The Memory

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Often memory is understood as an informational processing system with explicit and implicit functioning that is made up of a sensory processor, short-term or working memory, and long-term memory Baddely, The sensory processor allows information from the outside world to be sensed in the form of chemical and physical stimuli and attended to with various levels of focus and intent. Working memory serves as an encoding and retrieval processor. Information in the form of stimuli is encoded in accordance with explicit or implicit functions by the working memory processor.

The working memory also retrieves information from previously stored material. Finally, the function of long-term memory is to store data through various categorical models or systems Baddely, Explicit and implicit functions of memory are also known as declarative and non-declarative systems Squire, Under declarative memory resides semantic and episodic memory. Declarative memory is usually the primary process thought of when referencing memory Eysenck, Memory is not a perfect processor, and is affected by many factors.

The manner information is encoded, stored, and retrieved can all be corrupted. The amount of attention given new stimuli can diminish the amount of information that becomes encoded for storage Eysenck, Also, the storage process can become corrupted by physical damage to areas of the brain that are associated with memory storage, such as the hippocampus Squire, Finally, the retrieval of information from long-term memory can be disrupted because of decay within long-term memory Eysenck, Normal functioning, decay over time, and brain damage all affect the accuracy and capacity of memory.

Memory loss is usually described as forgetfulness or amnesia. Sensory memory holds sensory information less than one second after an item is perceived. The ability to look at an item and remember what it looked like with just a split second of observation, or memorization, is the example of sensory memory.

Thanks for the Memory

It is out of cognitive control and is an automatic response. With very short presentations, participants often report that they seem to "see" more than they can actually report. The first experiments exploring this form of sensory memory were precisely conducted by George Sperling [2] using the "partial report paradigm".

Subjects were presented with a grid of 12 letters, arranged into three rows of four. After a brief presentation, subjects were then played either a high, medium or low tone, cuing them which of the rows to report. Based on these partial report experiments, Sperling was able to show that the capacity of sensory memory was approximately 12 items, but that it degraded very quickly within a few hundred milliseconds. Because this form of memory degrades so quickly, participants would see the display but be unable to report all of the items 12 in the "whole report" procedure before they decayed.

This type of memory cannot be prolonged via rehearsal. Three types of sensory memories exist. Iconic memory is a fast decaying store of visual information; a type of sensory memory that briefly stores an image which has been perceived for a small duration. Echoic memory is a fast decaying store of auditory information, another type of sensory memory that briefly stores sounds that have been perceived for short durations.

Volatile vs. non-volatile memory

Short-term memory is also known as working memory. Short-term memory allows recall for a period of several seconds to a minute without rehearsal. Its capacity is also very limited: Modern estimates of the capacity of short-term memory are lower, typically of the order of 4—5 items; [4] however, memory capacity can be increased through a process called chunking. This method of remembering telephone numbers is far more effective than attempting to remember a string of 10 digits; this is because we are able to chunk the information into meaningful groups of numbers.

This may be reflected in some countries in the tendency to display telephone numbers as several chunks of two to four numbers. Short-term memory is believed to rely mostly on an acoustic code for storing information, and to a lesser extent a visual code.

What does computer memory look like?

Conrad [6] found that test subjects had more difficulty recalling collections of letters that were acoustically similar e. Confusion with recalling acoustically similar letters rather than visually similar letters implies that the letters were encoded acoustically.

Conrad's study, however, deals with the encoding of written text; thus, while memory of written language may rely on acoustic components, generalisations to all forms of memory cannot be made. The storage in sensory memory and short-term memory generally has a strictly limited capacity and duration, which means that information is not retained indefinitely. By contrast, long-term memory can store much larger quantities of information for potentially unlimited duration sometimes a whole life span.

Its capacity is immeasurable. For example, given a random seven-digit number we may remember it for only a few seconds before forgetting, suggesting it was stored in our short-term memory. On the other hand, we can remember telephone numbers for many years through repetition; this information is said to be stored in long-term memory.

While short-term memory encodes information acoustically, long-term memory encodes it semantically: Baddeley [7] discovered that, after 20 minutes, test subjects had the most difficulty recalling a collection of words that had similar meanings e. Another part of long-term memory is episodic memory, "which attempts to capture information such as 'what', 'when' and 'where ' ". Short-term memory is supported by transient patterns of neuronal communication, dependent on regions of the frontal lobe especially dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the parietal lobe.

