The book explains a condition called anosognosia which brain injured individuals may experience. As the title explains, anosognosia basically describes an unawareness of deficits. Although much has been written about brain injuries, this extremely important facet of the recovery process is rarely addressed. I am brain injured myself and learned more about my own condition from this book than I have learned in all the other seventeen post-morbid years put together. It is written in highly technical language, more for professionals, I'd guess, than the lay person. All the same, I (a lay person) found it great reading and had no trouble understanding its content.

People sometimes remember events that never happened. These illusory or false memories have important practical implications in various aspects of everyday life, and also have significant theoretical implications for cognitive and neuropsychological models of memory. Cognitive psychologists and neuropsychologists have long been aware of false recognition, confabulation, and related kinds of memory distortions, but during the past several years research on these topics has increased rapidly. In recognition of this emerging domain of interest, this special issue of Cognitive Neuropsychology is devoted to the cognitive neuropsychology of false memories. Edited by Daniel L. Schacter, the special issue features experimental and theoretical contributions from leading cognitive psychologists, neuropsychologists, and neurologists that explore such issues as false recognition after frontal lobe damage, the nature of confabulation, amnesia and false memories, physiological correlates of memory illusions, memory distortions in normal and abnormal aging, and computational models of true and false memories.

Daniel Schacter, the expert on memory and the brain and professor at Harvard University, has once again delivered a fascinating volume on the important subject of memory, the brain and belief.

The book is divided into three parts, illustrating its interdisciplinary approach. Part I: Cognitive, Neurological and Pathological Perspectives. Part II: Conscious and Nonconscious Aspects of Memory and Belief: From Social Judgments to Brain Mechanisms. Part II: Memory and Belief in Autobiographical Recall and Autobiography.

The last is of particular interest to the non-scientist interested in ideas of 'self' and the construction of autobiography. The articles in part III include: 'Constructing and Appraising Past Selves' (by Michael Ross and Anne Wilson), 'Memory and Belief in Development' (by Katherine Nelson), 'Autobiography, Identity and the Fictions of Memory' (by Paul John Eakin), and 'Autobiography as Moral Battleground' (by Sissela Bok). There is a conclusion written by Antonio Damasio.

The issue of memory, false memory, autobiography and the self are critical for subjects such as anthropology, sociology, philosophy, history and theology, yet too often thses subjects in the social sciences and humanities completely ignore the findings and theories of science. Here, they are brought together in a format eminently readable to the non-specialist. As this process continues, led by innovative minds such as Schacter, there will no longer be any excuse for scholars to shame themselves in their ignorance.

this is the best review of the cognitive psychology of memory, by one of the leading experts in the field. I personally did not enjoy the artistic aspest of the book, but many say it was complementing. Now there are much better cognitive neuroscience books on memory -Kandel and Squires books, Steven Roses, among others- but as for the psychological aspects, this book stands above all others. At times it reads too much like a collection of case studies, but few would deny that lesion studies have contribuited a lot to an understanding of the brain/mind.
Most of the memory field is covered: recogntion vs. recall, implicit vs. explicit, episodic vs. procedural, short -long term, working memory, genral,emotional, semantic, etc..... but there is also a welcome and thorough discussion of false and recovered memories. In no other field can one see better the imediateimpact that cognitive psychology of memory has on legal and social issues. Schacter effectively explains everything we know about the phenomenon. As for the other themes, adequate and sufficient reviews are given. I personally would have liked a bit more of neuroscience, but it is a great read nontheless. There is also not much mention of the relationship between memory and other higher cognitive processes, like consciousness (a good place for speculation) or attention. But Schacter sticks to what is known, and does it well.
AS an introduction to any aspect of memory studies, few texts are better than this one. But I would tell anyone interested to also read other Schacter books, as well as more pure psychology and neurological texts on the subject. (see Seven Sins of Memory by the same author, Kandel and Squires Memory:from Minds to Molecules and Roses The Making of Memory among others).

The title of this book is not very helpful in understanding what this book is about. There is a translation of Schacter's book (ISBN 3498063243) in German titled "Wir sind Erinnerung", meaning "we are recollections". These three words sum up the essence of the whole book much better than the original title. Really.

