Bartlett meets Schutz and Husserl : relevance and the horizons of constructive memory

The article offers a phenomenological account of constructive memory by combining Bartlett’s theory of remembering with Schutz’s theory of relevance and Husserl’s thoughts on misremembering. It demonstrates that the phenomenological approach to the structure of consciousness significantly illuminates Bartlett’s theory. According to Bartlett, memories are constructed from schemas of past experiences, but his account remains somewhat unclear as to the role that interests and attitudes play in the process. Conversely, drawing on Husserl, Schutz provides detailed insight into how our motives and corresponding attitudes structure the establishment, organisation, and activation of schemas in perception. We argue that remembering and memory errors resulting from the constructive nature of memory are shaped by the thematic, interpretative, and motivational relevance of past experiences. More specifically: (1) memories are constructed by means of attentional shifts within their temporal and thematic horizons, and the fusion of different but related horizonal content; (2) this is an associative process governed by motivations and the social context at the time of recall. False memories are constructed from true memories, where the structure of this composition depends on the motivational context in which memories are generated.