Conversation Memory: Comprehension, Representation, and Social Context

Understanding how conversation is produced, represented in memory, and utilized in daily social interaction is crucial to comprehending how human communication occurs and how it might be modeled. This book seeks to take a step toward this goal by providing a comprehensive, interdisciplinary overview of conversation memory research and related phenomena that transcends the foundations of cognitive psychology. It covers a wide range of conversation memory topics, including theoretical approaches, representation in long-term memory, gender, race, and ethnicity effects, methodological issues, conversation content, social cognition, lifespan development, nonverbal correlates, personality and individual differences, disability, and conversation memory applications. Featuring new content reflecting the historical development of the conversation memory field alongside an extensive reference list, the book provides a complete, single-source reference work for conversational remembering research that should be of interest across disciplines.

Table of Contents:
Preface; 1. Theoretical approaches to conversation memory and discourse processing; 2. Representation of conversation memory; 3. Effects of gender, race, and ethnicity on conversation memory; 4. Methodological issues in conversation memory; 5. Conversation content and memory; 6. Social cognition and conversation memory; 7. Lifespan development of conversation memory; 8. Conversational interaction and nonverbal correlates of conversation memory; 9. Personality and individual differences in conversation memory; 10. Disability and conversation memory; 11. Conversation memory applications; 12. Conclusion; References; Author index; Subject index

About the Author :
Glenn C. Gamst is Professor of Psychology at the University of La Verne, where he regularly teaches Cognitive Psychology courses at the undergraduate level. He has published books in multicultural psychology (Handbook of Multicultural Measures (2011)) and statistics (Analysis of Variance Designs (2008), Applied Multivariate Research (2016), and Performing Data Analysis Using IBM SPSS (2013)).

Review :
'This book provides an historical account of the study of conversations. The scope of the text is broad, addressing relevant research on conversations across a wide range of topics in psychology – both basic and applied. Conversation is the heart and soul of human experience, and Gamst's work captures this.' Kathy Pezdek, Professor of Psychology, Claremont Graduate University, USA, 2025 'How we encode, store, and use information from conversation is an understudied topic across disciplines. In Conversation Memory, Gamst takes what has been historically siloed cross-disciplinary literature and produces a coherent and timely work that will be of great value to anyone interested in the understanding of conversation.' Andrew J. Guydish, Assistant Professor of Psychology, University of La Verne, USA 'Although it is hard to believe that it has been over 40 years since the inception of this book, it is not difficult to believe that it is a labor of love. With that said, I think that this book will be valuable to both current and early career researchers in the area of memory for conversation for several reasons. Advanced scholars can make use of the extensive list of references and the summaries of research and theory outside their areas of expertise. Students and researchers at the start of their careers will find it useful for those same reasons, but also for the description of theoretical controversies and areas of future research.' Joel S. Freund, Associate Professor Emeritus, University of Arkansas