What is memory?

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What is memory?

• Chapter 1

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What is memory?

• Three definitions (Spear Riccio, 1994)
• location where information is kept
• e.g., a storehouse, or memory store
• thing that holds the contents of experience
• e.g., a memory trace or engram
• mental process used to acquire (learn), store, or
  retrieve (remember) information

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Early Memory Research in Psychology and
Neuroscience

• Ebbinghaus (late 1800s)
• nonsense syllables
• basic memory phenomena
• learning curve
• massed vs. spaced/distributed practice
• forgetting curve
• overlearning
• savings

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Early Memory Research in Psychology and
Neuroscience

• Lashley (1950)
• engram neural representation of memory
• quantity, not location
• memory distributed all over cortex

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Early Memory Research in Psychology and
Neuroscience

• Hebb (1949)
• two stage process
• neural excitation would reverberate around
  connections of neurons
• some of these connections would physically change
  and become stronger
• long-term potentiation

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Modal Model of Memory
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Multiple Memory Systems
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Structure of the Neuron
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Neural CommunicationElectrical Process
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Neural CommunicationChemical Process