Collective memory: Collaborative recall synchronizes what and how people remember.

Abstract

Memory researchers and theorists have long advanced the idea that the manner in which information is retrieved is critical. The way retrieval unfolds provides critical insights into how memories are organized and accessed-an important aspect of memory missed by focusing only on quantity. Cognitive studies of memory in social contexts, deploying the collaborative memory paradigm, have also noted the importance of such retrieval organization. Such memory studies often focus on how relative to "groups" that never collaborated, former members of collaborating groups recall more of the same material (collective memory) and they do so in a more synchronized fashion (collective retrieval organization). In this review, we leverage the diverse methodological and quantitative toolkits that have traditionally targeted individual retrieval to highlight the ways in which this social memory research has examined collective memory and collective retrieval organization. To that end, we consider how the collaborative memory paradigm has integrated methods, such as free recall, that afford rich assessments of retrieval organization. Likewise, we consider the application of metrics that characterize organization patterns in different contexts. With this background in mind, we discuss the important theoretical and broader implications of research on collective memory and collective retrieval organization. This article is categorized under: Psychology > Memory.