Virginia Woolf train station scene in The Hours, Film

Understanding Memory: Explaining the Psychology of Memory through Movies

Welcome to Understanding Memory. Someone once said that memory is fascinating because sometimes we forget what we want to remember, and sometimes we remember what we want to forget. Sometimes we remember events that never happened or never happened the way we remember them. I want to show you how memory works, why it sometimes fails, and what we can do to enhance it. Based on my recent book – Memory and Movies: What Films Can Teach Us About Memory (MIT Press, 2015) – I will introduce the scientific study of human memory by focusing on a select group of topics with widespread appeal.

To facilitate your understanding, I will use clips from numerous films to illustrate different aspects of memory – describing what has been learned about memory in a nontechnical way for people with no prior background in psychology. Many of us love watching movies because they offer an unparalleled opportunity for entertainment, even if entertaining films are not always scientifically accurate. Still, I believe we can learn much about memory from popular films if we watch them with an educated eye. Welcome once more.
I look forward to showing you what movies can teach us about memory.