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Talia Konkle
Section Notes
22 Mar 07
MEMORY
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Introduction
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Logistics
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Pop Quiz!
1. when memorizing a list of items, the primacy effect is ___ and the recency effect is ____.
Bonus: associate each of these with either short term or long term. Double bonus: why?
2. True or False: Once a memory has been consolidated into Long term memory, it cannot be
changed. Bonus: name the relevant process.
3. Which brain areas underlie explicit memory and which brain areas underlie implicit
(procedural) memories? (answer: explicit – hippocampus, implicit – basal ganglia,
cerebellum)
4. Consider the claim that there are distinct long term memory stores for different modalities
(like audition, vision, etc). What evidence is there to support this claim? (or: what evidence
would convince you that this is true?
Answers: - people who have lesions to visual areas have impaired memory for visual
information but intact memory for auditory information, compared to normal people with
intact brains. Imaging studies where you recall visual memory vs auditory memories
show different brain areas of activation.
5. You learned the names of all the people in your section while you were very hungry
because you had skipped lunch that day. Under what conditions are you most likely to
remember their names?
a) if you’re asked their names on Thursday, since you learned them on a Thursday
b) if you imagined a picture of them at the same time you heard their name (bonus: depth of
encoding)
c) if you’re hungry when I ask you again (bonus: state-dependent retreival)
d) if you’re stressed, because cortisol helps the hippocampus retrieve memories when you’re
under pressure.
6) what is ‘chunking’)
7) what type of amnesia did HM have?
8) what is the difference between semantic (declarative) and episodic memory?
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Discussion
The chairman of the committee usually opens the meeting with one of his boring and
sometimes even perverse lectures. Today he started with some stupid proverb: I can’t even
remember it – something about not planting thistle seeds. Then he went on a pointless
tangent about how to guard a political leader from a potential assasination in a crowded
place such as a carnival. Is there any method behind the madness of his talks?
Massive Memory Demo – what is the capacity of long term memory?
- with interference
- without interference
Wagner 1998 – brain area predicts how well you’re going to remember something later
Cutting edge model of how memory consolidation works in the brain
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Review – Book chapter
Terms
Depth of processing
Transfer appropriate processing – you can remember info more easily if you use the
same type of processing when you try to retrieve it as you did when you originally
studied it;
Breadth of processing
Elaborative encoding – unclear defn from text
Distributed vs Massed studying
Intentional learning – mental effort directed at the task of learning (visual imagery)
Incidenta learning – learning that occurs without trying
Emotion enhances memory – via noradrenaline (norepinephrine)
Types of Memory – implicit vs explicit
- semantic vs episodic
- habits skills priming classically conditioned responses non associative learning
Long term potentiation
Source amnesia
Encoding failure: if you do not process info enough to begin consolidation
Forgetting: decay vs interference
Retroactive interference – disruption of stuff that came before
Proactive interference – disruption of stuff to come
Achetocholyne in memory: alziehmers have less of this. Drinking black or green tea INHIBIT
acetocholinesterase, which breaks down achetocholine.
I can imagine a review of memory that’s framed something like this. “Lets review the book,
but lets also talk about the big picture of memory. Have you thought about how memory is stored in the
brain? What are your models of how memory is stored? – for example: what technologies do we have that
have memory. E.g. magnetic tapes, cds, books? What does memory have to have? A way of recording
something that can be accessed at a later date. Introduce terms: encoding, storage, retrieval.
How does this process work in neurons? In the whole brain?
Give model of hippocampus, consolidation, and the transition of where memories are stored.
What about at the neural level. How do things change?
Synaptic weights
Long term potentiation