Though traditionally a topic studied in the humanities, collective memory has become an area of interest in psychology. Common approaches taken in psychology to study collective memory have included investigating the cognitive mechanisms involved in the formation and transmission of collective memory; and comparing the social representations of history between social groups.
Social representations of history Research on collective memory has compared how different social groups form their own representations of history and how such collective memories can impact ideals, values, behaviors and vice versa. Research has proposed that groups form social representations of history in order to develop their own social identity, as well as to evaluate the past, often in order to prevent past patterns of conflict and error from being repeated. Research has also compared differences in recollections of historical events, such as the examples given earlier when comparing history and collective memory.
Cognitive mechanisms underlying collaborative recall Certain cognitive mechanisms involved during group recall and the interactions between these mechanisms have been suggested to contribute to the formation of collective memory. Below are some mechanisms involved during when groups of individuals recall collaboratively. The main theoretical account for collaborative inhibition is
retrieval disruption. During the encoding of information, individuals form their own idiosyncratic organization of the information. This organization is later used when trying to recall the information. In a group setting as members exchange information, the information recalled by group members disrupts the idiosyncratic organization one had developed. As each member's organization is disrupted, this results in the less information recalled by the group compared to the pooled recall of participants who had individually recalled (an equal number of participants as in the group). Despite the problem of collaborative inhibition, working in groups may benefit an individual's memory in the long run, as group discussion exposes one to many different ideas over time. Working alone initially prior to collaboration seems to be the optimal way to increase memory. Early speculations about collaborative inhibition have included explanations, such as diminished personal accountability, social loafing and the diffusion of responsibility, however retrieval disruption remains the leading explanation. Studies have found that collective inhibition to sources other than social loafing, as offering a monetary incentive have been evidenced to fail to produce an increase in memory for groups. Further evidence from this study suggest something other than social loafing is at work, as reducing evaluation apprehension – the focus on one's performance amongst other people – assisted in individuals' memories but did not produce a gain in memory for groups. Personal accountability – drawing attention to one's own performance and contribution in a group – also did not reduce collaborative inhibition. Therefore, group members' motivation to overcome the interference of group recall cannot be achieved by several motivational factors.
Cross-cueing Information exchange among group members often helps individuals to remember things that they would not have remembered had they been working alone. In other words, the information provided by person A may 'cue' memories in person B. This results in enhanced recall. During a group recall, an individual might not remember as much as they would on their own, as their memory recall cues may be distorted because of other team members. Nevertheless, this has enhanced benefits, team members can remember something specific to the disruption of the group. Cross-cueing plays a role in formulation of group recall (Barber, 2011).
Collective false memories In 2010, a study was done to see how individuals remembered
a bombing that occurred in the 1980s. The clock was later set at 10.25 to remember the tragic bomb (de Vito et al. 2009). The individuals were asked to remember if the clock at Bologna central station in Italy had remained functioning, everyone said no, in fact it was the opposite (Legge, 2018). There have been many instances in history where people create a
false memory. In a 2003 study done in the Claremont Graduate University, results demonstrated that during a stressful event and the actual event are managed by the brain differently. Other instances of false memories may occur when remembering something on an object that is not actually there or mistaking how someone looks in a crime scene (Legge, 2018). It is possible for people to remember the same false memories; some people call it the "
Mandela effect". The name "Mandela effect" comes from the name of South African civil rights leader
Nelson Mandela whom many people falsely believed was dead. (Legge, 2018). The Pandora Box experiment explains that language complexes the mind more when it comes to false memories. Language plays a role with imaginative experiences, because it makes it hard for humans to gather correct information (Jablonka, 2017).
Error pruning Compared to recalling individually, group members can provide opportunities for error pruning during recall to detect errors that would otherwise be uncorrected by an individual.
Social contagion errors Group settings can also provide opportunities for exposure to erroneous information that may be mistaken to be correct or previously studied.
Re-exposure effects Listening to group members recall the previously encoded information can enhance memory as it provides a second exposure opportunity to the information. The brain has many important brain regions that are directed at memory, the cerebral cortex, the fornix and the structures that they contain. These structures in the brain are required for attaining new information, and if any of these structures are damaged you can get anterograde or retrograde amnesia (Anastasio et al.,p. 26, 2012). Amnesia could be anything that disrupts your memory or affects you psychologically. Over time, memory loss becomes a natural part of amnesia. Sometimes you can get retrograde memory of a recent or past event.
Synchronization of memories from dyads to networks Bottom-up approaches to the formation of collective memories investigate how cognitive-level phenomena allow for people to synchronize their memories following conversational remembering. Due to the malleability of human memory, talking with one another about the past results in memory changes that increase the similarity between the interactional partners' memories Research on larger interactions show that collective memory in larger social networks can emerge due to cognitive mechanisms involved in small group interactions. == Computational approaches to collective memory analysis ==