John Sutton, Philosophy Department, Macquarie University, Sydney.
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This page offers basic information on the project 'From Autobiographical Memory to Collective Memory:
    an interdisciplinary study of individual and group cognition',  (ARC Discovery Project DP0770271, 2007-2011)
Team leaders: Amanda Barnier (MACCS) and John Sutton (Philosophy)
Team members: Rochelle Cox, Celia Harris, Paul Keil, Marie Mete, Charlie Stone, Misia Temler, Rob Wilson
Our vital colleagues & supporters include Sue Campbell, Wayne Christensen, Andy Clark, Martin Conway, Greg Downey, Jacqueline
    Goodnow, Christoph Hoerl, Doris McIlwain, Michelle Moulds, and more.

Cognitive psychology centres on individuals remembering on their own, but we often remember in collaboration with others.
Guided by the theoretical framework of distributed cognition/ extended mind, this project explores relations between individual
and group cognition, focusing on memory as a case study. We integrate distinct philosophical and psychological approaches to
offer a new, robust, naturalistic, interdisciplinary framework for understanding both social influences on memory and true
collective memory. We develop new methods and generate a large body of new experimental data on the relationship between
individual memory, individual memory in small groups, and small-group collective memory.

We aim to integrate established empirical research on interpersonal memory dynamics (in work on collaborative recall and memory
contagion) with theories of shared and social memory developed from two key conceptual sources - the Extended Mind/ Distributed
Cognition framework in philosophy of cognitive science, and the idea of the plural subject from social ontology in the philosophy
of the social sciences. We investigate both what Rob Wilson calls the social manifestation of individual memory, and true collective
memory in small groups, as expressed in 'we remember' statements. This project also aims to reinterpret central ideas from Maurice
Halbwachs and Frederic Bartlett; to continue our integrative work with the social-interactionist tradition in the developmental psychology
of autobiographical memory; and to address philosophical/ moral implications of our attention to relational remembering.

- Sample papers (for more see my papers page):
- Our initial flagship paper on this project was (2008) Amanda J. Barnier, John Sutton, Celia B. Harris, & Robert A. Wilson,
     'A Conceptual and Empirical Framework for the Social Distribution of Cognition: the case of memory' [prepublication draft],
     in special social cognition issue of Cognitive Systems Research 9 (1), 33-51.
- Editors Amanda Barnier and John Sutton, special issue of Memory 16 (3), 177-182
    'From individual memory to collective memory: theoretical and empirical perspectives', April 2008, 177-326 (10 papers).
Now see also
- (in press) Celia B. Harris, Paul G. Keil, John Sutton, Doris J.F. McIlwain, & Amanda J. Barnier, 'We Remember, We Forget: collaborative remembering in older couples'.
       Discourse Processes. Accepted April 2010.
- (in press) Celia B. Harris, John Sutton,  & Amanda J. Barnier, 'Autobiographical Forgetting, Social Forgetting, and Situated Forgetting: forgetting in context',
        in Sergio Della Salla (ed), Forgetting, Psychology Press, pp.253-284. Accepted May 2009, forthcoming May 2010.
- (in press) John Sutton, Celia B. Harris, and Amanda J. Barnier, 'Memory and Cognition', ch.14 in Susannah Radstone & Bill Schwarz (ed.),
    Memory: theories, histories, debates (Fordham University Press, early 2010). Accepted February 2008.
- (in press) Celia B. Harris, Paul G. Keil, John Sutton, and Amanda J. Barnier (2010). Collaborative remembering: when can remembering with others be beneficial? In ASCS09:
    proceedings of the 9th conference of the Australasian Society for Cognitive Science, pp.131-134.
- (2010) Charlie Stone, Amanda Barnier, John Sutton, & William Hirst, 'Building consensus about the past: schema-consistency and convergence
           in socially-shared retrieval-induced forgetting', Memory 18 (2), 170-184.
- (2010) Celia Harris, Amanda Barnier, John Sutton, and Paul Keil, 'How did you feel when the Crocodile Hunter died? Voicing and silencing in conversation
          influences memory for an autobiographical event', Memory 18 (2), 185-197.
- (2009) 'Remembering', in Philip Robbins and Murat Aydede (eds), The Cambridge Handbook of Situated Cognition
    (Cambridge University Press), 217-235.
- (2008) 'Between Individual and Collective Memory: interaction, coordination, distribution', in special collective memory issue of
     Social Research: an international quarterly of the social sciences Winter 2007-08, volume 75 number 1, 23-48.
- (2008) Amanda J. Barnier & John Sutton, 'Editorial Introduction' to special issue of Memory 16 (3), 177-182.
    'From individual memory to collective memory: theoretical and empirical perspectives', April 2008.
- (2007) 'Integrating the Philosophy and Psychology of Memory: two case studies', in Massimo Marraffa, Mario de Caro,
    & Francesco Ferretti (eds.), Cartographies of the Mind: philosophy & psychology in intersection (Springer), pp. 81-92.

See also: the page for the first Sydney Collective Memory Meeting, which was held at Coogee Surf Club on 14 July, 2006
The pages for our two Memory Day meetings at Macquarie: Memory Day 2007 and Memory Day 2008 with Donna Addis and Elaine Reese.
Papers on memory in the Proceedings of ASCS09, the 9th conference of the Australasian Society for Cognitive Science
    - the new Sage journal Memory Studies, launched in 2008, for which Amanda Barnier and John Sutton are coeditors.
    - our outdated but (we hope) still useful lists of references and resources on Social and Collective Memory

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Last updated 19 May 2010.