Douwe Draaisma
Author of Why Life Speeds Up As You Get Older: How Memory Shapes our Past
About the Author
Douwe Draaisma is Heymans Professor of the History of Psychology University of Groningen. He is the author of several internationally acclaimed books, including Disturbances of the Mind (2006) and Why Life Speeds Up As You Get Older (2004). He lives in Groningen, Netherlands.
Works by Douwe Draaisma
Lichaam en geest in psychologie en geneeskunde : waarneming, geheugen, motivatie, placebo's, anorexia (1989) 3 copies
Een laboratorium voor de ziel : Gerard Heymans en het begin van de experimentele psychologie (1992) 2 copies
De mechanisering van de ziel 2 copies
Ziekteverzuim en het bedrijf : achtergronden, registratie, onderzoek en mogelijke maatregelen (1978) 1 copy
Kennis en methode 1988 1 1 copy
Las metaforas de la memoria / Memory's Metaphors: Una Historia De La Mente / a Mind History (El Libro Universitario.… (1999) 1 copy
Kennis en methode 1988 3 1 copy
Kennis en methode 1988 2 1 copy
Kennis en methode 1989 2 1 copy
Why Life Speeds Up As You Get Older: How Memory Shapes our Past by Draaisma, Douwe (2004) Hardcover 1 copy
Kennis en methode 1989 4 1 copy
Kennis en methode 1989 3 1 copy
Kennis en methode 1990 4 1 copy
Kennis en methode 1990 3 1 copy
Kennis en methode 1990 2 1 copy
Kennis en methode 1991 4 1 copy
Kennis en methode 1991 3 1 copy
Kennis en methode 1991 2 1 copy
Kennis en methode 1992 3 1 copy
Kennis en methode 1992 2 1 copy
De bovenkamer 1 copy
Kennis en methode 1988 4 1 copy
Associated Works
De vreugdeloze wetenschap waarom nieuwe inzichten vaak weerstand wekken (2004) — Contributor — 13 copies
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Draaisma, Douwe
- Birthdate
- 1953
- Gender
- male
- Nationality
- Netherlands
- Birthplace
- Nijverdal, Overijssel, Nederland
- Occupations
- Bijzonder hoogleraar geschiedenis van de psychologie (Rijksuniversiteit Groningen)
- Organizations
- University of Groningen
- Awards and honors
- Heymans Prijs (1990)
Jan Greshoffprijs (2002)
Jan Hanlo Essayprijs (2003)
Eureka! prijs (2003) - Short biography
- Douwe Draaisma (Nijverdal, 1953) is een Nederlands psycholoog die gespecialiseerd is in de aard en mechanismen van het menselijk geheugen. Hij is bijzonder hoogleraar in de geschiedenis van de psychologie aan de Rijksuniversiteit Groningen. Draaisma is de auteur van een aantal zeer succesvolle boeken die veelvuldig zijn vertaald. Met zijn Waarom het leven sneller gaat als je ouder wordt won hij meerdere prijzen. Het boek werd vertaald in het Engels (Why Life Speeds Up As You Get Older), het Frans (Pourquoi la vie passe plus vite à mesure qu'on vieillit) en het Duits (Warum das Leben schneller vergeht, wenn man älter wird: von den Rätseln unserer Erinnerung).
In het najaar van 2010 heeft Draaisma in samenwerking met het dagblad Trouw de Schrijfwedstrijd Vergeten uitgeschreven met 438 inzendingen, die te lezen zijn op de externe link naar Trouw.
http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douwe_Dr...
Members
Reviews
The question in the title of the book is tackled only towards the end very briefly but that doesn't render the book irrelevant. On the contrary, it is a unique blend of historical perspective on the psychology of memory and literature. Even though the text is generally relaxed and targeted toward the casual interested reader it provides good references on memory studies. Especially the chapter on near-death experiences provide some good and competing hypotheses which try to link the data to what we currently know about brain.
What struck me most and took me by surprise was a passage related to the metaphor of 'viewing one's whole life as a film in fast motion'. The author showed that long before the invention of cinema the metaphor of 'panorama' was used for that kind of near-death experiences however now that the cinema is so much established everybody who had that kind of dramatic experience refers to what happened in terms of cinema and this may be leading to the loss of some details which cannot be expressed in the language of cinema (such as seeing different part of life, of memory all at once, which is possible in the panorama metaphor but not so using the metaphor of cinema).… (more)
What struck me most and took me by surprise was a passage related to the metaphor of 'viewing one's whole life as a film in fast motion'. The author showed that long before the invention of cinema the metaphor of 'panorama' was used for that kind of near-death experiences however now that the cinema is so much established everybody who had that kind of dramatic experience refers to what happened in terms of cinema and this may be leading to the loss of some details which cannot be expressed in the language of cinema (such as seeing different part of life, of memory all at once, which is possible in the panorama metaphor but not so using the metaphor of cinema).… (more)
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Awards
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Associated Authors
Statistics
- Works
- 42
- Also by
- 3
- Members
- 916
- Popularity
- #28,000
- Rating
- 3.8
- Reviews
- 13
- ISBNs
- 103
- Languages
- 15
- Favorited
- 1
By Emre Sevinc "Software Developer, Cognitive Sc... (Antwerp, Belgium) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Metaphors of Memory: A History of Ideas about the Mind (Hardcover)
This is a highly accessible account of the history of brain research that focuses on memory and how our views on memory changed throughout the ages as we invented new metaphors while 'forgetting' some old ones. The author tracks the subtle changes in the use of metaphors in describing the nature of memory and he compares the explanatory power of metaphors using beautiful examples. He also touches upon the point of whether using metaphors are really useful in explaining scientific theories and then provides some surprising examples from the writings of Hooke. I owe the author my enlightenment on the topic of Hooke's memory research. I certainly was not aware of some very interesting papers by Robert Hooke in which he tried to describe the functioning of human memory. This example alone is more than enough to show the depth of Douwe Draaisma's research into the history of psychology. But he does not stop there and goes on to provide astonishing parts from that history, especially in the chapters related to the period before and after Hermann Ebbinghaus.
While keeping a very strong narrative on the history of memory, Draaisma never forgets to touch upon the psychological and socio-economical dynamics that shape the scientists and the world they live in. The part about the connections between the holographic memory theory and the modern connectionism / neural network theories is worth reading more than once because it is a very good example of science history, a history that is still alive.
This book will probably satisfy both the layman and the educated reader, both will learn different things and gain a better perspective on the deep and humane subject of memory.… (more)