Cognitive Neuroscience of Remembering: Creating and Controlling Memory

Hauser, Marc. Moral Minds: How Nature Designed Our Universal Sense of Right and Wrong . New York, NY: Harper Collins, 2006. ISBN: 0060780703.

De Waal, Frans. Primates and Philosophers: How Morality Evolved . Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006. ISBN: 0691124477.

Wilson, James Q. The Moral Sense . New York, NY: Free Press, 1997. ISBN: 0684833328.

Feigenson, Neal. Legal Blame: How Jurors Think and Talk about Accidents . Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 2001. ISBN: 155798834X.

Fischer, John M., and Mark Ravizza. Ethics: Problems and Principles . Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1992. ISBN: 0030475279.

Wright, Robert. The Moral Animal: Why We Are the Way We Are . New York, NY: Random House, 1995. ISBN: 0679763996.

Mikhail, John. “Universal Moral Grammar: Theory, Evidence, and the Future.” Trends in Cognitive Sciences 11 (2007): 143-152.

Baddeley, A. D. Human Memory: Theory and Practice. Revised edition. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1998.

PubMed abstract: Illusory memories are unsettling, but far from uncommon. Over the past several years, increasing experimental and theoretical attention has focused on misattribution errors that occur when some form of memory is present but attributed to an incorrect time, place or source. Demonstrations of errors and distortions in remembering raise a question with important theoretical and practical implications: how can memory misattributions be reduced or avoided? We consider evidence that documents the occurrence of illusory memories, particularly false recognition responses, and then review three ways in which memory distortion can be minimized.

PubMed abstract: Current knowledge is summarized about long-term memory systems of the human brain, with memory systems defined as specific neural networks that support specific mnemonic processes. The summary integrates convergent evidence from neuropsychological studies of patients with brain lesions and from functional neuroimaging studies using positron emission tomography (PET) or functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Evidence is reviewed about the specific roles of hippocampal and parahippocampal regions, the amygdala, the basal ganglia, and various neocortical areas in declarative memory. Evidence is also reviewed about which brain regions mediate specific kinds of procedural memory, including sensorimotor, perceptual, and cognitive skill learning; perceptual and conceptual repetition priming; and several forms of conditioning. Findings are discussed in terms of the functional neural architecture of normal memory, age-related changes in memory performance, and neurological conditions that affect memory such as amnesia. Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and Huntington’s disease.

Light, L. L. “Memory and Aging.” In E. L. Bjork & R. A. Bjork (eds.), Memory . San Diego: Academic Press, 1998, pp. 443-490.

PubMed abstract: Recent functional brain imaging studies suggest that object concepts may be represented, in part, by distributed networks of discrete cortical regions that parallel the organization of sensory and motor systems. In addition, different regions of the left lateral prefrontal cortex, and perhaps anterior temporal cortex, may have distinct roles in retrieving, maintaining and selecting semantic information.

Metcalfe, J. “Metacognitive Processes.” In E. L. Bjork & R. A. Bjork (eds.), Memory. San Diego: Academic Press, 1996, pp. 381- 407.

PubMed abstract: The prefrontal cortex has long been suspected to play an important role in cognitive control, in the ability to orchestrate thought and action in accordance with internal goals. Its neural basis, however, has remained a mystery. Here, we propose that cognitive control stems from the active maintenance of patterns of activity in the prefrontal cortex that represent goals and the means to achieve them. They provide bias signals to other brain structures whose net effect is to guide the flow of activity along neural pathways that establish the proper mappings between inputs, internal states, and outputs needed to perform a given task. We review neurophysiological, neurobiological, neuroimaging, and computational studies that support this theory and discuss its implications as well as further issues to be addressed.

Wagner, A. D., & W. Koutstaal. “Priming.” In V. S. Ramachandran (ed.), Encyclopedia of the Human Brain . San Diego: Academic Press, 2002. (In press.)