Memory: BBS Call for Commentators

Below is the abstract of a forthcoming target article on: MEMORY METAPHORS by A. Koriat and M. Goldsmith This article has been accepted for publication in Behavioral and Brain Sciences (BBS), an international, interdisciplinary journal providing Open Peer Commentary on important and controversial current research in the biobehavioral and cognitive sciences. Commentators must be current BBS Associates or nominated by a current BBS Associate. To be considered as a commentator for this article, to suggest other appropriate commentators, or for information about how to become a BBS Associate, please send email to: bbs(a)ecs.soton.ac.uk or write to: Behavioral and Brain Sciences Department of Psychology University of Southampton Highfield, Southampton SO17 1BJ UNITED KINGDOM http://cogsci.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/bbs.html gopher://gopher.princeton.edu:70/11/.libraries/.pujournals ftp://ftp.princeton.edu/pub/harnad/BBS To help us put together a balanced list of commentators, please give some indication of the aspects of the topic on which you would bring your areas of expertise to bear if you were selected as a commentator. An electronic draft of the full text is available for inspection by anonymous ftp (or gopher or world-wide-web) according to the instructions that follow after the abstract. ____________________________________________________________________ MEMORY METAPHORS AND THE LABORATORY/REAL-LIFE CONTROVERSY: CORRESPONDENCE VERSUS STOREHOUSE VIEWS OF MEMORY Asher Koriat and Morris Goldsmith Department of Psychology University of Haifa Haifa, Israel rsps301(a)uvm.haifa.ac.il KEYWORDS: accuracy, assessment, capacity ecological validity, intentionality, memory, metamemory, metaphors, monitoring, representation, storehouse, subject control. ABSTRACT: The study of memory is witnessing a spirited clash between proponents of traditional laboratory research and those advocating a more naturalistic approach to the study of "everyday" memory. The debate has generally centered on the "what" (content), "where" (context), and "how" (methods) of memory research. In the present target article, we argue that this controversy discloses a further, more fundamental breach between two underlying memory metaphors, each having distinct implications for memory theory and assessment: Whereas traditional memory research has been dominated by the storehouse metaphor, leading to a focus on the quantity of items remaining in store, the recent wave of everyday memory research discloses a shift towards a correspondence metaphor, focusing on the accuracy or faithfulness of memory in representing past events. Our analysis shows the correspondence metaphor to call for a research approach which differs from the traditional approach in important respects: in emphasizing the intentional-representational function of memory, in addressing the wholistic and graded aspects of memory correspondence, in taking an output-bound assessment perspective, and in allowing more room for the operation of subject-controlled metamemory processes and motivational factors. This analysis can help tie together some of the what, where, and how aspects of the everyday-laboratory controversy. More importantly, in explicating the unique metatheoretical foundation of the accuracy-oriented approach to memory, our aim is to promote a more effective exploitation of the correspondence metaphor in both naturalistic and laboratory research contexts. -------------------------------------------------------------- To help you decide whether you would be an appropriate commentator for this article, an electronic draft is retrievable by anonymous ftp from ftp.princeton.edu according to the instructions below (the filename is bbs.koriat). Please do not prepare a commentary on this draft. Just let us know, after having inspected it, what relevant expertise you feel you would bring to bear on what aspect of the article. ------------------------------------------------------------- These files are also on the World Wide Web and the easiest way to retrieve them is with Netscape, Mosaic, gopher, archie, veronica, etc. Here are some of the URLs you can use to get to the BBS Archive: http://www.princeton.edu/~harnad/bbs.html http://cogsci.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/bbs.html gopher://gopher.princeton.edu:70/11/.libraries/.pujournals ftp://ftp.princeton.edu/pub/harnad/BBS/bbs.koriat ftp://cogsci.ecs.soton.ac.uk/pub/harnad/BBS/bbs.koriat To retrieve a file by ftp from an Internet site, type either: ftp ftp.princeton.edu or ftp 128.112.128.1 When you are asked for your login, type: anonymous Enter password as queried (your password is your actual userid: yourlogin(a)yourhost.whatever.whatever - be sure to include the "@") cd /pub/harnad/BBS To show the available files, type: ls Next, retrieve the file you want with (for example): get bbs.koriat When you have the file(s) you want, type: quit ---------- Where the above procedure is not available there are two fileservers: ftpmail(a)decwrl.dec.com and bitftp(a)pucc.bitnet that will do the transfer for you. To one or the other of them, send the following one line message: help for instructions (which will be similar to the above, but will be in the form of a series of lines in an email message that ftpmail or bitftp will then execute for you). -------------------------------------------------------------