Memory

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Memory
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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

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Outline

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

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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)

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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

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Memory Processes

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

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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)

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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

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Forgetting

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

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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

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Memory Disorders

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

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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

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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.

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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

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Memory Disorders

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

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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

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