THE COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE OF CONSTRUCTIVE MEMORY

Numerous empirical and theoretical observations point to the construct ive nature of human memory. This paper reviews contemporary research p ertaining to two major types of memory distortions that illustrate suc h constructive processes: (a) false recognition and (b) intrusions and confabulations. A general integrative framework that outlines the typ es of problems that the human memory system must solve in order to pro duce mainly accurate representations of past experience is first descr ibed. This constructive memory framework (CMF) emphasizes processes th at operate at encoding (initially binding distributed features of an e pisode together as a coherent trace; ensuring sufficient pattern separ ation of similar episodes) and also at retrieval (formation of a suffi ciently focused retrieval description with which to query memory; post retrieval monitoring and verification). The framework is applied to fi ndings from four different areas of research: cognitive studies of you ng adults, neuropsychological investigations of brain-damaged patients , neuroimaging studies, and studies of cognitive aging.