*Dissociation Of Working Memory from Decision Making within the Human Prefrontal Cortex
Antoine Bechara, Hanna Damasio, Daniel Tranel, and Steven W. Anderson
The Journal of Neuroscience, January 1, 1998, 18(1):428-437
-Functions related to working memory (daily tasks) are distinct from those related to
decision making. Demonstrably use different parts of the brain.
Intact Perceptual Memory in the Absence of Conscious Memory
Stephan B Hamann and Larry R Squire
-Conscious memory (memory of what you have specifically done) is distinct from perceptual memory (memory of the gist of what you have done/the construction of the memory of what you must have just done) and in fact are handled very differently by the brain. (The study in question is about identifying the brain differences; it takes the cognitive existence of the difference as a given.)
www.socialtext.net/data/workspaces/hamannlab/attachments/publications:20070906173515-19-26944/original/Hamann_Squire_1997_PercepMemWOConscious.pdf
*Know thy memory: The use of questionnaires to assess and study memory.
Herrmann, Douglas J.
Psychological Bulletin. Vol 92(2), Sep 1982, 434-452.
-People are bad at self-assessing their memory performance.
Implicit Memory: History and Current Status
Daniel L Schacter
-On the differences in explicit and implicit memory.
pages.pomona.edu/~rt004747/lgcs11read/Schacter87.pdf
-There is a difference in explicit memory (recall of actual specific events), implicit memory (the actual knowledge gained from learning events. e.g. not remembering the act of studying a math book but having the ability to do the math in question), and procedural memory (tying your shoe, riding a bike, driving between home and work). Incidentally, my friend's stated dissent to the commonly-believed extreme commonness of memory dissociation is related to procedural memory. She puts forth that uses of procedural memory are mistaken for memory dissociation, that is that no actual memory is LOST but that the cognitive functions of procedural memory are being used instead of those of explicit memory in procedural situations (that is, things one does all the time). This seems like semantic hair-splitting to me, but I am not a research psychologist. And semantic hair-splitting is useful for distinguishing folk useages of words (like "I remember") to scientifically-useful terms.
-I looked for anything indicating that there is a difference in the congnitive functions we use for people-related memory and non-people-related memory. I can find no such indications. There ARE a good number of studies specifically on memory and relating to other individuals (generall experiments with rats). These mostly seemed to revolve around figuring out how individuals identify and remember one another as individuals. This seems to be the main avenue of exploration in social memory.
*Flawed Self-Assessment: Implications for Health, Education, and theWorkplace
David Dunning, Chip Heath, and Jerry M. Suls
Department of Psychology, Cornell University; Graduate School of Business, Stanford
University; and Department of Psychology, University of Iowa
-People are bad at self-assessing in general (not just related to memory)
*Finding Positive Meaning in a Stressful Event and Coping
Suzanne C. Thompson
Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 1532-4834, Volume 6, Issue 4, 1985, Pages 279 – 295
-People need to blame something in tragic situations. People do not naturally accept that
things happen on accident.
*Risk and Blame
Mary Douglas
-There is a cultural need to assign blame in negative situations regardless of cause for
(There is a lot of generally off-our-topic content in this book.)
believing anything intentional. Portions of the book available online through google books.
books.google.com/books?id=4sWA-n_7OJgC&lpg=PP1&pg=PP1
(Specifics of experiment consider VERY different situations, but I find these applicable.)
*Intentional Action and Moral Considerations: Still Pragmatic
Analysis 2004 64(3):268-276; doi:10.1093/analys/64.3.268
Fred Adams and Annie Steadman
-The casual concept of intentionality is not well-defined in folk useage, outside of legal contexts.
-People conflate blame with intentionality. This conflation is USEFUL, but does not effectively determine objective truth.
-People are more likely to believe that actions were intentional when those actions have
moral repurcussions regardless of the evidence. (Specifically intentionality is attributed
when there are negative consequences.)
(One of the experiments cited in this paper has a few papers written in criticism. I will additionally make the comment that most of the items more
accurately portrayed analogues to the situation in which we both attribute blame - leaving a
child in the car on purpose, and THEN forgetting them - that is, actions that were made with
admitted knowledge but caused more harm than intended.)
www.unc.edu/~knobe/AS_FolkConcepts.pdf
*Asymmetry in judgments of moral blame and praise: The Role of Perceived Metadesires
David Pizarro, Eric Uhlmann, and Peter Salovey
Yale University
-People consider actions to merit blame whether they are considered or non-considered, but
to merit praise only when considered. Whether the action is uncontrollable or not does
significantly affect the likelihood that the action-taker is blamed.