Week 7: Learnings About Memories
After reading a bunch of scholarly journals last week about the first topic area of the concept of our memories, I realized that when it comes to memories, articles mostly discuss about childhood trauma. I eventually realized the reason being the introduction of autobiographical memory when we have difficulties remembering specific events from the past, in which goes back to our childhood memories. Afterwards I shifted my research more towards autobiographical memory rather than traumatic memories and finally leads to the overgeneralization of autobiographical memory. This is when the subconsciousness of avoiding strategy comes in when attempting to recollect memories in the past that are relating to trauma or negative experiences. After shifting my research and readings a little bit from childhood trauma to autobiographical memories, I realized that I found myself more interested in the content when reading through the scholarly journals, so I think I am going more towards the right direction.
Reorganizing Thoughts for Presentation
First of all, I am starting by the combination between the concept of memory and socializing, how they overlap with one another as our memory drives our behavior which then affects on how we act within a social setting. Then I found one of the oldest theory on our memory and its relation with defining our identity by John Locke. I will be using this as a start of argument, but I think I still need to do some more research in terms of the validity of his theory because it was released to the public back in the 17th century and a lot of studies about our memory has been done afterwards.
Then I select the important questions on both topics to keep in mind for the next few weeks while doing further research. I am focusing on the effect of our memory has in the build of our identity as individuals, incorporating the distinctive approach in terms of how we perceive particular memories. Also possibly the effect on our behavior and leads to our performance in a social setting, taking into account the role of our environments.
From there I group and combine those questions together and wonder:
how might we design a spatial experience where users can feel secure and vulnerable, through a curated set of social interactions?
Even though at this stage I am still figuring out what the experience would visualize to be, I am inspired by the system of how Odyssey Works have been creating immersive, durational experiences specifically for an audience of one depending on their personal story. This one below actually took place near our campus at Metrotech. I personally thought their theatrical performance is
meaningful in a way that is memorable and personal, especially for that one person. So I might be going to this direction, however still not sure on the scale of the performance or spatial interaction itself.
From the first reading by Eni Becker, I learnt about the complex system of our memory and how it can be divided into three functional systems, but the two that are related to trauma are long-term and working memory. Memories they drive what we do and how we feel, both contributing to adaptive healthy behavior and optimism but also at the same time resulting in destructive behavior, such as the development of depression and anxiety disorder. Since memory is quite changeable and elusive at times, this can be both a threat and a chance in a way that there is a possibility of changing our past, as well as present and future. I also learnt the treatment interventions that are currently being developed relating to AM, which approach might be applicable for me later on when visualizing the “experience”.
From the second reading by Tim Dalgeish, I learnt about overgeneralization AM, which is a phenomena referred to as on how vaguely unspecific one’s memory is. Difficulty in remembering specific events from the past has been associated with adult depression. This is due to the negative reinforcement being maintained as an avoidance strategy of disturbed emotions. As a result, traumatic memory tends to present itself in fragments. This suppressing way of recollecting memory is known to be an ineffective approach as the result is likely to be mood-congruent memory.
From those learnings, I was able to reformulate my research question to:
How can physical and social environment be an accommodation to help individuals in being vulnerable to properly regulate emotions and fathom traumatic autobiographical memories?
For my next steps, I would love to chat with some experts in psychotherapy as well as reach out to a few southeast Asian communities to see their different views on mental health from the different generations. I actually have a friend who is studying at NYU Steinhardt as a music therapy student, so that would be interesting to see from music perspective and how it the process helps for people with dementia. Also I would like to experience at least one therapy session myself so I can understand how to process works. It will be a good idea to do this, however since it will be my first time, I honestly find it intimidating and not sure what to expect. So I feel like it will take some time to actually make myself do it.
