The Seven Sins of Memory
Subtitle: How the Mind Forgets and Remembers
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Published: May 7, 2001
Language: eng
Number of pages: 270
ISBN-13: 9780618040193
First sentence: ON OCTOBER 3, 1995, the most sensational criminal trial of our time reached a stunning conclusion: a jury acquitted O. J. Simpson of murder.
Description: "Daniel L. Schacter, chairman of Harvard University's Psychology Department and a leading expert on memory, has developed the first framework that describes the basic memory miscues we all encounter. Just like the seven deadly sins, the seven memory sins appear routinely in everyday life. Schacter explains how transience reflects a weakening of memory over time, how absent-mindedness occurs when failures of attention sabotage memory, and how blocking happens when we can't retrieve a name we know well.

Three other sins involve distorted memories: misattribution (assigning a memory to the wrong source), suggestibility (implanting false memories), and bias (rewriting the past based on present beliefs). The seventh sin, persistence, concerns intrusive recollections that we cannot forget - even when we wish we could. Although these sins may cause difficulties, as Schacter notes, they're surprisingly vital to a keen mind."--BOOK JACKET.