Memory: The Key to Consciousness (Science Essentials) - Softcover

Thompson, Richard F.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0691133115 ISBN 13: 9780691133119

Verlag: Princeton University Press, 2007

Inhaltsangabe

Memory is perhaps the most extraordinary phenomenon in the natural world. Every person's brain holds millions of bits of information in long-term storage. This vast memory store includes our extensive vocabulary and knowledge of language; the tremendous and unique variety of facts we've amassed; all the skills we've learned, from walking and talking to musical and athletic performance; many of the emotions we feel; and the continuous sensations, feelings, and understandings of the world we term consciousness. Without memory there can be no mind as we understand it.


Focusing on cutting-edge research in behavioral science and neuroscience, Memory is a primer of our current scientific understanding of the mechanics of memory and learning. Over the past two decades, memory research has accelerated and we have seen an explosion of new knowledge about the brain. For example, there now exists a wide-ranging and successful applied science devoted exclusively to the study of memory that has yielded better procedures for eliciting valid recollections in legal settings and improved the diagnosis and treatment of memory disorders.


Everyone fascinated by the scope and power of the human brain will find this book unforgettable.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Richard F. Thompson is the William M. Keck Chair in Biological Sciences and professor of psychology and biological sciences at the University of Southern California. Stephen A. Madigan is associate professor of psychology at the University of Southern California.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Memory

The Key to ConsciousnessBy Richard F. Thompson Stephen A. Madigan

Princeton University Press

Copyright © 2007 Princeton University Press
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-691-13311-9

Chapter One

What Is Memory?

Memory is the most extraordinary phenomenon in the natural world. Our brains are modified and reorganized by our experiences. Our interactions with the physical world-our sensory experiences, our perceptions, our actions-change us continuously and determine what we are later able to perceive, remember, understand, and become.

Every person has perhaps billions of bytes of information stored in long-term memory. This "memory store" is the vast store of information you possess as a result of learning and are not aware of unless you call it up. It includes all vocabulary and knowledge of language, all the facts that have been learned, the personal experiences of a lifetime, and much more-all the skills learned, from walking and talking to musical and athletic performance, many of the emotions felt and in fact ongoing experience, and the continuous sensations, feelings, and understandings of the world we term consciousness. Indeed, without memory there can be no mind.

Most animal species display some behaviors, such as reflexes and instincts, that do not greatly depend on learning from experience. They are instead part of a species' evolved biological makeup and appear in individuals as a result of genetics and fetal development. You might think of this as being like your computer's read-only memory that has built-in instructions and data. In some species this kind of "hard-wired" behavior seems to constitute most of the species' repertoire of behaviors. But many other species have another kind of memory that has functions similar to the random access memory of your computer-a kind of memory that allows the recording, maintenance, and utilization of new information. The evolution of this kind of memory and capacity for learning was a major step in the development of complex forms of life. Why this capacity evolved isn't hard to understand: An animal with a such a memory system can process information that is no longer directly available in the environment, as, for example, when a squirrel is able to remember in the winter where it stored nuts the previous fall.

Memory: Four Portraits

This book examines some of the basics of current scientific understanding of memory, starting with descriptions of the memories of four individuals to illustrate some of the remarkable properties of the human memory system.

A Life Without Memory

The most famous case history of a memory disorder is that of HM (initials are used to protect the patient's privacy). HM was a young man with severe epilepsy that could not be controlled with drugs. As a result of neurosurgery to treat the epilepsy, HM lost the ability to form new long-term memories, a condition called anterograde amnesia. His memory is only moment to moment. He can no longer remember his own experiences for more than a few minutes. As he once expressed it:

Right now, I'm wondering, have I done or said anything amiss? You see, at this moment everything looks clear to me, but what happened just before? That's what worries me. It's like waking from a dream. I just don't remember.

If you were introduced to HM and talked with him for a while, you would get the impression of a normal man with an above-average IQ. If you left and then returned a few minutes later, he would have no memory of having met and talked with you earlier. His immediate "working memory," however, is intact. If you ask him to remember a phone number you've just read to him, he can repeat it to you, but he cannot easily memorize it so as to recall it later. He has learned to use trick associations to remember things, but this works only as long as he can keep repeating the association to himself. Distract him and the memory is completely gone. Readers may recall the popular film Memento, whose hero suffered from the same disorder as HM.

Although HM cannot store his own experiences in long-term memory, he can learn and store motor skills relatively normally. Suppose you were his tennis instructor. As you teach him various skills over a series of lessons he improves as well as anyone else would. But each time he is brought to the lesson he has to be introduced to you again and you have to remind him that he is learning tennis.

HM provides a dramatic illustration of the distinction between short-term and long-term memories and the fact that they involve different brain systems, as do motor skill memories. His long-term memories of things learned and experienced before his surgery, incidentally, are relatively intact. (We will have much more to say later about HM and other examples of amnesia.)

A Mnemonist

Rajan Mahadevan was the son of a prominent surgeon in Mangalore, India. Rajan liked to astound his school friends by reciting the complete railway timetable for the Calcutta railway system. Later he contacted Guinness World Records Limited in London for suggestions on how to establish a memory record. He was told to focus on [pi, the Greek letter pronounced "pie." [pi] is the number 3.14 ... (the ratio of the diameter and circumference of a circle), and it is an endless and apparently irregular sequence of digits with no patterns or predictability (3.14159265 ...). Rajan set to work. On July 14, 1981, he stood before a packed meeting hall in Mangalore and started reciting [pi] from memory. He recited numbers for 3 hours and 49 minutes, reaching 31,811 digits of [pi] without a single error, winning him a place in the Guinness book. He later became a graduate student in psychology at Kansas State University, where he studied and was studied. His extraordinary memory was for numbers, not words, and he used strategies to help him remember (more about this later). Later, in 1987, a Japanese "memorist," Hideaki Tomoyoni, recited the first 40,000 digits of [pi] and replaced Rajan in the Guinness book.

Life with Too Much Memory

The most famous case history of a person with what is often referred to as "photographic" memory was recorded by the distinguished Russian psychologist Alexander Luria, who named his subject "S."

I gave S. a series of words, then numbers, then letters, reading to him slowly or presenting them in written form. He read or listened attentively and then repeated the material exactly as it had been presented. I increased the number of elements in each series, giving him as many as thirty, fifty or even seventy words or numbers, but this, too, presented no problem for him. He did not need to commit any of the material to memory; if I gave him a series of words or numbers, which I read slowly and distinctly, he would listen attentively, sometimes ask me to stop and enunciate a word more clearly, or, if in doubt whether he heard a word correctly, would ask me to repeat it. Usually during an experiment he would close his eyes or stare into space, fixing his gaze on one point; when the experiment was over, he would ask that we pause while he went over the material in his mind to see if he had retained it. Thereupon, without another moment's pause, he would reproduce the material that had been read to him.

It was of no consequence to him whether the series I gave him contained meaningful words or nonsense syllables, numbers or sounds; whether they were presented orally or in writing. All he required was that there be a 3-4 second pause between...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Princeton University Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2007
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0691133115
• ISBN 13: 9780691133119
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Auflage: 1
• Anzahl der Seiten: 290
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar