Functional Disorders of Memory (PLE: Memory)

Book excerpt: Originally published in 1979, the chapters in this volume summarize the available knowledge pertaining to a variety of functional – as opposed to explicitly organic – amnesias and disruptions of memory. Each chapter is written by an expert, and each author has attempted to integrate his area of inquiry into the contemporary body of theory and research on memory and cognition. Functional memory disorders may prove to be a significant testing ground for current theorizing, and the study of these phenomena may provide insights into memory and cognition that might be obscured in the usual sorts of laboratory investigations. The intent of the volume is to contribute to the development of a more comprehensive account of the processes involved in remembering and forgetting. The reader will find bold new treatments of repression and childhood amnesia, systematic explorations of certain experimental amnesias, and challenging analyses of the anomalies of everyday memory, in this ground-breaking work of the time.