Download memory and its learning implications

Catalina Norato
MEMORY AND ITS LEARNING IMPLICATIONS
Memory and its Learning Implications
Asociación Educar
Presented by: Catalina Norato
Tutor: Denise Toiw
Country: Bogotá, Colombia
Living things exist in a world where conditions, behaviors, relations and many more
actions have to be learned in order to survive. If we come back to the prehistoric years,
we could understand how primitive species defended their territory, food and closest
members as a natural and instinctive behavior. These survival actions were at some
point, genetically transferred to the next generations, but they were also learned by
imitation. All that knowledge has been stored in the human and animal’s mind and has
been modified along the years.
Memory is one of the best tools we have to learn something new. However, it has been
quite complex to understand how it works, where in the brain it is located and how we
can take advantage of it in different situations. The purpose of this paper is to analyze
the functioning of the memory in our brain and how this affects living things’ behaviors
and learning process. Different studies will be described in order to support the previous
statement.
First of all, it is necessary to give a good definition of what memory is.
It is defined as a group of neurons that get together in order to form a
hebbian engrams. According to the type of information we learn, a
certain neurons join. That is why, we have thousands of hebbian
engrams, each one storing a specific knowledge.
Types of Memory
Considering the fact that the input information we get comes from different sources, it
also enters to our brain in a different way and therefore, it is stored differently.
Therefore, it is relevant to study how memory is classified and how sensory inputs are
analyzed in our whole body.
Image 1.0 shows the different types of memories and gives a short description of each
one of them.
Catalina Norato
MEMORY AND ITS LEARNING IMPLICATIONS
Image 1.0
MEMORY
Long-term Memory
Short term- Memory
Declarative (explicit)
WHAT-information
Semantic
Facts and information
acquired through
learning. We can
declare or state what
we know to others.
Non-declarative (implicit)
HOW - Skill
Perceptions or motor
procedures. It is
shown to others by
performance.
Episodic
Abilities
Generalized: Knowing
something without
remembering when or
where it was learned.
Autobiographical
(Emotions: We
remember an event
in a particular time
and place.
Riding a bike.
These actions
need motor
coordination.
Conditioning
Salivating
when you see
a chocolate
cake.
Relating a
stimulus with a
specific reaction
Priming
Exposure to a stimulus facilitates
subsequent responses to the same
or similar stimulus
NLP exercises
Associating
the yellow
color with a
banana
Catalina Norato
MEMORY AND ITS LEARNING IMPLICATIONS
Short term- Memory
MEMORY
Working Memory
It helps us perform
actions and do
mental operations. It
also helps us to
create
consciousness.
Visual
This memory
gets the
information from
images.
Iconic
Sensitive
(Perception)
Echoic
Additive
The person received
sensory information
and he retains it to
understand what
someone else says.
General Information Input Model
The incoming information that we get from the environment enters to our body through
different senses (vision, hearing, smell, taste, and touch). Once it is inside, the brain
encodes it; this means that more or less neural engrams are formed. At the same time,
these neural engrams define if the new knowledge will stay in the short-term memory or
in the long-term memory.
In image it is shown how after the information is encoded, goes to the short-term
storage. If it is relevant to us, our brain will consolidate and pass it to the long-term
memory; but if it is not we will get rid of it. On the other hand, the information that gets to
pass to the long-term memory, stays temporarily in the working memory as well as
some of the inputs that are not thrown away from the short-term memory. The
information that gets to this point is used by people in their daily life. Finally, the retrieval
process happens when we actually perform any action and we get to use the
information stored in our brains.
Image 1.1
Catalina Norato
MEMORY AND ITS LEARNING IMPLICATIONS
Memory Disorders
First of all, it is important to understand the difference between anterograde amnesia
and retrograde amnesia. Anterograde amnesia is defined as an inability to form new
memories following brain damage. Retrograde amnesia occurs when patients lose the
ability to retrieve memories of events prior to brain damage. One of the most studied
patients in history was H.M. who lose his memory after a surgery.
Patient H.M
H.M. suffered from epilepsy and when he was 20 years old, he had a surgery in which
doctors took out part of his hippocampus. It is important to remember that the
hippocampus helps people create memories and retain them. This patient lesion didn’t
allow H.M. to form new memories (anterograde memory). However, this implicit/working
memory was not altered. Image 1.2 (a) shows how H.M. was able to trace a star by
looking at its reflection in the mirror. In part B we can see how H.M.’s performance
improved when he repeater the action over and over again (priming). However, he didn’t
remember he had done it.
Image 1.2
Super Memories
Image 1.3
Jill Price wrote a book called “The
Woman who can’t forget”. She can
remember what happened in every
day of the year. Alexander Luria (in
the picture), wrote the book “The mind
of a Mnemodist: A little book about a
vast memory”. In this book he
described the story of Solomon
Sheresshevskii who also had a perfect
Catalina Norato
MEMORY AND ITS LEARNING IMPLICATIONS
memory. In the other hand, George Finn has an IQ lower than a 100 but he has an
excellent mental calendar. He can also remember the day he met a person, what he
was wearing and how the weather was like. He can also recognize people because of
their odor. Kim Peek learned all the zip codes of the United States and he could tell a
complete book after reading it. Brad Williams suffered from the syndrome
hyperthymesia and he can remember every day of his life. Finally, Rick Baron had a
perfect autobiographical memory, he could say the exact day of someone’s death.
Memory and Neurology
Talking about the long term memory, the hippocampus (image 1.4) allows to encode
and to recover memories. At the same time it also has neural connections with the
cerebral cortex (one of the areas where long-term memory is stored). Each pattern of
neurons form a memory in our brain (image 1.5).
