in response to experiences. But it has no neural tissue dedicated only to storing
a record of each experience.
14.2 Retaining Experiences in Memory
What is it that is retained in our cognitive system as a result of having experi-
ences? The essential idea of a record-keeping theory is that a record of each
experience is put into a kind of storage bin. Such records may take a variety of
forms, including abstract descriptions or interpretations of events (see Ander-
son, 1983), lists of items and contextual information (see Raaijmakers & Shiffrin,
1981) or images of the perceptual qualities of events (see Paivio, 1971).
In contrast, the essential idea of a constructionist approach is that the various
cognitive systems (e.g., the visual system, the language system) are changed by
experiences, but no record-by-record accounts of the experiences are stored
anywhere. Instead, the cognitive system is designed to extract the unchanging
elements or patterns from experience and to note deviations from enduring
patterns.
A Constructionist Account of Retention
To get a somewhat more precise sense of how a constructionist theory explains
what is retained from experience, consider this simple example: remembering
what you ate for dinner last Thursday night. Research on the effects of diet on
health frequently relies on people’s memory of what they have eaten. Is mem-
ory for food consumption reliable?
In general, research suggests that accurate recall of food items consumed
declines to about 55% a week after the consumption (DeAngelis, 1988). The
longer the retention interval, the poorer the memory for specific food items
consumed (Smith, Jobe, & Mingay, 1991). Over time, people rely more on their
generic knowledge of their own dieting behaviors than on a precise memory of
any given meal (Smith et al., 1991). In some cases, knowledge of one’s own
dieting may distort memory. In one study, women on a low-fat diet remem-
bered fewer of the snack items they had eaten the day before than did women
on normal or high-fat diets (Fries, Green, & Bowen, 1995). People also tend to
underestimate in their memories how much food they have eaten (Fries et al.,
1995).
The constructionist account of memory for past meals would go something
like the following (see figure 14.3). You have in your cognitive system concepts
and ideas about food and food consumption. These include concepts such as
iced tea, spaghetti, and entrees as well as ideas such as that snack foods are
high in fat content and desserts are served at the end of a meal. The construc-
tionist theory emphasizes that experiences change the strengths of the connec-
tions among these ideas and concepts.
To illustrate, suppose that on one night you have spaghetti for an entree and
iced tea for a beverage, on the second night you have lamb chops and iced tea,
and on the third night you have fried chicken and iced tea. On each night, then,
the connections between the ideas of dinner and entree, between the ideas of
dinner and beverage, and between the ideas of beverage and iced tea will all be
strengthened. These strong connections represent the enduring pattern in the
318 R. Kim Guenther