Memory

1
Memory
2
Memory
The ability of the mind or of an individual or
organism to retain learned information and
knowledge of past events and experiences and to
retrieve it

• Organization of experience.what would you do
  without it?

3
Outline

• Types of Memory
• Memory Processes
• Forgetting
• Memory Distortions
• Memory Disorders
• Memory in the brain

4
Types of Memory

• working (short-term) vs. long-term
• episodic vs. generic
• explicit vs. implicit (how to become famous
  overnight, Jacoby)
• procedural (riding a bike) vs. declarative
  (Lance)

5
Types of Memory

• Working memory
• The magic number for digit span, and more.
• Sets a limit on performance, good thing?
• loading platform for long term memory

6
149162536496481
7
Memory Processes

• How do memories get from loading platform to
  long term?
• Then, how do they get back?

8
Memory Processes

• Encoding Storage
• time spent in working memory? rehearsal?
• attention and engagement
• connection to what we already know
• depth of processing (typeface vs. meaning)

9
1 4 9 16 25 36 49 64 81
ta-da!
10
Memory Processes

• Retrieval
• memory cues context (Charlie Chaplain and the
  scuba divers)
• depth of processing, easier to find
• retrieval failure or memory loss? Or forgetting
  vs. misplacement?
• Seventh grade classmates

11
Forgetting

• We are forgetting all the time.
• Decay-- metabolic processes wear down memory
  traces
• Displacement-- awake vs. asleep during recall
  interval, interference

12
(No Transcript)
13
(No Transcript)
14
Memory Distortions

• Errors of commission as opposed to errors of
  omission-- unwittingly reconstruct an event based
  on what we think and know
• Schemas and scripts (professors office)
• Elizabeth Loftus, studies of eyewitness testimony
• Recovered memories and controversy
• Do distortions replace real memories, or just
  interfere with recall?

15
Memory Disorders

• Two main types of Amenesia
• Anterograde (forward) Amnesia
• Retrograde (backwards) Amnesia

16
Memory Disorders

• Anterograde Amnesia
• problem forming new memories post-injury/operatio
  n
• Korsikoffs Syndrome (chronic alcoholics),
  Alzheimers, patients like H.M. with
  hippocampal/thalamus damage
• can read, write, converse, remember life until
  damage was done

17
H.M.

• Right now, Im wondering, Have I done or said
  anything amiss? You see, at this moment
  everything lookds clear to me, but what happened
  just before? Thats what worries me. Its like
  waking from a drea I just dont remember.
• Every day is alone in itself, whatever
  enjoyment Ive had, and whatever sorrow Ive
  had.

18
Memory Disorders

• Retrograde Amnesia
• problem loss of memory for some period before
  brain injury
• ECT and head traumas
• trace consolidation theory -- memory hasnt had
  time to become firmly established, but... several
  years?
• sometimes memories do come back gradually

19
Memory Disorders

• What amnesiacs can do
• procedural memory tasks (mirror tracing)
• implicit memory tasks ( _L_P_A_T)
• behavioral conditioning

20
Memory in the Brain

• Important brain areas
• Pre-frontal cortex--retrieval working memory
• Hippocampus other parts of Thalamus--long-term
  memories
• Amygdala--emotional events, fear conditioning
• Occipital Temporal Lobes--visual memories

21
(No Transcript)
22
HIPPOCAMPUS