Knowledge and Memory:

Description

Schank, Roger C. & Abelson, Robert P. (1995) Knowledge and Memory: The Real Story. In: Robert S. Wyer, Jr (ed) Knowledge and Memory: The Real Story . Hillsdale, NJ. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. 1-85.

Knowledge and Memory: The Real Story * Roger C. Schank Northwestern University

Robert P. Abelson

Yale University

In this essay, we argue that stories about one's experiences, and the experiences of others, are the fundamental constituents of human memory, knowledge, and social communication. This argument includes three propositions: 1) Virtually all human knowledge is based on stories constructed around past experiences; 2) New experiences are interpreted in terms of old stories; 3) The content of story memories depends on whether and how they are told to others, and these reconstituted memories form the basis of the individual's "remembered" self". Further, shared story memories within social groups define particular social selves, which may bolster or compete with individual remembered selves.

Our style of presentation is discursive and probably prone to overstatement, as we seek to emphasize the differences between our position and competing views in cognitive psychology and cognitive science. Where suggestive empirical research is available, we adduce it. However, we do not believe that a definitive body of empirical evidence is presently available on one side or another, and we have not attempted to fashion a fully data-based theory here.

In the first major section, we lay out the shape of our overall argument. In following sections, we discuss each of our premises in more detail.

I. STORY TELLING AND UNDERSTANDING: THE BASIS FOR HUMAN MEMORY

For thousands, maybe millions of years, people have been telling stories to each other. They have told stories around the campfire, they have traveled from town to town telling stories to relate the news of the day, they have told ...

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