Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony by Bauckham Richard

Author:Bauckham, Richard [Bauckham, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
Published: 2006-12-15T05:00:00+00:00

We can now draw on more specific conclusions that can be drawn from the study of recollective memory by psychologists. What sort of events are remembered best? What sort of memories are more likely to be reliable? The following factors seem to be important:

(1) Unique or unusual event. An event that we generally consider “memorable” is likely to be unique or unusual. The common notion that such events are more likely to be remembered828 is confirmed by studies that “consistently find that low-frequency events show better memory” than highfrequency (i.e., repeated) events.829 A hypothesis that may relate to these findings is that “repetition of events leads to the development of generic personal memories at the expense of the individual personal memories that are repeated.” 830 Closely connected with this criterion is the finding that the unexpectedness of an event also makes it more memorable.831

(2) Salient or consequential event. Also in mind when we commonly speak of a “memorable” event is that it is one that is important for us. This too is confirmed by studies.832 What we more easily forget is the trivial and the insignificant (which, of course, may be significant for other people, but not for ourselves).

(3) An event in which a person is emotionally involved. Although there are studies that seem to show that events that provoked high emotion (positive or negative) are better remembered, this finding is less secure. Such events also tend to be unusual or important events, so that it is less clear whether emotion is an independent factor.833 The evidence on the effect of emotion on memory is in fact quite complex, as the conclusions to two recent studies will illustrate:We conclude that emotional events in real-life situations are retained well, both with respect to the emotional event itself and the central, critical detail information of the emotion-eliciting event, that is the information that elicits the emotional reaction. It also seems that certain critical detail information of emotion-arousing events and some circumstantial information is less susceptible to forgetting compared with neutral detail information over time. However, memory for information associated with unpleasant emotional events, that is, information preceding and succeeding such events, or peripheral, noncentral information within an emotional scenario, seems to be less accurately retained. . . . Whereas memory for central emotional event information is relatively accurate, memory for emotions seems to be quite inaccurate (e.g. the intensity and frequency with which we experience emotions).834

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