Memory metaphors and the real-life/laboratory controversy: Correspondence versus storehouse conceptions of memory

Behavioral and Brain Sciences 19 (2):167-188 (1996)
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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 “real-life” or “everyday” memory. The debate has generally centered on the “what” (content), “where” (context), and “how” (methods) of memory research. In this target article, we argue that the 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 thestorehousemetaphor, leading to a focus on thenumberof items remaining in store and accessible to memory, the recent wave of everyday memory research has shifted toward acorrespondencemetaphor, focusing on theaccuracyof memory in representing past events. The correspondence metaphor calls for a research approach that differs from the traditional one 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 soine of the what, where, and how aspects of the “real-life/laboratory” controversy. More important, however, by explicating the unique metatheoretical foundation of the accuracy-oriented approach to memory we aim to promote a more effective exploitation of the correspondence metaphor inbothnaturalistic and laboratory research contexts.

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Citations of this work

Philosophy and Memory Traces: Descartes to Connectionism.John Sutton - 1998 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
Memory.Kourken Michaelian & John Sutton - 2017 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Simulationism and the Function(s) of Episodic Memory.Arieh Schwartz - 2020 - Review of Philosophy and Psychology 11 (2):487-505.
Memory as Triage: Facing Up to the Hard Question of Memory.Nikola Andonovski - 2020 - Review of Philosophy and Psychology 12 (2):227-256.

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References found in this work

The Language of Thought.Jerry A. Fodor - 1975 - Harvard University Press.
Elements of Episodic Memory.Endel Tulving - 1983 - Oxford University Press.
An essay concerning human understanding.John Locke - 1689 - New York: Oxford University Press. Edited by Pauline Phemister.
Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man.Thomas Reid - 1785 - University Park, Pa.: Cambridge University Press. Edited by Derek R. Brookes & Knud Haakonssen.

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