People can remember facts or events {memory}|. Memory allows information recall and use [Baddeley, 1990] [Dudai, 1989] [LeDoux, 1996] [Martinez and Kesner, 1998]. Memory stores information. Memory storage can be inaccurate.
comparison: learning
Learning places information in memory. Memory implies learning. People learn some memories better than others. Perhaps, they repeat them often.
comparison: recall
Recall retrieves information from store. Memory recall can be inaccurate.
types
People can perform habits and procedural skills {procedural memory, cognition}. People can remember facts, previous actions, predictions, goals, objects, locations, and times {declarative memory, cognition}. Long-term memory can be declarative/explicit or non-declarative/implicit. Memory can be episodic, procedural, categorical, or semantic. Episodes and procedures are personal. Words and statements are not personal.
processes
Forming memory requires timed inputs, conditional branches, and delays while some processes wait for other processes to finish.
Mind has fast and slow processes. Short-term memory and attention involve intensive, detailed, and fast processes, which have limited information capacity and can create information structures available to consciousness. Long-term memory involves slow processes, which have unlimited information capacity and cannot create information structures available to consciousness. People cannot be aware of mental processes, computations, or abstract representations, so consciousness is viewpoint-specific representations {intermediate-level theory of consciousness, memory}. Consciousness stores computation results {information structure}. Consciousness is a viewer-centered representation, in short-term memory, of a three-dimensional model, and involves position, shape, color, motion, attention, and representation [Crick and Koch, 2000] [Jackendoff, 1987] [Jackendoff, 1996] [Jackendoff, 2002] [Siewert, 1998] [Strawson, 1996]. Perceptual primary sensory cortex stores perceptions. Short-term memory can hold all object features simultaneously and so unify perception. Some perceptions do not become memories.
Complex memories have same laws as basic unit memories {memory theories} [Ebbinghaus, 1913].
processes: analog process
Forming and retrieving memories, and other mental processes, are analog processes, not digital.
processes: indexing
Memories depend on indexing by location, time, and image. Index uses a lookup table sorted by use probability. Index can have inhibition and excitation to expand or prune.
processes: information processing
Mind actively processes data consciously and non-consciously.
processes: interactive memory
Memories are made, stored, and recalled using active cognitive processes, which relate existing memories and interpret memory content {interactive memory, cognition}, so memory has no bound.
processes: knowledge structure
Memory uses space, time, subject, and so on, in an interrelated knowledge hierarchy. Meaning and understanding require knowledge schemas and hierarchies {knowledge structure}. Such structures both provide background information and integrate current stimuli and facts. For example, stories have schema, with setting, characters, goal, plot, and resolution. Meaning relates to what object can do or is for [Schank and Abelson, 1977] [Schank, 1997].
processes: perception
All memories are about past perceptions.
processes: repetition
Repetition strengthens memory.
processes: representation
Memories have multiple mental representations. Mental representations build from familiar parts. Parts have one and only one object.
processes: storage
Mind has mechanisms to store mental representations. Mental processes store memories for use within several seconds in immediate memory or sensory memory, for use up to 45 seconds in short-term memory or working memory, and for use after 45 seconds in long-term memory. These processes differ for different senses. Perhaps, long-term memories are never lost. Only ability to recall them fails. Perhaps, associations are weak, or needed stimuli do not happen. Perhaps, long-term associations are never lost. Perhaps, associations strengthen during conscious processing only. Perhaps, non-conscious processing also happens during and after learning, affecting representations or associations.
processes: units
Memory content involves storing basic units, such as shapes, sizes, motions, and qualities.
requirements
Memory does not require sensation, does not require perception, and does require awareness.
biology: ampakine
Ampakines increase glutamine binding to AMPA receptor and increase glutamate release from AMPA receptor, and so affect memory and cognition.
biology: animals
All mammals have procedural and declarative memory.
biology: brain
Memory involves caudate nucleus, cerebellum, frontal lobe, hippocampus, inferotemporal cortex, lateral prefrontal cortex, mamillary bodies, medial temporal lobe, posterior superior temporal lobe, putamen, septo-hippocampal system, and thalamus. Stimulating brain position repeatedly results in same memory. Most brain damage does not affect short-term memory.
biology: connection strength
Memory coding changes neuron connection strengths and patterns.
