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What is memory?
Chapter 1
What is memory?
•
Three definitions (Spear & Riccio, 1994)
–
location where information is kept
•
–
thing that holds the contents of experience
•
–
e.g., a storehouse, or memory store
e.g., a memory trace or engram
mental process used to acquire (learn),
store, or retrieve (remember) information
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
Early Memory Research in
Psychology and Neuroscience
• Lashley (1950)
– engram: neural
representation
of memory
– quantity, not
location
– memory
distributed all
over cortex
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
Modal Model of Memory
Multiple Memory Systems
Structure of the Neuron
Neural Communication:
Electrical Process
Neural Communication:
Chemical Process