Daniel Schacter

Daniel Schacter (born June 17, 1952 in New York) is Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. His research has focused on psychological and biological aspects of human memory and amnesia, with a particular emphasis on the distinction between conscious and nonconscious forms of memory and, more recently, on brain mechanisms of memory distortion. His Ph.D. thesis was supervised by Endel Tulving. He has also studied the effects of aging on memory. His research uses both cognitive testing and brain imaging techniques such as positron emission tomography and functional magnetic resonance imaging. Schacter has written three books, edited seven volumes, and published over 200 scientific articles and chapters. His books include: Searching for Memory: The Brain, the Mind, and the Past (1996); Forgotten ideas, neglected pioneers: Richard Semon and the story of memory. (2001); The Seven Sins of Memory: How the Mind Forgets and Remembers (2001).

In The Seven Sins of Memory: How the Mind Forgets and Remembers, Schacter identifies seven ways ("sins") that memory can fail us. The seven sins are: Transience, Absent-Mindedness, Blocking, Misattribution, Suggestibility, Persistence, and Bias. [1]This is a self-indulging book, in which Schacter sites mostly his own experiments or studies that took place in his own laboratory, which he takes credit for. The book drags on with endless redundant accounts of studies and half baked philosophical ideas about memory.

In addition to his books, Schacter publishes regularly in scientific journals. Among the topics that Schacter has investigated are: Alzheimer's Disease, the neuroscience of memory, age-related memory effects, and issues related to false memory. He is widely known for his integrative reviews, including his seminal review of implicit memory in 1987.

External links

• Schacter's homepage at Harvard