Toward a Science of Silence

Abstract

Silence about the past permeates acts of remembering, with marked mnemonic consequences.Mnemonic silence -the absence of expressing a memory -is public in nature and is embedded within communicative acts, such as conversations. As such, silence has the potential to affect both speakers -the source of the silence -and listeners -those attending to the speaker. Although the topic of silence is widely discussed, it is rarely mentioned in the empirical literature on memory. Three factors are employed to classify silence into different types: whether a silence is accompanied by covert remembering or not, whether the silence is intentional or unintentional, and whether the silenced memory is related or unrelated to the memories emerging in a conversation. These factors appear to be critical when considering the mnemonic consequences. Moreover, the influence of silence on memory varies between speaker and listener. Although rarely mentioned, recent empirical research on memory clearly has a bearing on a topic of such general interest as silence.

Man’s Search for Extra-Ordinary Answers in Life: Silence as a Catalyst for Crisis-Solving

“…Silence is considered obstructive when it is threatening (disengaged), and when it comes from a disturbing reaction attributed to the therapist (interactional). With other perspectives of silence Stone et al (2012) describe mnemonic silences-here understood as that which is unsaid during a conversation-in accordance with its intentionality and covertness (hiding the memory instead of overtly expressing it). Authors refer to mnemonic silence as the failure or refusal to express a memory during a conversation that in other situations would be remembered or expressed.…”

Something Blossoms in Between: Silence-Phenomena as a Bordering Notions in Psychology

“…For instance, there are reports about the mnemonic consequences of silencephenomena in terms of the intentional or unintentional acts of remembering topics of conversation, related to external speech (Stone, Coman, Brown, Koppel, and Hirst 2012). Linked with the polyphony of voices from Dialogical Self Theory, it is both interesting and challenging for cultural psychology to understand the processes of silencing an internal and/or external voice/sound/noise/movement in order to listen to another, to speak or to live an existential encounter.…”

Memorias Adaptables para la Construcción de Identidades Colectivas

“…Varios estudios en psicología social y cognitiva han investigado la influencia de factores sociales, cognitivos y lingüísticos en la formación de memorias colectivas en conversaciones. Estos factores incluyen roles conversacionales (Hirst & Manier, 1996), la experiencia (Hirst & Manier, 2008), y el silencio conversacional (Stone, Coman, Brown, Koppel & Hirst, 2012). Estos estudios demostraron que las formas en las que los miembros de una comunidad comparten sus memorias desempeñan un papel central en la formación y transmisión de las memorias colectivas Hirst & Manier, 2008;Hirst & Echterhoff, 2012;Muller & Hirst, 2014).…”

“…No obstante, ambas características (ser experto y ser narrador dominante) facilitaron la formación de una memoria colectiva. En relación a los modos en que el silencio conversacional afecta la formación de una memoria colectiva en conversaciones, Stone y sus colegas (Stone et al, 2012) han demostrado que el silencio selectivo acerca de un tópico no sólo induce a que estos tópicos sean menos accesibles, es decir, al olvido, sino que también proporciona un mecanismo funcional para crear una memoria colectiva.…”