Pieces of Light: How the New Science of Memory Illuminates the Stories We Tell About Our Pasts

Fernyhough, Charles

ISBN 10: 0062237896 / ISBN 13: 9780062237897

Published by Harper, 2013

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Synopsis:

Using a series of personal stories and the latest research, an award-winning writer and psychologist guides readers through the extraordinary new science of autobiographic memory to help them better understand the powers of recall and their relationship with the past. 25,000 first printing.

From the Back Cover:

How is it possible to have vivid memories of something that never happened?

How can siblings remember the same event from their childhoods so differently?

Do the selections and distortions of memory reveal a truth about the self?

Why are certain memories tied to specific places?

Does your memory really get worse as you get older?

A new consensus is emerging among cognitive scientists: rather than possessing fixed, unchanging memories, we create recollections anew each time we are called upon to remember. As the psychologist Charles Fernyhough explains, remembering is an act of narrative imagination as much as it is the product of a neurological process. In Pieces of Light, he eloquently illuminates this compelling scientific breakthrough via a series of personal stories—a visit to his college campus to see if his memories hold up, an interview with his ninety-three-year-old grandmother, conversations with those whose memories are affected by brain damage and trauma—each illustrating memory's complex synergy of cognitive and neurological functions.

Fernyhough guides readers through the fascinating new science of autobiographical memory, covering topics including imagination and the power of sense associations to cue remembering. Exquisitely written and meticulously researched, Pieces of Light brings together science and literature, the ordinary and the extraordinary, to help us better understand the ways we remember—and the ways we forget.

Bibliographic Details

Title: Pieces of Light: How the New Science of ...
Publisher: Harper
Publication Date: 2013
Binding: hardcover
Condition: Good