Long-term memory, on the other hand, is maintained by more stable and permanent changes in neural connections widely spread throughout the brain. The hippocampus is essential for learning new information to the consolidation of information from short-term to long-term memory, although it does not seem to store information itself. It was thought that without the hippocampus new memories were unable to be stored into long-term memory and that there would be a very short attention span , as first gleaned from patient Henry Molaison [9] after what was thought to be the full removal of both his hippocampi.

More recent examination of his brain, post-mortem, shows that the hippocampus was more intact than first thought, throwing theories drawn from the initial data into question. The hippocampus may be involved in changing neural connections for a period of three months or more after the initial learning. Research has suggested that long-term memory storage in humans may be maintained by DNA methylation , [10] and the 'prion' gene. The multi-store model also known as Atkinson—Shiffrin memory model was first described in by Atkinson and Shiffrin.

The multi-store model has been criticised for being too simplistic. For instance, long-term memory is believed to be actually made up of multiple subcomponents, such as episodic and procedural memory. It also proposes that rehearsal is the only mechanism by which information eventually reaches long-term storage, but evidence shows us capable of remembering things without rehearsal. The model also shows all the memory stores as being a single unit whereas research into this shows differently. For example, short-term memory can be broken up into different units such as visual information and acoustic information.

In a study by Zlonoga and Gerber , patient 'KF' demonstrated certain deviations from the Atkinson—Shiffrin model. Patient KF was brain damaged , displaying difficulties regarding short-term memory. Recognition of sounds such as spoken numbers, letters, words and easily identifiable noises such as doorbells and cats meowing were all impacted. Visual short-term memory was unaffected, suggesting a dichotomy between visual and audial memory.

In Baddeley and Hitch proposed a "working memory model" that replaced the general concept of short-term memory with an active maintenance of information in the short-term storage. In this model, working memory consists of three basic stores: In this model was expanded with the multimodal episodic buffer Baddeley's model of working memory. The central executive essentially acts as an attention sensory store.

It channels information to the three component processes: The phonological loop stores auditory information by silently rehearsing sounds or words in a continuous loop: A short list of data is easier to remember. The visuospatial sketchpad stores visual and spatial information. It is engaged when performing spatial tasks such as judging distances or visual ones such as counting the windows on a house or imagining images. The episodic buffer is dedicated to linking information across domains to form integrated units of visual, spatial, and verbal information and chronological ordering e.

The episodic buffer is also assumed to have links to long-term memory and semantical meaning. The working memory model explains many practical observations, such as why it is easier to do two different tasks one verbal and one visual than two similar tasks e.

Working memory is also the premise for what allows us to do everyday activities involving thought. It is the section of memory where we carry out thought processes and use them to learn and reason about topics. Researchers distinguish between recognition and recall memory. Recognition memory tasks require individuals to indicate whether they have encountered a stimulus such as a picture or a word before.

Recall memory tasks require participants to retrieve previously learned information. For example, individuals might be asked to produce a series of actions they have seen before or to say a list of words they have heard before. Topographic memory involves the ability to orient oneself in space, to recognize and follow an itinerary, or to recognize familiar places.

Flashbulb memories are clear episodic memories of unique and highly emotional events. Anderson [19] divides long-term memory into declarative explicit and procedural implicit memories. Declarative memory requires conscious recall , in that some conscious process must call back the information. It is sometimes called explicit memory , since it consists of information that is explicitly stored and retrieved. Declarative memory can be further sub-divided into semantic memory , concerning principles and facts taken independent of context; and episodic memory , concerning information specific to a particular context, such as a time and place.

Semantic memory allows the encoding of abstract knowledge about the world, such as "Paris is the capital of France". Episodic memory, on the other hand, is used for more personal memories, such as the sensations, emotions, and personal associations of a particular place or time. Episodic memories often reflect the "firsts" in life such as a first kiss, first day of school or first time winning a championship.

These are key events in one's life that can be remembered clearly. Autobiographical memory — memory for particular events within one's own life — is generally viewed as either equivalent to, or a subset of, episodic memory. Visual memory is part of memory preserving some characteristics of our senses pertaining to visual experience.

One is able to place in memory information that resembles objects, places, animals or people in sort of a mental image. Visual memory can result in priming and it is assumed some kind of perceptual representational system underlies this phenomenon. In contrast, procedural memory or implicit memory is not based on the conscious recall of information, but on implicit learning.

