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Brain and Behaviour Today the issue of memory is not entirely studied by scholars and still it needs renovations and debating in some of the aspects that remain unclear. In my essay I will define the meaning of memory from the point of view of psychology, and explain the biological mechanisms of memory. Also I will touch the point of memory functioning in the brain and discuss the classification of memory in modern science. By means of this I will achieve the final goal of my work which lies in the complex study of the issue of memory. In psychology the notion of memory has several meanings. First, in a wider meaning, it is the area of cognitive psychology that studies memory processes. [ 4 ].
Second, in a more narrow meaning memory is a property of the human mind: the ability to retain information. [ 4 ]. Memory refers to the processes of storage, retention, recall of information about past experiences, thoughts and knowledge. Memory for specific information can depend on the individuals state of mind and also on the individual himself. Thus the novel and exciting information will be better remembered than information which is ordinary and uninterested.
The exact biological mechanisms of memory are not entirely understood but many scholars think that memory is produced as a result of changes in connection strengths and finally, connections themselves between neurons of the brain. One of the mechanisms is long-term potentiation. This mechanism refers to the process which can be roughly described in the following way: if two neurons are usually active together, the connection between them will be strengthened; over time, this means that activity in one neuron will tend to produce activity in the other neuron. [ 3 ]. At the molecular level, memory result from manufacturing new proteins and that is widely known as translation. Then the new proteins are synthesized and subsequently stabilize the changes that underlie the memory. According to Elizabeth Crown, every new memory results in a permanent representation in the brain. [ 2 ].
Many of types of memory are stored in the cortex. This part of brain has different areas specializing in various kinds of information. For example, the visual information will be stored in the inferior temporal cortex; the information about associations is located in the frontal cortex. Additionally, these two areas have high linkage between each other that allows the individual while seeing a picture to retrieve associations about it. Simultaneously, if specific areas of cortex are damaged, it can cause specific memory deficits. For instance, if the patient is damaged to specific region within the temporal lobe, he can lose knowledge about "living things" (e.
g. lions, dogs, birds). But at the same time such patient keeps knowledge about other categories (e. g. inanimate objects furniture, utensils).
New declarative memories and their formation depend on the hippocampus and some related structures in the medial temporal lobe. Damage to these structures can produce anterograde amnesia that is characterized by the condition in which older declarative memories are largely spared, but few if any new declarative memories are acquired. [ 3 ]. Still, the contribution of hippocampus and some other medial temporal lobe structures to long-term memory formation is not completely understood. Some scientists think that the hippocampus may act as a temporary store for incoming information and afterwards this information is gradually distributed to the locations in permanent storage of the cortex. On the contrary, other scientists believe that the hippocampus never stores the new information itself but it is needed by the cortex in the process of developing new memories. [ 3 ]. Commonly, psychology classifies memory by its nature, duration and retrieval of perceived items.
The most accepted and widely used is the classification by duration. According to this classification, memory can be: sensory, short-term and long-term. Sensory memory refers to the fact that, after experiencing a stimulus, information about that stimulus is briefly held in memory in the exact form it was received, until it can be further processed. [ 3 ]. Thus this kind of memory implies the initial moment when some item is perceived. After that a certain part of the information goes to the sensory store. This store is referred as short-term memory.
As a matter of fact, sensory memories last only some seconds before they either decay or start being overwritten by a new portion of incoming information. But when sensory memories last, they contain very detailed information about the stimulus, just like an internal copy of it made in perfect detail. Short-term memory is generally characterised by its limited capacity (usually from 5 to 9 items) and duration (a few minutes). Objects stored by short-term memory can have indefinite complexity: thus it may hold simultaneously several words, or several numbers in addition to several complex concepts. In contrast to sensory memory that stores the exact form of the stimulus, short-term memory may perform some changes, which approximately have the following character: "A" is stored not as a visual stimulus, but as an abstract concept of the letter "A." [ 3 ]. Also, the information short-term memory stores can be retrieved within a period from days to years.
The matter is that short-term memories are supported by transient changes of neuronal communication. In contrast, long-term memory is maintained by permanent and more stable changes of neural structure. Thus, long-term memory proves to be more dependent on protein synthesis. However, some psychologists argue that the distinction between sort- and long-term memories is accidental, and it is merely a reflection of differing levels of activation within a single store. [ 4 ]. Long-term memory as the name implies lasts for years or even longer. It contains everything the individual may know about the world, including autobiographical experience, as well as factual and semantic information.
Generally, long-term memory is organized in such a way that it can easily reach any stored item by many routes. To illustrate this I will cite the following example: the concept "umbrella" may be retrieved by seeing an umbrella, experiencing a rainstorm, and hearing the words to the song "Let a smile be your umbrella. " [ 3 ]. More than that, retrieval of one item may lead to retrieval of many other related items. For instance, while retrieving information about a cat the individual may also recall information about lions, dogs, or some specific instances of cats (ones favourite pet), or the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland, etc.
On the whole, long-term memory can be divided into procedural (implicit) and declarative (explicit). Declarative memory requires some conscious process to call the information back, in other words, it needs conscious recall. Also declarative memory may be called explicit, because it consists of information that is explicitly stored and retrieved. [ 3 ]. Declarative memory is further sub-divided into: semantic memory, it refers to facts which are taken separately from their context; episodic memory, it refers to information that is specific to particular context, for example time and place; autobiographical memory, it is memory for particular events of ones own life; visual memory, it preserves some characteristics of human senses pertaining to visual experience. Procedural memory is based on an implicit learning. This memory is employed in learning motor skills.