Schacter seems to be one of the leading scientists in the field of research on memory. He coined several technical terms of the field and built theories about how humans remember, what they remember and how they fail to remember. This book is a summary of Schacter's work over the period 1980 to 1995 in plain words. While the main text uses very few technical terms, there are many many references to scientific papers. The Notes section stretches over 40 pages, the bibliography covers 35 pages, and the index is excellent. All in all a well written book about a scientific subject.

If you are a scientist in the field, this book is not for you. You should read scientific papers instead of reading 400 pages of a paperback book. There are some other things I do not like about this book (which others seem to like). Schacter often refers to paintings of artists which are reproduced (in black and white, no colour) in the book. These pictures illustrate the way some artists feel about several aspects of memorizing. Well, I am not interested in such poor black and white reproductions, but perhaps you like it. Another annoying feature of this book is that there is often too much story telling in it. I would have liked more conciseness and precision instead of the many many cases a clinician sees through his career. Anyway, it was good enough to keep me reading it from the first to the last page.

Schacter has written a superb overview of the working so the brain and memory. I read this book in one night! I can highly recommend it!
Other recent great reads: "Decoding Darkness" (Tanzi and Parsons) on how Alzheimer's affects the brain -- fascinating stuff!

"The Seven Sins of Memory: How the Mind Forgets and Remembers", ISBN 0-6518-04019-6 (H/C), Houghton Mifflin, 2001 is a 206 page treatise by accomplished author Daniel L. Schacter.

We are given an enticing introduction that is a snapshot of the 8 chapters which follow, the first 7 dealing with the seven sins: Transience, Absent-mindedness, Blocking, Misattribution, Suggestibility, Bias, and Persistence. The final chapter "...Vices or Virtues?" is a grand climateric which reviews the intrinsic(s) of each virtue and a discourse on origin of memory sins: whether collosal blunder by Mother Nature or a by-product of otherwise adaptive features of memory and in which the best explanations might be explored utilizing "reverse-engineering" theorizing.

The book both is and is not a teaching text: it may be read for general concept but also reaches into deeper levels of cognitive processes which may invoke tedious but pleasureable ratiocination. The case of mnemonist Shereshevski whose virtual (near total) recall of everything, significant and insignificant, precluded his ability to function at an abstract level gives us pause.

Sources of these memory pecadilloes is discussed as adaptive (adaptation), exaption (SJG), and spandrel, where the faux pas are not mere nuisances, and where memory links our past with the present and is available for future reference. Again, though the book reads easily, there is an enormous wealth of data and tentative assumptions which causes us to ruminate with weighty passion; and, if we are so disposed, to ponder the wither of memory and its various modes of rigidity, plasticity, and specious nature - and shown to vary betwixt the sexes and within the sexes. The author provokes us to mull these issues and so try to grasp the delicate wonderment of memory and those old ghost glories again to rise.

An error to be pointed out to the reader lies on page 182 which states "-the beta-blocker propanolol - that prevents the release of stress-related hormone." should read "...that prevents the action of stress-related hormone."

The book has sundry good features including 21 pages of notes, 26 pages of significant bibliography, and 14 page index written by seasoned writer of 8 prior books on memory. It is highly recommended and I believe it will improve your memory also.

Daniel Schacter's book, The Seven Sins of Memory, is an excellent starting point for those interested in learning more about current human memory research. It succeeds as a wonderful introduction for three reasons: (a) it is accessible -- you don't need a degree in Psychology to understand it (b) it surveys the key players in the field -- make no mistake, this is a book that backs up its claims and conjectures with summaries of results from top researchers, and (c) it is short -- at just over 200 pages, there is absolutely no fluff. The author looks into 7 faults of memory, including transience, persistence, misattribution, bias, blocking and absent-mindedness. There is also a wonderful section at the end where the author tries to tie everything together and ponder why we have these faults: for example, are they evolutionary (ie, as a result of survival of the fittest)? This last part is a nice section, and quite daring, even if you decide that you don't agree with the author.

