Memory

Topics in Cognitive Science

08.11.2017
2017 Fall term
Memory is.when?
Do you have infantile amnesia?
Rats in chambers did. (1962)
far fewer autobiographical memories exist from early childhood
than simple forgetting predicts
memory loss is due to
a storage difficulty (i.e., memory loss is a
early experiences are retrieval problem (i.e.,
not properly the memories exist, but
transformed into long- we cant recollect them)
term memories)

pre-verbal babies can demonstrate functional memories, suggests

that language not is necessary for long term memory storage or
retrieval
 by the time children become adults, the memories formed during early
years are difficult to recall. This failure of memory suggests a problem
with retrieval rather than storage.
Experiment with 2-6 month olds revealed retrieval success (Rovee-Collier)
(stimuli is identical)

Do changes in perception cause problems in later retrieval?

Emotion may modulate retrieval
 Memory ishow? (Squire 2009)
DECLARATIVE NON-DECLARATIVE
Episodic Semantic procedural priming
events of personal facts and events of Ability to perform
life world in general skilled action
a subjects response to a
propositional
given stimulus is affected
involves the encoding, storage, and retrieval of by his previous exposure
content that the subject can bring to to related stimuli
consciousness

Problem: criteria of episodicity? Knowing how versus knowing that (Ryle

1949)
Dispositional, expressed in performance
Taxonomy of types of memory (Squire 2004)
Memory is.what?
memory is not a single entity but made up of several abilities
controlled by distinct brain systems
Other types of memory
autobiographical memory is
treated as a complex capacity that
emerges through the interaction of
more basic kinds of memory.
Multi-store model (Atkinson
&Shiffrin 1968) :
1. Ultra-short term (less than 1 sec)

unlikely to be a kind of memory 2. Short-term (30 sec)

on a par with those acknowledged 3. Long-term (indefinite)
by the standard taxonomy, which
correspond to specific brain
systems
Phenomenology of episodic memory
a feeling of familiarity and a feeling of pastness
(Russell 1921)
episodic feeling of knowing (Dokic 2014): the sense
that ones retrieved memory of an event originates
in ones experience of the event
experiential memory (Wollheim 1984): event
remembered as experienced from a central point of
view (crucial for personal identity):
remembering doing stg. versus remembering that I
did stg.
it reminds me of what it was like and reconnects
me with an affective dimension
H.M. and the
hippocampus