But when individuals do better in a given task due only to repetition - no new explicit memories have been formed because people are unconsciously accessing aspects of those previous experiences. [ 3 ]. More than that, procedural memory depends on such parts of brain as the basal ganglia and cerebellum. In addition, there is a kind of working memory that refers to short-term store that is needed for some mental tasks. But it can not be considered as a synonym for the notion of short-term memory, since it is defined not in terms of duration but rather in terms of purpose. [ 3 ]. Though according to some theories, working memory is considered to be the combination of short-term memory and some control of attention. [ 4 ].
For example, when people are asked to multiply mentally 67 by 3, they have to perform many simple calculations (multiplications, additions) in order to get the final answer. Thus, working memory is an ability to store the information concerning the instructions and intermediate results. Also, there are three main stages of memory formation and retrieval: the first one is - encoding (combining and processing of received information), the second is storage (the encoded information builds up a permanent record), and finally comes retrieving or recalling (the stored information is called back in response to some cue in order to be used in some activity or process). But there are different methods of how people lay down their memories. They are as following: Shallow encoding.
It concerns short-term memory that is designed to hold a small amount of information for a short period of time. Such information can be of a linguistic nature. For example, to memorize a telephone number, a person repeats it to himself. Human brain utilizes a phonological loop which relies on the part formed only for the purposes of a short-term memory.
In this way, the telephone number will be just temporally stored. Elaborative encoding. It concerns long-term memory that stores information for a long period of time. The process of elaborative encoding is performed by means of such operations as: associating, linking or connecting an event or incoming information with the information already stored in the memory. Also the mentioned operations serve as the means of recalling information when a person needs to retrieve it. As to the process of storing memory, it has a certain mechanism that is performed in the following way.
The brain strengthens connections between the groups of neurons which participate in encoding the persons experience. In this way the brain records an event or upcoming information. Further, the brains record becomes an engram and it is determined by a certain pattern of connections which constitute this record. Thus, the engrams will lie dormant until they are evoked or retrieved back into memory by bringing them to conscious awareness with the help of cues. Naturally, as time passes, the engrams stored in the memory may weaken and blur if they are not used by the person. Daniel Schacter introduced his point of view on this process in the following way: "Forgetting, though often frustrating, is an adaptive feature of our memories.
We tend to remember only what is important and meaningful in our lives -- we don't need to remember everything that has ever happened to us; engrams that we never use are probably best forgotten. [ 1 ]. However the cognitive psychologist John Anderson argued, that forgetting memories is an economical response to the demands placed on memory by the environment in which we live. We are better off forgetting trivial experiences than clogging our minds with each and every ongoing event. " [ 1 ]. In addition, both long-term and short-term memories have common processes: storage, deletion and retrieval. As a matter of fact, the information stored by short-term memory can move to the storage of long-term memory by rehearsal.
This means that the repeated exposure to a stimulus or the rehearsal of a piece of information transfers it into long-term memory. [ 3 ]. The experiments also proved a greater effectiveness of learning when it is distributed over time. The process of deletion can be caused by inference and decay. Long-term memory can also be affected by emotional factors. However, it is still discussed whether people just forget everything or whether it becomes difficult to access certain information from memory. Sometimes the information may not be recalled but recognized.
In some cases certain items may be recalled only by prompting. All in all, information retrieval may be of two types: recognition and recall. Recall means that information is reproduced from the memory. [ 3 ]. Dealing with recognition, the presentation of the information provides the knowledge that the information has been seen before. The recognition is considered less complex, if the information is given as a cue. Nevertheless, the issue of memory storage is being still argued among scholars all over the world.
The neuroscientist of Northwestern University, Aryeh Routtenberg, introduced his new theory on how memory is stored in the brain. According to Routtenberg, there is a dynamic, meta-stable process instead of commonly accepted permanent storage. Routtenberg explains that the subjective experience of permanence result form the re-duplication of memories that takes place across many kinds of brain networks. The following example is cited to illustrate Routtenberg's theory.
Ones name is represented in innumerable neural circuits; thus, it is extremely difficult to forget each individual component that is malleable and transient, and as no particular neural network lasts a lifetime, it is theoretically possible to forget ones own name. [ 2 ]. Many scientists (Judd A. , Routtenberg, Marjorie Weinberg) agree that such storage mechanism has a highly flexible system that can be considered as one of the main advantages of the new theory. This system enables rapid retrieval even of the elements which are infrequent. Therefore, this distinguishing feature makes Routtenberg's theory surpass the theory of permanent storage.
Summing up, I would like to say that memory is one of the most complicated issues in modern science. The notion of memory can be studied in two meanings: the area of cognitive psychology and a property of the human mind. Nowadays some aspects of memory study are still not understood, for example, the exact biological mechanisms of memory function, or the role of the hippocampus and some other medial temporal lobe structures in long-term memory formation. Also, as it has been already mentioned, psychology classifies memory by its nature, duration and retrieval of perceived items.
Thus there are such kinds as long-term memory, short-term memory, sensory memory and working memory. The complexity of issue of memory in modern science is also proved by the existence of a number of aspects which are still debated by scholars. Thus, as it was noted above, the distinction between long-term and short-term kinds of memory is considered to be accidental by some researchers. Also the aspect of memory storage was renovated by Aryeh Routtenberg, who suggested his new theory that has a highly flexible system and thus challenges the already accepted views on this issue. Bibliography: Daniel L. Schacter.
Home page. 1996. 21 Feb. 2005 < web > Elizabeth Crown. New Theory Challenges Current View of How Brain Stores Long-Term Memory. Northwestern University. Northwestern News.
January 18, 2005. 21 Feb. 2005. < web > Memory. Memory Loss and the Brain. The Newsletter of the Memory Disorders Project at Rubber University. Summer, 2004. 23 Feb. 2005. < web > Memory. Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopaedia. Wikimedia. 9 Feb 2005. 21 Feb. 2005. < web >
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