Post by Mel on Oct 10, 2006 19:38:34 GMT -5
What is Cognitive-Perceptual Theory?
by Arnold R. Bruhn PhD
"O.k., I've had a crummy life. That make you happy? But I don't want to waste the time I have left by dwelling on all the crap that happened to me when I was a kid. It was bad enough having to live through it the first time."
I'm not sure how many times I've heard this, or something like it, in my career as a therapist, but I wish I had a dollar for every time a client told me that.
There's just one problem. Much as we might like to wipe the slate clean when the clutter in our memories becomes a pain, that is not an option. You lived it? You deal with it. Like it or not. Even when it's not your fault. Our experiences are the raw material we use to construct our sense of self, others and world. Whether we want it to or not, the mind takes the raw material of experience and does something with it.
Cognitive-Perceptual theory is designed to help us understand the sense that we have made of our life experiences.
Figure it like this. Say you move from one house to another. What happens? You pack up your belongings, right, and take them along. At least the most important ones. Autobiographical memory does the same thing--it saves our most memorable and useful experiences. And we pack these along with us, no matter where we go.
Cognitive-Perceptual (CP) theory is a theory of personality designed to explore the interrelationship between autobiographical memory and personality. Autobiographical memories of interest to CP theory involve those for specific events which have the form, "I remember one time...." Traditional memory researchers who seek to understand how memory operates want to minimize or eliminate the influence of personality. When personality affects memory functioning, these scientists perceive this as "white noise", or error variance, that interferes with what they want to observe. Research designs seek to minimize the effect of this kind of white noise. This orientation also holds for traditional autobiographical memory researchers in the case of certain autobiographical memory products-- i.e., memories of widely known events such as the Challenger disaster or President Kennedy's assassination-- because they are almost universally remembered in certain population groups and the objective facts (date, place, eve nts in question) are widely known. Thus, traditional memory researchers and CP researchers are often both interested in autobiographical memories, but from opposite perspectives--CP researchers want to better understand how personality manifests in memories and maximize these influences, whereas traditional memory researchers want to minimize any effects of personality.
The CP theorist seeks out exactly the kind of information that traditional memory research avoids. The CP theorist wants to maximize the role of personality in memory functioning and come to know it for what it is. For we understand that memory, however it is conceptualized, is not like an operating camera or a computer hard drive. Memory tends to operate in a highly individualistic manner; perception is similarly quirky. Some people have excellent memories, some poor. Some are visually oriented in their recollecting, others auditory. Some are oriented toward the large picture, others toward details. And differences in initial perceptions are similarly known, which are well documented in the eye witness literature (See Elizabeth Loftus' important research for examples). The CP theorist is specifically interested in understanding how it is that people have such different recollections of their lives, even individuals who have grown up in the same family. How can we account for those differences?
CP theory is concerned with memory differences that involve personality, as opposed to biology. For instance, attention deficit disorder in most cases likely originates with neurological deficits or quirks, allergic problems, and other biological variables that cause problems with attending although there are also some instances in which emotional problems can cause attentional difficulties. On the other hand, individuals who have been harshly and unfairly treated in the past are likely to remember this type of event and to be sensitive to similar treatment in the present. In the most general sense, CP practitioners are interested in what kinds of personality variables bear on the process of recollection.
Based upon 25 years of research and observation, we propose that those aspects of personality which impact autobiographical memory the most involve important interests, high priority needs, major attitudes, and key unresolved issues. Although a full explanation is beyond the scope of this presentation, we can at least outline how personality becomes intertwined with perception and memory. Those who want more information are directed to Bruhn 1990 a, Bruhn 1990 b (see References)
Personal memories tell us about what kinds of events are important to an individual, how these events are commonly constructed, and generally how the person interacts with other people and the world about him. Just as important, memories reveal expectations about these key events, which are imbedded in the very structure of the recollection. These expectations in turn influence perceptions of similar events that occur in the present. While there exists an objective reality separate and apart from us, we apprehend that reality in an idiosyncratic manner, consistent with our past experience of that reality. Similarly, individuals from a common culture tend to maintain elements of a common cultural world view. When individuals from opposing warring cultures interpret the actions of an enemy, they look at the same incidents from such radically different perspectives that an impartial observer may have trouble recognizing the same incident. The belief system which we maintain as individuals has its parallel s to the cultural views which we just noted in the sense that each of us constitutes in a sense our own unique culture.
When we consider autobiographical memories from the perspective of personality, certain central questions must be addressed. The following, which are among the more important, informally stake out the domain of CP theory:
How can I understand how lifetime memories are selected--i.e., what causes me to recall ‘X', as opposed to ‘Y'?
What causes me to remember what I do in the way that I do?
What helps me to understand the relative persistence of certain memories through long periods in my life?
If you, also, wonder about such matters, you have now entered that murky no man's land of not necessarily fact and not necessarily fiction, a.k.a., memory garnished liberally with personality. Your next step is to venture to my web site. There you will find the answers to these and other questions and some procedures (Online Book Store) that will enable you to access memories that can expedite your own personal journey of self understanding.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Bruhn is in private practice with Arnold R Bruhn & Associates in Bethesda, MD.
by Arnold R. Bruhn PhD
"O.k., I've had a crummy life. That make you happy? But I don't want to waste the time I have left by dwelling on all the crap that happened to me when I was a kid. It was bad enough having to live through it the first time."
