The Seven Sins of Memory The Seven Sins of Memory The Seven Sins of Memory: How the Mind Forgets and Remembers is a book () by Daniel Schacter, former chair of Harvard University's Psychology Department and a leading memory researcher. The book revolves around the theory that "the seven sins of memory" are similar to the Seven deadly sins, and that if one tries to avoid committing these sins, it will help to improve one's ability to remember. Schacter argues that these features of human memory are not necessarily bad, and that they serve a useful purpose in memory. For instance, persistence is one of
Seven deadly sins disordered love for individuals, thus possessing at least the redeeming feature of mutuality, unlike the graver sins, which constitute an increasingly agonised focusing upon the solitary self (a process begun with the more serious sin of gluttony). It is generally thought to be the least serious capital sin as it is an abuse of a faculty that humans share with animals, and sins of the flesh are less grievous than spiritual sins (love excessive, not love turning ever further awry toward hatred of man and God). In Dante's "Purgatorio", the penitents walk deliberately through the purifying flames of the uppermost