“Night fell on a different world”: experiencing,constructing and remembering 9/11

This article explores the endurance of the pervasive framing of “9/11” as a moment of temporal rupture within the United States. It argues that this has persisted despite the existence of plausible competitor narratives for two reasons: first, because it resonated with public experiences of the events predating this construction’s discursive sedimentation and; second, because of its vigorous defence by successive US administrations. In making these arguments this article seeks to extend relevant contemporary research in three ways: first, by reflecting on new empirical material drawn from the Library of Congress Witness and Response Collection, thus offering additional insight into public understandings of 11 September 2011 in the immediacy of the events; second, by drawing on insights from social memory studies to explore the persistence of specific constructions of 9/11 and; third, by outlining the importance of categories of experience and endurance for constructivist international relations more broadly.     

Understanding of and memory for a complex auditory event: an experimental case study to resolve an evidentiary issue in a trial

While many studies have focused on eyewitness’ perception and memory, few studies on earwitness’ ability to understand and remember complex sound events have been conducted. The present study included 73 participants and explored whether it is possible for children and adults to understand and later recall a complex sound event. The aim was to resolve an evidentiary issue in a trial concerning a 7-year-old child’s earwitness testimony and whether is it possible to understand a complex sound environment based solely on aural perception. The participants listened to a recording that replicated the aurally perceived situation described by the child witness in his testimony. The results showed, that adults and children could identify only a few, familiar sounds of the 16 sounds presented in free recall. They recognized the correct sounds poorly (51.9% vs. chance level of 50%): significantly better than chance only if the retention interval was immediate and the sounds could be heard clearly (57.5%). The results suggest that the participants were not able to understand what was transpiring and, thus, could not later recall the sound events. The findings highlight that understanding this kind of a complex sound event is a difficult task and that the experimental role of a witness psychologist is valuable for resolving evidentiary issues for the court. The implications for the case and the limitations of the study were discussed.     

Automated recovery of damaged audio files using deep neural networks

In this paper, we propose two methods to recover damaged audio files using deep neural networks. The presented audio file recovery methods differ from the conventional file carving-based recovery method because the former restore lost data, which are difficult to recover with the latter method. This research suggests that recovery tasks, which are essential yet very difficult or very time consuming, can be automated with the proposed recovery methods using deep neural networks. We apply feed-forward and Long Short Term Memory neural networks for the tasks. The experimental results show that deep neural networks can distinguish speech signals from non-speech signals, and can also identify the encoding methods of the audio files at the level of bits. This leads to successful recovery of the damaged audio files, which are otherwise difficult to recover using the conventional file-carving-based methods.     

The Concealed Information Test is Susceptible to Misleading Information

An approach toward detecting hidden knowledge is the Concealed Information Test (CIT). It relies on the memory of crime‐relevant information. This study investigated whether its validity is susceptible to memory distortion by misleading information. A misleading information paradigm was employed to distort memory prior to an interrogation with a CIT. Forty‐one participants watched a video with specific crime‐related information. After a 1‐week retention interval, misleading information was introduced. Afterward, a CIT was performed, followed by a threefold memory test. When misleading information was presented, memory performance was reduced, and no physiological response differences between crime‐relevant and crime‐irrelevant information were found. Without presenting misleading information, physiological responses differed between responses to crime‐relevant and crime‐irrelevant information. However, responses in all physiological measures also differed between misleading and irrelevant information. The results indicate that the CIT is susceptible to misleading information, which reduces its validity in specific constellations.     

记忆对忘却的人性审判——论贝娄《贝拉罗莎暗道》中的道德哲学

贝娄的《贝拉罗莎暗道》从历史记忆与忘却的隐喻角度,讲述了纳粹大屠杀中的犹太幸存者及其后代在美国的种种遭际,涉及美国犹太人后裔面对民族历史的态度、“美国化”中的文化传统延续、关于人类大屠杀的哲学思考等,在传统价值与美国后现代文化的纠结中,对刻意与无意的历史忘却进行了一场心灵大审判,同时也是作家身份自审意识的一次集中体现。小说表现的不仅是犹太文化在美国的遭遇,而在于揭示了一个如何面对人类和人性灾难的道德哲学问题,因此小说具有其深刻的普遍性意义。     

Eyewitness Memory in Context: Toward a Taxonomy of Eyewitness Error

Although eyewitness memory and identification have captured substantial research interest in the past decades, an understanding of the types and prevalence of errors typically made by eyewitnesses is lacking. The purpose of the present research was to begin the development of a taxonomy of eyewitness error, employing standardized stimuli and established techniques. Respondents were exposed to a crime scene modeled on SWAT-training scenarios for systematically varied exposure times, and were then asked to describe what they had seen. The stimuli and questions employed were prepared with the aid of senior police field training officers. As anticipated, eyewitness performance in general was subject to a variety of inaccuracies. Physical errors, such as mistakes in the clothing or physical characteristics of the perpetrator, or in details of the environmental context, predominated. However, other less-expected errors were also observed: in relatively low numbers of cases, witnesses inferred emotional states or intent on the part of the perpetrator or victim. Some contributed wholly artificial backstories, reported the future actions of the perpetrator or victim as memories, or even inserted themselves into the scene. The pattern of results was shown to interact with exposure time, gender of the perpetrator, and the presence or absence of weapons in the scene. The results of this study are consistent with reconfigurative theory dating to Bartlett (1932), with subsequent research, and with more recent work under the aegis of Gestalt/Feature-Intensive Processing theory. These findings provide information on types and prevalence of eyewitness error which should prove useful in investigative and courtroom settings.     

误证中的记忆错误现象

证人的证言是证据的一个重要成分,在审判中起着重要作用。证人证言中的一个重要问题是证言的可靠性问题,即证人的证言是否属实,是否是对案件的真实描述。造成误证的原因很多,除了证人作证的各种动机等主观原因外,还有许多是由记忆机制这一客观原因造成的,这一情况是不容忽视的。本文将对由记忆机制导致的记忆错误做一些初步概述,并对如何避免记忆错误出现和如何唤起证人的真实记忆做一些初步探讨。     

Teaching silence in the schoolroom: whither national history in Sierra Leone and El Salvador?

This article addresses the divergent cultures of silence and memorialisation about the civil wars in Sierra Leone and El Salvador, and examines the role that sites of remembering and forgetting play in crafting post-war citizens. In the formal education sector the ministries of education in each country have taken different approaches to teaching the history of the war, with Sierra Leone emphasising forgetting and El Salvador geared towards remembering war history. In both countries nongovernmental actors, particularly peace museums, are filling the memory gap. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in each country, the article documents how the culture of silence that pervades Sierra Leone enables a progress-driven ‘looking forward’ without teaching the past, while El Salvador is working on weaving a culture of memorialisation into its democratisation process. The article argues that knowledge about civil war history can raise young people’s awareness of the consequences of violence and promote civic engagement in its deterrence.     

Piteşti: a project in reeducation and its post-1989 interpretation in Romania

The purpose of this article is twofold: to provide a critical account of the Pite?ti experiment and its significance within the history of Romanian Communism and to examine current public disputes relative to memorializing the Pite?i experiment that concern issues of legitimacy, collective memory, and identity construction. The main argument pursued here is that within the recent postcommunist politics of memory, one major prevailing trend is to reincorporate a nationalist ideology within a postcommunist rhetoric. This leads to the conclusion that such mnemonic practices indicate a strong relationship between collective memory and political culture.