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Distributed Remembering Through Active Structuring of Activities and Environments

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Abstract

In this paper, we consider a few actual cases of mnemonic strategies among older subjects (older than 65). The cases are taken from an ethnographic study, examining how elderly adults cope with cognitive decline. We believe that these cases illustrate that the process of remembering in many cases involve a complex distributed web of processes involving both internal or intracranial and external sources. Our cases illustrate that the nature of distributed remembering is shaped by and subordinated to the dynamic characteristics of the on-going activity and to our minds suggest that research on memory and distributed cognition should focus on the process of remembering through detailed descriptions and analysis of naturally occurring situations.

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Notes

  1. The Kungsholmen project was a longitudinal study of the older population living in a part of central Stockholm, Sweden, conducted 1987–2000. For more information, see http://www.kungsholmenproject.se/

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Acknowledgements

We thank the reviewers and editors for helpful constructive critique and detailed comments on earlier versions of this paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer and Information Science, Linköping University, 58183, Linköping, Sweden

    Nils Dahlbäck & Mattias Kristiansson

  2. Department of Culture and Communication, Linköping University, 581 83, Linköping, Sweden

    Fredrik Stjernberg

Authors
  1. Nils Dahlbäck
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  2. Mattias Kristiansson
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  3. Fredrik Stjernberg
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Correspondence to Mattias Kristiansson.

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Dahlbäck, N., Kristiansson, M. & Stjernberg, F. Distributed Remembering Through Active Structuring of Activities and Environments. Rev.Phil.Psych. 4, 153–165 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13164-012-0122-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13164-012-0122-3

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