Further Reading — Chapter 5: Memory

Annotated resources for deeper exploration. Items marked with ★ are especially recommended as starting points.

Accessible Books on Memory

★ Loftus, E. F., & Ketcham, K. (1994). The Myth of Repressed Memory. St. Martin's Press. Elizabeth Loftus's accessible account of the false memory controversy of the 1990s, and the science underlying memory's malleability. Reads partly as case study, partly as science journalism. The most direct entry into Loftus's influential work for a general audience.

★ Schacter, D. L. (2001). The Seven Sins of Memory: How the Mind Forgets and Remembers. Houghton Mifflin. Harvard psychologist Daniel Schacter's elegant framework for understanding how memory fails — through transience, absent-mindedness, blocking, misattribution, suggestibility, bias, and persistence. Highly readable, beautifully organized, and directly applicable to everyday experience.

Foer, J. (2011). Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything. Penguin Press. A journalist's account of training to compete in the US Memory Championship — and what the process reveals about how memory works and how it can be trained. Entertaining and substantive; an excellent account of the method of loci (memory palace) and other memory techniques.

McAdams, D. P. (1993). The Stories We Live By: Personal Myths and the Making of the Self. William Morrow. The foundational text on narrative identity — how we construct our sense of self through an ongoing autobiographical story. Dense but rewarding; provides the theoretical framework for thinking about memory as identity-construction.

Primary Sources

Loftus, E. F., & Palmer, J. C. (1974). Reconstruction of automobile destruction: An example of the interaction between language and memory. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 13(5), 585–589. The original car accident study demonstrating the misinformation effect. Brief, clear, still compelling after 50 years.

Roediger, H. L., & Karpicke, J. D. (2006). Test-enhanced learning: Taking memory tests improves long-term retention. Psychological Science, 17(3), 249–255. A key paper demonstrating the testing effect with academic material. Readable and directly applicable.

Ebbinghaus, H. (1885/1913). Memory: A Contribution to Experimental Psychology. Teachers College, Columbia University. The original forgetting curve research. Historical and technical but accessible in its key findings. Available online.

Bahrick, H. P., Bahrick, P. O., & Wittlinger, R. P. (1975). Fifty years of memory for names and faces: A cross-sectional approach. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 104(1), 54–75. Striking longitudinal data on long-term retention; shows both what survives over decades and what doesn't.

On Learning and Memory

★ Brown, P. C., Roediger, H. L., & McDaniel, M. A. (2014). Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning. Harvard University Press. The most practically useful book on evidence-based learning strategies — retrieval practice, spaced repetition, interleaving, elaboration. Written for a general audience. Essential reading for anyone who learns professionally or coaches others.

Dunlosky, J., Rawson, K. A., Marsh, E. J., Nathan, M. J., & Willingham, D. T. (2013). Improving students' learning with effective learning techniques. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 14(1), 4–58. A comprehensive academic review of 10 learning techniques, rating each for evidence quality. Retrieval practice and distributed practice get the highest ratings; highlighting and re-reading get the lowest. Free to read online.

On Autobiographical Memory

Conway, M. A. (2005). Memory and the self. Journal of Memory and Language, 53(4), 594–628. A substantive academic article on the relationship between autobiographical memory and self-concept. Conway's "self-memory system" model is among the most influential in the field.

Pillemer, D. B. (1998). Momentous Events, Vivid Memories. Harvard University Press. An examination of how single, pivotal events shape autobiographical memory and life narrative. Readable academic psychology at its best.

On False Memory

Shaw, J. (2016). The Memory Illusion: Remembering, Forgetting, and the Science of False Memory. Random House. A contemporary, accessible account of false memory research for general audiences. Particularly good on the legal implications and on the challenge of evaluating one's own memories.

McNally, R. J. (2003). Remembering Trauma. Harvard University Press. A comprehensive and balanced account of the trauma and memory debate — recovered memories, false memory, and the science underlying both. Essential for anyone who wants to engage with this contested area carefully.