The Neuroliterary Lifespan Lab

The Neuroliterary Lifespan Lab aims to broaden knowledge regarding how memory works across the lifespan, prompting progress in neuroscientific and literary disciplines by means of a first-of-its-kind neuroliterary lens. The lab’s think tanks host researchers from the fields of developmental cognitive neuroscience, youth and adult psychiatry and psychology, cognitive literary studies, and health humanities, along with authors who write fiction, children’s literature, memoir, and life writing, among other forms, with some forms showing overlap or being defined in contested ways. 

Together, we examine the cross-domain interest of the workings of memory and detail recall ranging from childhood to (old) adulthood, highlighting the importance of literary creativity and composition not only for memory capacities but also for creative agency in an age when AI is taking the writing process out of so many people’s hands and minds. 

For authors who revisit past experiences in their writings, drawing on memories plays a prominent role in the creative process. Examinations of archival writing material in the field of cognitive literary studies have charted how authors remember across drafts, elaborately writing in their fifties and sixties about challenging childhood and teenage experiences, for example. These drafts demonstrate the authors’ striking skills for remembering details across the lifespan. However, researchers studying memory and ageing have argued that whereas our recollections of general knowledge and facts show relatively little decline during the ageing process, our recollections of specific personal experiences linked to their spatiotemporal contexts are affected by age-related changes. Yet recollections of such past personal experiences are often essential for storytelling spanning decades. 

Can fMRI and EEG technologies uncover whether, and if so, why and how authors have heightened capabilities when it comes to detail recall across the lifespan? Do authors’ intense engagements with their thoughts and memories in drafts, on paper and on screens, prompt intricate recall and the reactivation of perhaps previously dormant neural pathways? Do note-taking and draft-writing processes aid in remembering details from the past? Could such cognitive and affective engagements and processes have a therapeutic impact in clinical contexts, in relation to nervous-system regulation and post-traumatic healing, for example? 

The Neuroliterary Lifespan Lab hopes to generate insights into the theoretical implications and potential scientific outcomes of the network of interdisciplinary connections between literature, the brain, and detailed memory spanning the life course.