The Role of Repeated Retrieval in Shaping Collective Memory

This book is about culture and memory, about how the society and culture in which people grow up helps to determine their individual memories, collective memories, and identity. We will emphasize how the process of repeated retrieval helps to shape our memories. Before we get to our main story, we need to provide some background. Many different cultures exist within the community of scholars who study memory, from humanistic approaches to a whole variety of scientific approaches to the field (see Roediger, Dudai & Fitzpatrick, 2007). In our chapter we attempt to blend some insights from several approaches to studying memory. In particular, we apply the principles that have emerged from research in experimental cognitive psychology to issues in collective memory in hopes that combining insights from various disciplines may point the way to progress in understanding larger issues in the study of memory. Our chapter has six parts. First, we discuss issues in collective memory – how we conceive the topic – by considering three conceptual oppositions (following Wertsch & Roediger, in press). We then discuss how these issues might play out in learning about history from textbooks. Then, we describe three main mechanisms that we believe play a critical role in shaping collective memory: the act of retrieving information from memory; repeated retrieval of information over long periods of time; and finally the role of feedback in modifying memories. The third, fourth, and fifth sections of the chapter spell out these mechanisms and how they might contribute to the creation of collective memories. The sixth section explores the issue of accuracy in collective memory, and how it is affected by the mechanisms of retrieval and feedback. Finally, we end with some conclusions.