Academic Discourse on NostalgiaMemory, Emotion, and Time

Memory
One of the most famous studies into memory comes from Elizabeth Loftus. This study
focuses on eye-witness testimonies and whether or not they are reliable sources of evidence. Her
theory, which changed the way psychologists think about memory, contends that memory doesnt
work like a tape recorder or video camera. But instead memory is reconstructed. During this
reconstruction of the memory, new information can be integrated. Once this new information is
added to the memory, a human can no longer tell the difference between what actually happened
and what they have constructed. The way she went about testing this theory was to show people
an event, and then afterwards question them about what happened. She found that based on
different questions asked, leading questions for example, people would remember things that
they didnt actually see. For instance one of the experiments involved a car that ran a stop sign.
Half of the participants were asked how fast the car was going when it ran the stop sign, and the
other half were asked how fast the car was going when it turned right. The last question was
whether or not they saw a stop sign. For the group that was asked about the stop sign in the
beginning, 53% reported seeing the sign. In the other group, which was not asked about the stop
sign, only 35% reported seeing it. By adding the presupposition of knowing that the stop sign
was there, more people reported that they saw it, even though they didnt. Her other experiments
tested different ways to implement false presuppositions into questions, and each one showed
significant effect when this type of misdirection influenced memory. So, when applying this
knowledge to the realm of eyewitness testimony, we find that it can be very problematic.
Because witnesses are often questioned multiple times, presuppositions will likely be inserted

from time to time. Once this information is given to the witness it will ultimately find its way
into the memory of the event, whether they actually saw it or not.
This is significant for my project because it shows that memories change over time. Try
to imagine a family holiday party, and maybe grandpa did something silly, spilled his drink on
his sweater. You were there, you saw the spill, and even helped him clean up. But a week later
you are talking to your aunt and she asks Why grandma bumped into him as he lifted his glass,
was she drunk? You begin to think of everything that happened, and even though you were there
and didnt see grandma bump into him, in fact it didnt happen, you remember that grandma had
been drinking that night. So you recall that grandma was a little drunk and she accidentally
bumped into her husband, causing him to spill his drink. What actually happened is grandma had
two glasses of wine, never got out of control, and the glass just slipped in your grandpas hand.
But because you were asked why she bumped into him, and if she was drunk, you reconstruct the
memory with the information that grandma was drunk and she bumped into him, and then that is
what you see. With the right questions askedwhether from somebody else, or even yourselfI
think it is clear that memory can change. And the more new information that can be applied to
that memory the more it changes along the way.
Another interesting way our memories fail us is a phenomena known as memory illusion.
This happens when the brain falsely remembers something associated with something else. A
short test would be to glance at a list of words. (For example)
Bed

Dream

Yawn

Night

Sheets

Tired

Pillow

Rest

Couch

Blanket

Snore

Warm

Take about a second to look at each word, and when youre done write down as many as you can
remember. Did you write down sleep? If you did that is a memory illusion, because all the words
are associated with sleep, your brain may have inserted the word into your memory by
association.
Human memory is complex, with multiple systems all working in concert to create our
memory. There is sensory memory which is very quick to fade as it is simply the impression of
incoming stimuli that are held for a couple seconds so that the rest of the system can begin to
work on it. The next step is short-term memory. This is a little bit longer, but not by much,
somewhere between ten and twenty seconds depending on the individual. This is the stage in
memory where we package together the information, and it is either sent to long-term memory or
forgotten. This is where the majority of what people consider their memory actually comes from.
Long-term memory could last an hour, a day, a year, a decade, or even longer depending on how
valued the information is. It can also depend on how often that information is retrieved
regardless of value. Memory can break down even further, but for the purposes of this paper we
dont need to go there.
With these basic areas of memory in mind it is important to also know how memory is
processed. Memory has three major processesencoding, storage, and retrieval. Encoding is the
first step of transferring information into an accessible object in our brain, like typing a
document into word on your computer. The next process is storage. This is how the brain stores
information, or in continuance of the computer metaphor, saving that word document to a file.
The last process is retrieval. This is where the metaphor breaks down a little bit, but imagine that
every time you saved a file on your computer, it is torn apart and scattered throughout the hard
drive. So when you open the file back up the computer has to search through the entire hard

drive in search of all the little piecesand maybe it will reproduce the correct document, but
maybe there will be some information missing, and maybe there will be some new information.
This is because our memory isnt perfect. But at the same time we are able to remember a lot
more than we otherwise could because we encode the most important points that maybe dont
really change, and we reconstruct that memory by connecting the dots of those most important
points. Lastly, I will point out the seven sins of memory.
1. Suggestibility: Misleading information changes the way we remember things.
2. Misattribution: When we attribute memories to incorrect origins, typically because of
new information.
3. Bias: The different schemas and biases people have influence the way they remember
people and events.
4. Transience: Our memories fade over time, and the loss affects both short, and long-term
systems. The older we get the harder it is to access memories.
5. Persistence: Some memories can stick out in our minds for long periods of time,
disrupting thoughts and sleep even.
6. Blocking: Sometimes our memory gets blocked. For instance, do you remember ever
saying something, and then in the middle of it completely forgetting what you intended to
say?
7. Absentmindedness: This is when we fail to encode memories because lacking attention
or the failure to retrieve a memory because your mind is elsewhere.

