How we learn from experience Memory and Amnesia. Thorndike Puzzle box KW 13-3

How we learn from experience

Memory and Amnesia

Thorndike Puzzle box

KW 13-3

Pursuit rotor

KW 13-6

Verbal Memory

• Remember the following letters

• PBSFOXBETABCCBSMTVNBC

Recall as many letters as you can

Verbal Memory

• Remember the following letters

• PBS FOX BET ABC CBS MTV NBC

Recall as many letters as you can

Memory: Declarative vs Procedural

Declarative-the ability to state a memory in words: ABOUT THINGS

Example: Remembering your mother’s maiden name.

Procedural-the development of motor skills: HOW TO DO THINGS

Example: Riding a bicycle.

Episodic – life experiences; biographic details of own life;

Example: HS graduation ceremony

Memory: Explicit vs Implicit

Explicit-deliberate recall of information that one recognizes as a memory

Conscious use of memory

Example: taking a multiple choice test.

Implicit-the influence of recent experience on behavior, even if one does not realize that one is using memory

Unconcious or unintended influences on memory

Example: ethnic facial preferences

Please read the following words silently to yourself

• Spring

• Winter

• Car

• Boat

Please read the following words silently to yourself

• Trip

• Tumble

• Run

• Sun

Please write down a defintion for the following word

• Fall

Short-term and Long-term Memory

Short-term-events that have just occurred

Long-term-events from previous times

Memories that stay in short-term memory long enough are consolidated into long-term memory

Memory Model

Sensory registers

Short Termor

Working

Long Term

Loss Loss

Rehearsal

Consolidation

Retrieval

Short term

memory task

KW 13-13

Working Memory

Defined-the way we store information while working with it or attending to it

Components

Phonological loop-stores auditory info

Visuospatial sketchpad-stores visual info

Central executive-directs attention toward one stimulus or another

Action and

Color Words

Kw 13-7

Memory Areas

Amnesia

TestTodayCar crash

HS graduationJune 2000

High School Prom1999

New Home2001

Hippocampus and Amnesia

Anterograde Amnesia-loss of memories for events that happen after brain damage

Retrograde Amnesia-loss of memories that occurred shortly before brain damage

Boxing Blows

Case of H.M.

• Most studied person in psychology

• Most important case study

• H.M. had severe epilepsy in temporal lobes

• William Scoville, neurosurgeon at

Hartford Hospital operated on HM in 1953

• Removed ventral tips of temporal lobes

HM’s Brain

KW 13-8

Both sides

HM’s Temporal

Lobes

Effects on HM

• Recall events from childhood

• Can engage in conversations

• Good semantic memory

• Cannot recall events that have just happened

• Cannot recall any new facts

• Cannot remember new faces

Memory Model

Sensory registers

Short Termor

Working

Long Term

Loss Loss

Rehearsal

Consolidation

Retrieval

What is HM’s deficit

• Anterograde Amnesia for declarative memory: fact, events, people.

• No concept of amount of time that has passed.

• Still shows procedural memory: new tasks.

• Some implicit memory: realizes that his parents have died.

Temporal Lobe Memory Areas

Memory circuits

KW 13-10

Emotional Memory Circuit

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Korsakoff’s Syndrome

Korsakoff’s Syndrome- brain damage caused by long-term thiamine deficiency (both retrograde and anterograde amnesia)

Alzheimer’s Disease

Alzheimer’s Disease- severe memory loss associated with aging

Amyloid beta protein accumulates in the brain and impairs neuron function

PlaquesTangles

Alzheimer’s Disease

KW p. 504

How does learning happen?

Function and structural changes

Changes in Function

• Existing brain cells

• Donald Hebb (1904-1985)

• Existing circuits start reverberatory circuits

• Eventually form cell assemblies

• Cell assemblies are memories

Enriched Environment

KW p. 514

Creating novel circuits over time

Cortex changes in experience

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Blood

Glial

Changes in motor cortex

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Memory

• Anterograde: malfunction in memory consolidation

• Retrograde: loss of “permanent” memories

most likely cell death on cortex

End