I'm not sure how many times I've heard this, or something like it, in my career as a therapist, but I wish I had a dollar for every time a client told me that.
There's just one problem. Much as we might like to wipe the slate clean when the clutter in our memories becomes a pain, that is not an option. You lived it? You deal with it. Like it or not. Even when it's not your fault. Our experiences are the raw material we use to construct our sense of self, others and world. Whether we want it to or not, the mind takes the raw material of experience and does something with it.
Cognitive-Perceptual theory is designed to help us understand the sense that we have made of our life experiences.
Figure it like this. Say you move from one house to another. What happens? You pack up your belongings, right, and take them along. At least the most important ones. Autobiographical memory does the same thing--it saves our most memorable and useful experiences. And we pack these along with us, no matter where we go.
Cognitive-Perceptual (CP) theory is a theory of personality designed to explore the interrelationship between autobiographical memory and personality. Autobiographical memories of interest to CP theory involve those for specific events which have the form, "I remember one time...." Traditional memory researchers who seek to understand how memory operates want to minimize or eliminate the influence of personality. When personality affects memory functioning, these scientists perceive this as "white noise", or error variance, that interferes with what they want to observe. Research designs seek to minimize the effect of this kind of white noise. This orientation also holds for traditional autobiographical memory researchers in the case of certain autobiographical memory products-- i.e., memories of widely known events such as the Challenger disaster or President Kennedy's assassination-- because they are almost universally remembered in certain population groups and the objective facts (date, place, eve nts in question) are widely known. Thus, traditional memory researchers and CP researchers are often both interested in autobiographical memories, but from opposite perspectives--CP researchers want to better understand how personality manifests in memories and maximize these influences, whereas traditional memory researchers want to minimize any effects of personality.
The CP theorist seeks out exactly the kind of information that traditional memory research avoids. The CP theorist wants to maximize the role of personality in memory functioning and come to know it for what it is. For we understand that memory, however it is conceptualized, is not like an operating camera or a computer hard drive. Memory tends to operate in a highly individualistic manner; perception is similarly quirky. Some people have excellent memories, some poor. Some are visually oriented in their recollecting, others auditory. Some are oriented toward the large picture, others toward details. And differences in initial perceptions are similarly known, which are well documented in the eye witness literature (See Elizabeth Loftus' important research for examples). The CP theorist is specifically interested in understanding how it is that people have such different recollections of their lives, even individuals who have grown up in the same family. How can we account for those differences?
CP theory is concerned with memory differences that involve personality, as opposed to biology. For instance, attention deficit disorder in most cases likely originates with neurological deficits or quirks, allergic problems, and other biological variables that cause problems with attending although there are also some instances in which emotional problems can cause attentional difficulties. On the other hand, individuals who have been harshly and unfairly treated in the past are likely to remember this type of event and to be sensitive to similar treatment in the present. In the most general sense, CP practitioners are interested in what kinds of personality variables bear on the process of recollection.
Based upon 25 years of research and observation, we propose that those aspects of personality which impact autobiographical memory the most involve important interests, high priority needs, major attitudes, and key unresolved issues. Although a full explanation is beyond the scope of this presentation, we can at least outline how personality becomes intertwined with perception and memory. Those who want more information are directed to Bruhn 1990 a, Bruhn 1990 b (see References)
Personal memories tell us about what kinds of events are important to an individual, how these events are commonly constructed, and generally how the person interacts with other people and the world about him. Just as important, memories reveal expectations about these key events, which are imbedded in the very structure of the recollection. These expectations in turn influence perceptions of similar events that occur in the present. While there exists an objective reality separate and apart from us, we apprehend that reality in an idiosyncratic manner, consistent with our past experience of that reality. Similarly, individuals from a common culture tend to maintain elements of a common cultural world view. When individuals from opposing warring cultures interpret the actions of an enemy, they look at the same incidents from such radically different perspectives that an impartial observer may have trouble recognizing the same incident. The belief system which we maintain as individuals has its parallel s to the cultural views which we just noted in the sense that each of us constitutes in a sense our own unique culture.
When we consider autobiographical memories from the perspective of personality, certain central questions must be addressed. The following, which are among the more important, informally stake out the domain of CP theory:
How can I understand how lifetime memories are selected--i.e., what causes me to recall ‘X', as opposed to ‘Y'?
What causes me to remember what I do in the way that I do?
What helps me to understand the relative persistence of certain memories through long periods in my life?
If you, also, wonder about such matters, you have now entered that murky no man's land of not necessarily fact and not necessarily fiction, a.k.a., memory garnished liberally with personality. Your next step is to venture to my web site. There you will find the answers to these and other questions and some procedures (Online Book Store) that will enable you to access memories that can expedite your own personal journey of self understanding.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Bruhn is in private practice with Arnold R Bruhn & Associates in Bethesda, MD.