Emotion
Emotions are loosely defined as the mental state or feelings associated with the
evaluation of our experiences. Most people have a general understanding of emotions such as
happiness, sadness, anger, fear, and disgust. Some researchers include surprise and contempt, but
I think these two are more akin to combinations of the five mentioned in the previous sentence.
But researchers have tested people based on recognition of facial expressions, and all across the
world people recognize the above emotions as displayed on the human facethese are called
primary emotions. But once we get beyond these fairly universal emotions that people can agree
on feeling, the interpretation of these emotions gets more varied. Some researchers think that

emotions are the result of thought. Or that emotions result from the interpretation of a bodily
reaction to some stimuli. Others propose that we use our gut reactions to determine the way we
should actso when she kissed me I felt like I should kiss her back. Another theory refers to
emotion provoking events which lead to different emotions and bodily reactions. The two-factor
theory of emotion is the one that I think is most comprehensive, and combines some aspects of
all the other theories. This theory states that emotions are produced by an undifferentiated state
of arousal along with an attribution of that arousal. So basically something happens and we get
aroused in some way, a feeling comes along, and then we take that feeling and think of why that
feeling came and we determine a reason for the way we feel. For example, if I come home for
dinner and my mom has made my favorite dish, I will feel happy. At that point I could attribute
the happiness to eating my favorite food, or to being thankful for a thoughtful mother who
cooked my favorite meal. Either way I will be happy though.
Lets think about the Two-Factor Theory in terms of nostalgia though. I am about to leave
my apartment for the last time and before I do I find a poster that I had forgotten behind my door.
This poster reminds me of my freshman year at University and all the friends I made. First I
smile, but then I start to cry, and not tears of joy, sad tears. What is happening here? So I see the
poster and this big, weird, complex emotion comes alongboth happy and sad. When thinking
about this emotion I determine that I am happy because the memory is good, and I remember that
day (I got the poster) as being a good one. But I also determine that I am sad because I know that
day is gone forever, and that nothing quite like that will ever happen to me again, I am also sad
because the friends I made that year are splitting up at the end of our college careers, and that
was a cherished memory which only reinforces the sadness about everyone moving away. I like
this theory because it gives credit to the gut feeling of emotion, that there is something about

an emotion that you recognize when you feel it. Then it also gives room for there to be a
cognitive process behind it as welland at this point I think I turns into a chicken or the egg
type of argument. Did the thought come first and create the feeling, or did the feeling come and
create the thought? The theory implies that it is the feeling first, and I tend to agree, but I think
that it could be seen as a simultaneous thing with the speed of the human mind.
Another important aspect of emotion is that it is associated with brain areas that predate
our cerebral cortex or the area of our brain associated with intelligence. Emotions are more like
instinct, they happen without any thought. It is a more primitive way to experience the world
when riding on emotion. We can control our emotions to a certain extent with intention, but there
is a limit, and at times the emotions can override the logical, more intellectual processes of the
brain.
Nostalgia
In the sources I looked at, I really didnt find a lot about nostalgia. In Abnormal
Psychology there was a very short section that dealt with reminiscence and nostalgia and the
affects it has on people as they agemostly in reference to senior age people though. The book
states that it can be beneficial to reminisce about the past as one transitions into later life. But the
book also warns that depending on the type of reminiscing, it can also be a negative thing. It is
positive when people think of the ways in which they achieved a sense of self-worth and
acceptance of the past. Another positive way to reminisce is to think of the ways a person
overcame lifes obstacles to accomplish their goals. But if the person can only think of the ways
that they failed it is a bad thing.

When I searched University databases I found mostly narrow studies into particular
aspects of nostalgia, but nothing in regards to what I am looking at. But I think that the fact that
there are studies on nostalgia directed at very specific aspects of life is indicative of how strange
and useful the feeling is. Perhaps the writers of psychology textbooks simply havent realized
just how to talk about nostalgia yet. And I think that is okay, because nostalgia isnt quite the
same for anybody that I have talked with. There are key markers that identify nostalgia, but
people experience it in a very personal, individual way. Unlike the primary emotions that I listed
above, there is no universal face for nostalgia.