There was some agreement about what memory traces were not, but little about what actually did characterize the memory trace. Yet models and theories of memory at the time could not help making implicit and often unrecognized assumptions about the memory trace. Originally published in 1982, this title aimed to strengthen the meagre base on which memory theories rested at the time. It challenges old assumptions and introduces new concepts, foremost the notion of singularity, as they become necessary to understand traces adequately. Some research data of the past was found in need of reinterpretation. The result is a new theory of the memory trace.

Originally published in 1928 this short essay looks two rival theories of the time, both hypothetical, and explores which one ‘better fits the facts’. Whether memory depends on "enduring traces" in brain structure (to use the language of Professor Semon), or whether it depends on records in "psychical structure" (to use the language of Professor McDougall). Today it can be read and enjoyed in its historical context.

Originally published in 1978, this volume contains the evidence that is most crucial for our understanding the processes of forgetting and retention. Organized in terms of problem areas and issues that are particularly pertinent to understanding these processes, the book deals with both animal and human studies. The author begins by defining the topic and reviewing its historical development. A theoretical orientation follows, and then the author begins to address the major factors that determine what is, and what is not, remembered. Although we cannot yet specify the principles from which we can predict when an episode, once learned, will be remembered well or forgotten entirely, the author demonstrates that such principles are not that far away. He considers the issues that must be resolved before such principles are established, and in the course of doing so covers the major research on why we remember events and why they are forgotten.

As a conceptual framework for the investigation of human memory, the levels-of-processing paradigm had enjoyed immense popularity since its introduction in the early 1970s. It was the impetus behind literally hundreds of experiments and was used as an "explanation" for a wide range of retention phenomena. Consequently, a wealth of data and theory had emerged, and this title assimilates and evaluates this information. Originally published in 1979, the distinguished contributors to the volume – both proponents and opponents of the levels-of-processing framework – present here their latest data and ideas on a viewpoint that has been a tremendous influence in memory research and related areas.

Originally published in 1976, this volume contains new and original contributions of the time addressed to a related set of ideas concerning processes of memory in animals. The theme is that animals remember and that theories of animal learning must take this into account as well as the coding processes that have been assumed to be specific to human beings. The focus of the book is on processes, and some progress is reported in differentiating types of memory. The emphasis in applying animal work to studies of human memory is made not in terms of paradigms but in terms of processes implicated via performance in a variety of tasks. Also, many of the chapters reflect the usefulness of applying a memory framework to a variety of "nonmemory" paradigms. This work will be essential reading for all those interested in animal as well as human memory, and provided the most up to date and broadest examination of animal memory processes at the time, from both a theoretical and conceptual framework.

Originally published in 1979, the chapters in this volume summarize the available knowledge pertaining to a variety of functional – as opposed to explicitly organic – amnesias and disruptions of memory. Each chapter is written by an expert, and each author has attempted to integrate his area of inquiry into the contemporary body of theory and research on memory and cognition. Functional memory disorders may prove to be a significant testing ground for current theorizing, and the study of these phenomena may provide insights into memory and cognition that might be obscured in the usual sorts of laboratory investigations. The intent of the volume is to contribute to the development of a more comprehensive account of the processes involved in remembering and forgetting. The reader will find bold new treatments of repression and childhood amnesia, systematic explorations of certain experimental amnesias, and challenging analyses of the anomalies of everyday memory, in this ground-breaking work of the time.