It can best be summarized as remembering how to do something. Procedural memory is primarily employed in learning motor skills and should be considered a subset of implicit memory. It is revealed when one does better in a given task due only to repetition — no new explicit memories have been formed, but one is unconsciously accessing aspects of those previous experiences.

Procedural memory involved in motor learning depends on the cerebellum and basal ganglia. A characteristic of procedural memory is that the things remembered are automatically translated into actions, and thus sometimes difficult to describe. Some examples of procedural memory include the ability to ride a bike or tie shoelaces. Another major way to distinguish different memory functions is whether the content to be remembered is in the past, retrospective memory , or in the future, prospective memory.

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Thus, retrospective memory as a category includes semantic, episodic and autobiographical memory. In contrast, prospective memory is memory for future intentions, or remembering to remember Winograd, Prospective memory can be further broken down into event- and time-based prospective remembering. Time-based prospective memories are triggered by a time-cue, such as going to the doctor action at 4pm cue. Event-based prospective memories are intentions triggered by cues, such as remembering to post a letter action after seeing a mailbox cue.

Infants do not have the language ability to report on their memories and so verbal reports cannot be used to assess very young children's memory. Throughout the years, however, researchers have adapted and developed a number of measures for assessing both infants' recognition memory and their recall memory. Habituation and operant conditioning techniques have been used to assess infants' recognition memory and the deferred and elicited imitation techniques have been used to assess infants' recall memory.

Researchers use a variety of tasks to assess older children and adults' memory. Brain areas involved in the neuroanatomy of memory such as the hippocampus , the amygdala , the striatum , or the mammillary bodies are thought to be involved in specific types of memory. For example, the hippocampus is believed to be involved in spatial learning and declarative learning , while the amygdala is thought to be involved in emotional memory.

Damage to certain areas in patients and animal models and subsequent memory deficits is a primary source of information. However, rather than implicating a specific area, it could be that damage to adjacent areas, or to a pathway traveling through the area is actually responsible for the observed deficit. Further, it is not sufficient to describe memory, and its counterpart, learning , as solely dependent on specific brain regions.

Thanks for the Memory - Wikipedia

Learning and memory are usually attributed to changes in neuronal synapses , thought to be mediated by long-term potentiation and long-term depression. However, this has been questioned on computational as well as neurophysiological grounds by the cognitive scientist Charles R. In general, the more emotionally charged an event or experience is, the better it is remembered; this phenomenon is known as the memory enhancement effect.

Patients with amygdala damage, however, do not show a memory enhancement effect. Hebb distinguished between short-term and long-term memory. He postulated that any memory that stayed in short-term storage for a long enough time would be consolidated into a long-term memory. Later research showed this to be false. Research has shown that direct injections of cortisol or epinephrine help the storage of recent experiences. This is also true for stimulation of the amygdala. This proves that excitement enhances memory by the stimulation of hormones that affect the amygdala. Excessive or prolonged stress with prolonged cortisol may hurt memory storage.

Patients with amygdalar damage are no more likely to remember emotionally charged words than nonemotionally charged ones. The hippocampus is important for explicit memory.

The memory function of sleep.

The hippocampus is also important for memory consolidation. The hippocampus receives input from different parts of the cortex and sends its output out to different parts of the brain also. The input comes from secondary and tertiary sensory areas that have processed the information a lot already. Hippocampal damage may also cause memory loss and problems with memory storage. Cognitive neuroscientists consider memory as the retention, reactivation, and reconstruction of the experience-independent internal representation.

The term of internal representation implies that such definition of memory contains two components: The latter component is also called engram or memory traces Semon Some neuroscientists and psychologists mistakenly equate the concept of engram and memory, broadly conceiving all persisting after-effects of experiences as memory; others argue against this notion that memory does not exist until it is revealed in behavior or thought Moscovitch One question that is crucial in cognitive neuroscience is how information and mental experiences are coded and represented in the brain.

Scientists have gained much knowledge about the neuronal codes from the studies of plasticity, but most of such research has been focused on simple learning in simple neuronal circuits; it is considerably less clear about the neuronal changes involved in more complex examples of memory, particularly declarative memory that requires the storage of facts and events Byrne Convergence-divergence zones might be the neural networks where memories are stored and retrieved. Considering that there are several kinds of memory, depending on types of represented knowledge, underlying mechanisms, processes functions and modes of acquisition, it is likely that different brain areas support different memory systems and that they are in mutual relationships in neuronal networks: Study of the genetics of human memory is in its infancy.

