Responsible remembering and forgetting as contributors to memory for important information

The ability to control both what we remember and what is forgotten can enhance memory. The present study used an item-method directed forgetting paradigm to investigate whether participants strategically remembered items they were responsible for remembering rather than items a hypothetical friend was responsible for remembering. Specifically, participants were presented with a 20-word list (either unrelated words or items to pack for a camping trip) with each word followed by a cue indicating whether the participant (You) or their “friend” (Friend) was responsible for remembering the word. When asked to recall all of the words, regardless of the cue, recall was sensitive to the You and Friend instructions such that participants demonstrated elevated recall for the items they were responsible for remembering, and participants also strategically organized retrieval by recalling You items before Friend items. Additionally, when asked to judge the importance of remembering each item, participants’ recall and recognition were sensitive to item importance regardless of cue. Taken together, the present experiments revealed that the strategic encoding of important information and the forgetting of less important, goal-irrelevant information can maximize memory utility and minimize negative consequences for forgetting. Thus, we provide evidence for a metacognitive process we are calling responsible forgetting, where people attempt to forget less consequential information and focus on remembering what is most important.

Las ironías clásicas y modernas en El río del Edén de José María Merino

In the novel El río del Edén by José María Merino, the reader learns about the life experiences of Daniel and Tere. This paper analyzes three stages in their lives: the camping trip, the period before the birth of their son Silvio and the consequences of his medical condition on his parents. These critical moments have been seen from the ironic perspectives of classical and contemporary philosophers: Socrates, Cicero, Kierkegaard, Muecke, Glicksberg and Robbe-Grillet, among others. The concept eiron vs alazon, dissimulation, humor and incoherence are the theoretical tools that permitted this study to bridge the gap between the literary text and the philosophical approaches to irony.

The Drowning of a Fish

The epilogue, bookending what Cassin has termed a “philosophical novella,” is a moving confessional narrative about her first paid job while still a doctoral student, as a tutor teaching Greek topsychotic adolescents in the Etienne Marcel day hospital in Paris. This narrative, while set apart, is also woven into the fabric of the rest of the text, bringing together Lacanian motifs, Greek myths, and a playful attention to the Greek language, as well as her own experiences of helping her profoundly troubled young charges to gain access to their “mother tongue.”It narrates a tragic episode with a particularly troubled young man during a camping trip in the woods.

Honorable Business and Treating People the Right Way

Chapters 7 and 8 look more carefully at a series of worries about, and objections raised to, business, markets, and commercial society generally. Chapter 7 looks specifically at concerns about how we should treat people and whether markets and business are, or can be, consistent with proper relations among people. It examines the inequality to which markets can lead, considering in this connection G. A. Cohen’s famous “camping trip” scenario and his argument for “socialist equality of opportunity.” In contrast to Cohen’s “camping trip,” this chapter offers a “shipwrecked on an island” scenario, from which conclusions different from Cohen’s may be drawn. The chapter also examines the seeming unfairness of some of the outcomes of business activity, including in particular the undeserved luck involved. Finally, it explores the instability and displacement inherent in the “creative destruction” (in Schumpeter’s famous phrase) of markets, including its effects on human community.

The Book of Sand

Chapter 6, examines an Arabunna story of encounter at a lonely railway siding in South Australian deserts in around 1895. The tale of what happened when two South Asian men met two Aboriginal women at Alberrie Creek continues to circulate in Arabunna families today. I undertake a camping trip through South Australian deserts with Reg Dodd, the Chairman of the Arabunna People’s Committee, and show that these Arabunna histories of South Asians can offer glimpses of the terrain on which Arabunna historiographical traditions are inscribed.

DESIGN AND PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS OF AN AUTOMOBILE-REMOVABLE SOLAR SYSTEM FOR WATER AND CABIN HEATING

A detachable, automotive solar system for water and passenger compartment heating is developed. The study shows that an adjustable 1 m2 solar collector is sufficient to satisfy the needs of a small group during a short camping trip in Saudi Arabia desert. Also it is found that an adequate water temperature in the storage tank, due to ambient solar heating, is maintained in all cold months, except December when it is insufficient. Among the advantages of the system is its entire operation on renewable solar energy and its ability to heat the car compartment whenever the heated water reaches the required temperature and solar energy is still available.