Though the operation of human memory can be understood in terms of processes occurring inside an individual's mind, human memory does not exist within a vacuum--it operates within a larger context of complex social interactions among people. An important question is how social interactions influence memory itself, and likewise, how memory processes influence social interactions. Prior research has established that social interactions among people regarding their shared memories can influence what is remembered by any particular individual involved. In some cases, the result is memory enhancement for the information while in other cases the result is forgetting of the information. The current project will investigate the social transmission of memory and how such transmission shapes the memories shared among individuals as the basis for understanding how social networks influence behavior. Overall, the project will provide insight that will not only increase understanding of the basic operation of human memory, but that will also improve understanding of how behaviors are transmitted within large populations. This work could have important implications for societal issues such as eyewitness memory, educational practice, and how to effectively structure organizations.
To investigate how social interactions influence memory and how these influences affect large-group aggregate behavior, the researchers in the present project will examine the flow of information among individuals. Behavioral experiments will be conducted and used to inform the development of a computational model that in turn will allow rigorous predictions to be made about how information flows within large, realistic social networks. Because the structure of the network becomes increasingly complex as social networks increase in size and because past work has almost exclusively employed small, unstructured groups, the project focuses on the structure of the interactions with a series of studies each investigating an increasingly complex set of social interactions. Each study consists of a behavioral experiment and an analogous agent-based computational simulation. The project will ultimately yield a psychologically plausible model capable of both describing the mechanisms that underlie the social transmission of memory and of faithfully capturing the flow of memory convergence (and divergence) of individuals situated within structured networks. Once realized, this experimentally-validated model will allow collective memory phenomena to be investigated at scales that are not currently feasible in laboratory settings.