Having gotten my undergrad degree in Cognitive Science several years ago, I now work in the computer industry. When I passed by the book in a local bookstore, I thought it'd be fun to revist my past studies. Not only did Dr. Schacter refresh my knowledge of the eyewitness studies of Loftus, the work on memory by Robert and Elizabeth Bjork (both of whom are excellent instructors, btw), and the theories of McLelland and Anderson, he provided a wealth of summaries about other researchers and up-to-date studies. This is really a book that any undergrad in Psych or Cognitive Sci should read, yet it is easily accessible for all.

As far as problems, there are only a few. One is the title: I'm not sure why the author chooses to term the memory faults he describes as "sins". Maybe it makes the book sound more intriguing -- I would have rather he called them "faults". The only other problem that comes to mind is that some of the explanations for why we cannot remember do not address other motives. For example, at one point in the book, the author theorizes about why people cannot recall certain "unpleasant" incidents (such as a rejection or poor performance on a test). In addition to the explanations provided, I think it would have been worthwhile to investigate an obvious other motive: pride. Some people choose not to acknowledge unpleasant incidents in the past because it hurts their ego. That's not a case of faulty memory, but rather a deliberate choice to avoid the truth.

Everyone, even young people, has suffered the frustration of an imperfect memory. What does not get acknowledged is that those frustrations, as common as they are, are only frustrating because they are so uncommon. Most of the time our memories function incredibly well. But as in most of neuroscience, when the brain doesn't function well, that's when we get a picture of what it is doing. A fascinating book, _The Seven Sins of Memory: How the Mind Forgets and Remembers_ (Houghton Mifflin) by Daniel L. Schacter, details just how memory goes wrong, and gives some answers about why. Most important, it tells how at least some of memory's mistakes are directly related to it's remarkable, almost error-free, functioning. Schacter is a neuropsychologist who has written about memory in both academic and popular publications, but his descriptions of the seven ways memory fails are novel, and everyone will recognize at least some of the failures, since they are universal.

Schacter devotes a chapter to each of the sins, like transience, absentmindedness, and so on. There is a chapter on the sin of blocking. We have a phrase for it: "It's on the tip of my tongue." This one is so universal that of fifty-one languages surveyed, forty-five have a similar phrase (the Cheyenne translates to "I have lost it on my tongue."). It is far more likely to happen when you are trying to remember someone's name; remembering Mr. Baker is much harder to remember than the word "baker" because Mr. Baker designates one individual, whereas "baker" designates a well known range of activities and products. One of the traps people fall into is while trying to retrieve a tip-of-the-tongue word, they find a sound-alike word and keep hitting on that, which delays finding the target word.

There is lots that can go wrong with memory, and Schacter presents amazing clinical cases, like the man who had no capacity to remember anyone's name while he could remember other things without difficulty, to show specific and extreme problems. But in the final chapter of the book Schacter reports that these sins are not design flaws, not products of a basically defective system. He uses (but does not over-use) evolutionary biology to show that brains have made trade-offs to produce a useful working system that will quite naturally fail in some instances. It might be handy to remember absolutely everything, but then our minds would be too crowded to do other things efficiently; there have been cases of people who formed memories of virtually everything that happened to them, and were so inundated with details they could not function in the real world. The brain is made to forget things it does not use regularly. You can read this book and become more forgiving about your own forgetfulness and others; Schacter's readable, fascinating account will make you admire just how well your faulty memory works.

Memory is a central issue for so much of human life - whether it be questions of identity, autobiography, or belief. In this volume, edited by the expert on memory and belief Daniel Schacter of Harvard, we have an innovative interdisciplinary examination into the question of memory, why it fails, and what happens when it does.

The volume is divided into the following sections by discpline: 1) Cognitive Perspectives, 2) Psychiatric and Psychopathological Perspectives, 3) Neurophyschological Perspectives, 4) Neurobiological Perspectives, 5) Sociocultural Perspectives, 6)Concluding Reflections.

The articles, each by a different contributor, are not the easiest to jump into, especially for those without a scientific background. In fact, the overall emphasis is very much on science with the social sciences rather underrepresented (in my opinion). This is the reason why I give it 4 stars instead of 5. However, those with a scientific inclination, yet also philosophical or social science inclinations towards questions of identity, autobiography, belief and fantasy will find this book of great interest. I would advise you to also look at the much more recent volume (2000) by Schacter entitled 'Memory, the Brain and Belief', which may in fact be more up to date.