The search for genes associated with normally varying memory continues. One of the first candidates for normal variation in memory is the protein KIBRA , [42] which appears to be associated with the rate at which material is forgotten over a delay period. There has been some evidence that memories are stored in the nucleus of neurons. Up until the mids it was assumed that infants could not encode, retain, and retrieve information. Whereas month-olds can recall a three-step sequence after being exposed to it once, 6-month-olds need approximately six exposures in order to be able to remember it.

Although 6-month-olds can recall information over the short-term, they have difficulty recalling the temporal order of information. It is only by 9 months of age that infants can recall the actions of a two-step sequence in the correct temporal order — that is, recalling step 1 and then step 2. Younger infants 6-month-olds can only recall one step of a two-step sequence.

In fact, the term 'infantile amnesia' refers to the phenomenon of accelerated forgetting during infancy. Importantly, infantile amnesia is not unique to humans, and preclinical research using rodent models provides insight into the precise neurobiology of this phenomenon. A review of the literature from behavioral neuroscientist Dr Jee Hyun Kim suggests that accelerated forgetting during early life is at least partly due to rapid growth of the brain during this period. One of the key concerns of older adults is the experience of memory loss , especially as it is one of the hallmark symptoms of Alzheimer's disease.

Research has revealed that individuals' performance on memory tasks that rely on frontal regions declines with age. Older adults tend to exhibit deficits on tasks that involve knowing the temporal order in which they learned information; [52] source memory tasks that require them to remember the specific circumstances or context in which they learned information; [53] and prospective memory tasks that involve remembering to perform an act at a future time. Older adults can manage their problems with prospective memory by using appointment books, for example. Much of the current knowledge of memory has come from studying memory disorders , particularly amnesia.

Loss of memory is known as amnesia. Amnesia can result from extensive damage to: Other neurological disorders such as Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease [56] can also affect memory and cognition.

Hyperthymesia , or hyperthymesic syndrome, is a disorder that affects an individual's autobiographical memory, essentially meaning that they cannot forget small details that otherwise would not be stored. While not a disorder, a common temporary failure of word retrieval from memory is the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon. Sufferers of Anomic aphasia also called Nominal aphasia or Anomia , however, do experience the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon on an ongoing basis due to damage to the frontal and parietal lobes of the brain.

Interference can hamper memorization and retrieval. There is retroactive interference , when learning new information makes it harder to recall old information [58] and proactive interference , where prior learning disrupts recall of new information. Although interference can lead to forgetting, it is important to keep in mind that there are situations when old information can facilitate learning of new information. Knowing Latin, for instance, can help an individual learn a related language such as French — this phenomenon is known as positive transfer.

Stress has a significant effect on memory formation and learning. In response to stressful situations, the brain releases hormones and neurotransmitters ex. Behavioural research on animals shows that chronic stress produces adrenal hormones which impact the hippocampal structure in the brains of rats. Wolf demonstrates how learning under stress also decreases memory recall in humans. Those randomly assigned to the stress test group had a hand immersed in ice cold water the reputable SECPT or 'Socially Evaluated Cold Pressor Test' for up to three minutes, while being monitored and videotaped.

Both the stress and control groups were then presented with 32 words to memorize. Twenty-four hours later, both groups were tested to see how many words they could remember free recall as well as how many they could recognize from a larger list of words recognition performance. The researchers suggest that stress experienced during learning distracts people by diverting their attention during the memory encoding process. However, memory performance can be enhanced when material is linked to the learning context, even when learning occurs under stress.

A separate study by cognitive psychologists Schwabe and Wolf shows that when retention testing is done in a context similar to or congruent with the original learning task i. The room in which the experiment took place was infused with the scent of vanilla, as odour is a strong cue for memory. Retention testing took place the following day, either in the same room with the vanilla scent again present, or in a different room without the fragrance. The memory performance of subjects who experienced stress during the object-location task decreased significantly when they were tested in an unfamiliar room without the vanilla scent an incongruent context ; however, the memory performance of stressed subjects showed no impairment when they were tested in the original room with the vanilla scent a congruent context.

All participants in the experiment, both stressed and unstressed, performed faster when the learning and retrieval contexts were similar. This research on the effects of stress on memory may have practical implications for education, for eyewitness testimony and for psychotherapy: Stressful life experiences may be a cause of memory loss as a person ages. Glucocorticoids that are released during stress, damage neurons that are located in the hippocampal region of the brain. Therefore, the more stressful situations that someone encounters, the more susceptible they are to memory loss later on.

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