Image 1.4
Image 1.5
Image 1.6
In a research done in order to
analyze the semantic and episodic
memory, a group of people was
asked to listen to personal stories
(episodic memory). In image 1.6
(a) “My Story”, it is shown how this
type of story activated the right
temporal lobe and the frontal
cortex (association cortex). While
Catalina Norato
MEMORY AND ITS LEARNING IMPLICATIONS
people from the other group was asked to listen to stories of other people (semantic
condition). In image 1.6 (b) “Your Story”, it is shown how the stories just activated the
temporal lobe.
Image 1.7
Molecules
Researchers Todd Sacktor and Yadin Dudai
(2011), investigated a molecule that can
maintenance the long-term memory. They
conditioned rats to associate a taste with a sick
feeling. The rats encoded the memory in their
brains.
In order to change the rat’s memories, the
researchers trained the rats to associate certain
foods with bellyaches, they they injected a nonillness-inducing virus called PKMzeta (Image 1.7,
in red). The increase of this enzyme in the rats,
enhanced their ability to remember, and in the
contrary, the mutant form would block the
memory.
Image 1.7
Talking about the short-term memory, lesions in the
prefrontal cortex (image 1.7) alter how the working memory
works. Piaget described that little children don’t have the
working memory very well developed, so if an adult hides
them an object and the child sees where he put it, but a few
seconds later the child looks in a different direction, he would
forget where the object is. That is the reason why little children
show less prefrontal cortex activation.
Image 1.8
Regarding structural changes, there isn’t any change
when we store new information in the short-term
memory but there are important ones in the long-term
memory. As we can see in image 1.8, when new
memories are stored for a long period of time, the
neurons produce new receptors and new dendrites. In
the other hand, the short-term memory just involves
neurotransmitters but not a structural change in the
neuron.
Catalina Norato
MEMORY AND ITS LEARNING IMPLICATIONS
Conditioning
Image 1.9
One of the most important researchers about
memory and conditioning is Ivan Pavlov (see
image 1.9). In his conditioning reflex research,
he attached tubes to dog’s saliva glands to see
the amount of saliva that was produced. First he
made a bell sound with no response then, he
showed the same bell and food, obtaining saliva
(conditioning). Finally, when the dog heard the
bell, it would immediately produce saliva.
Conditioning it’s a type of memory that the more
it is repeated, the stronger the neural
connections get and the more we get used to
the response.
Long-term Potentiation (LTP):
Long-term potentiation occurs when connections between two neurons become
stronger. Certain neurotransmitters are released from one neuron to the other and this
determines how strong the connections can be. Therefore, this can be one way of
learning, the stronger the connections, the longer the knowledge will be stored.
Image 1.10 shows how in an initial state the dendrites are releasing certain amount of
neurotransmitters and due to repeated stimulation for a certain period of time, there is
more release of neurotransmitters which causes the Hebbian engram to be stronger.
Image 1.10
Catalina Norato
MEMORY AND ITS LEARNING IMPLICATIONS
Cortical Areas and Memory
The occipital lobe is in charge of visual processing.
People remember things and events because they
stored an image in their brain about the specific
situation. When we think about what we learned, we
can see the image in our head and our visual cortex
activates (visual memory).
Talking about the parietal lobe, its main functions are
somatosensory
perception
and
attention.
Somatosensory perception has to do with our five
senses. The parietal lobe receives the inputs from the
senses and some of this inputs become knowledge
for us.
The temporal lobe areas more involved in memory are adjacent to the hippocampus
and they are called “medial temporal cortex”. These areas are in charge of encoding
new information but not in storing it. Damage to the medial temporal lobe causes
amnesia.
The frontal lobes cover functions such as initiating memory (starting the conscious
process of remembering). They also are in charge of source monitoring, that is
determining from which source a certain input/memory comes. “Source monitoring
means being able to distinguish if a memory is a personally experienced event or
something someone told us.” It also includes the difference between fact and
imagination.
Conclusion
In summary, we can say that memory plays such a big role in our daily lives. Everything
that happens to us is stored in our brain, either for a short period of time or for a long
one. Even though, this paper just shows a brief overview of the topic, we are able to
understand how different the information that we get is and how it is analyzed and
encoded. We are also conscious of how environmental, sensitive and many more
factors determines if the new input will be used just for a moment or not.
In the other hand, the new findings tell us that there is a prominent future to learn more
about the memory and how some of its deficits could be managed by means of new
drugs or molecules. In the same way, research can reveal new ways of learning and of
making the new knowledge stronger which at the same time may cause a big change in
the methodology that teachers use in class and how they approach their students and
present the information.
Catalina Norato
MEMORY AND ITS LEARNING IMPLICATIONS
References
Alonso, S. (2010). Memoria y Aprendizaje.
Aprendizaje, Memoria, Plasticidad Nerviosa XI, clase 1,2, 3,4 segundo año. Asociación
Educar. Neurosicoeducación Online
Brain and Memory. Taken from:
http://www.sagepub.com/upm-data/35762_Chapter2.pdf
Kandel, E., Schwartz, J., Jessell, T., (2000). Principles of Neural Science.
Long-Term Potentiation. Taken from: http://www.expertsmind.com
Pavlov’s Classic Conditioning. Taken from:
http://blog.lib.umn.edu/meriw007/psy_1001/2011/10/pavlovs-conditioned-reflex.php
Welsh, J., (2011), A New Molecule for Memory: It Can Enhance or Erase. Taken from:
http://www.livescience.com/