biology: CREB
Calcium influx activates protein kinases that phosphorylate other enzymes that activate or deactivate CREB. CREB enhances memory protein genes, such as zif268. Cell stimulus patterns activate gene set. High-frequency, middle-frequency, and low-frequency stimuli affect different enzymes. Signals strengthen synapses sensitized by stimulus that released enzymes that activate CREB. Synapses themselves do not send signal molecules to cell nucleus.
biology: drug
Drugs can make atypical memory states. If drugs reduce brain electrical activity, memories do not consolidate. After memory consolidates, drugs do not affect memory. Anti-cholinesterase, physostigmine, puromycin, and scopolamine affect memory [Atkinson and Shiffrin, 1968] [Atkinson et al., 1999] [Atkinson et al., 2000] [Farthing, 1992] [Hobson, 1999] [Metzner, 1971] [Spence and Spence, 1968] [Tart, 1972] [Tart, 1975]. Drugs do not affect short-term memory.
biology: EEG
Brain wave changes do not affect memory.
Short-term memory has gamma oscillations in local field potentials, which can result from reverberating brain activity [Tallon-Baudry and Bertrand, 1999].
biology: electrical shock
If electrical shock reduces brain electrical activity, memories do not consolidate. After memory consolidates, electrical shock does not affect memory.
biology: hippocampus
After temporal-lobe and hippocampus removal, people cannot make long-term declarative memories but can learn motor tasks [Scoville and Milner, 1957].
biology: ion channel
Brain information processing code uses ion channels and molecules. Protein alters cell-membrane ion-channel-use probabilities.
biology: myelination
Myelination extent does not affect memory.
biology: neocortex
Long-term memories go to neocortex. Perhaps, it happens at night.
biology: neuron
Short-term memory and long-term memory use same neurons and networks.
biology: NGF
NGF increases choline acetyltransferase (CAT), which synthesizes acetylcholine in hippocampal neurons. NGF reverses poor spatial memory.
biology: protein synthesis
Long-term memory needs protein synthesis [Agranoff, 1967] [Flexner et al., 1963]. Non-declarative memory uses proteins [Benzer, 1967]. Protein-synthesis inhibitor prevents memory formation.
biology: synapse
Memory involves cholinergic synapses.
properties: defaults
Memories provide assumptions and defaults to compare to current perceptions.
properties: encoding
Encoding context should match cue information.
properties: expertise
Experts in subject have large working memory for that subject, gained by active learning with high motivation.
properties: familiarity
Better perception, concepts, and encoding make better storage, so people have better memory for more familiar things.
properties: feeling of knowing
If people cannot recall, they can judge whether they can retrieve the memory in the future.
properties: loss
Mind does not lose memories, only access to memories.
properties: information
People recall high-level information best.
properties: music
Tunes ending in harmonic cadence are easier to remember than those that do not end in harmonic cadence.
properties: learning
While people are learning something, they can judge whether they can retrieve it in the future.
properties: non-accidental properties
Memory stores non-accidental properties and their relative positions as object templates [Anderson, 1983] [Anderson, 1995] [Aristotle, -350] [Niesser, 1967] [Niesser, 1982] [Rose, 1993].
properties: non-consciousness
Memory survives unconscious periods.
Intense stimuli can cause memory without consciousness.
properties: number
Number of objects that people know is approximately 10,000,000. Number of patterns is 50,000, for useful objects. Similar objects can have different property values. Objects can be in hierarchies.
properties: organization
Memory is better for related events.
properties: reading problems
People with reading problems have small working memory information content.
properties: repeated sequence
People remember repeated sequences better in verbal short-term memory tests, perhaps from beginning long-term memory or maintaining short-term memory traces.
properties: rhythm
Rhythm change aids memory.
properties: search
People can search 50,000 pictures per second in long-term memory.
properties: size
Human memory can hold 10^20 bits.
properties: smell
Smell short-term memory is poor.
properties: strength
Memory strength is number of stored or recalled units. Memories are weak if event does not repeat, emotion is low, or attention is weak. Certain content types also result in weak memories. Strong memories involve close attention or repeated study.
properties: sentence subject
People remember sentence subjects best, not objects, predicates, or relations.
properties: tempo
People perceive presentation speed. Slow tempo allows active tone coding. Fast tempo allows only overall tone patterns.
properties: time
Verbal short-term memory lasts up to 45 seconds. Processing decay causes decrease. Interference among memories decreases long-term memory over time. Memory is outside time. Memory causes the ideas of time and motion. Memory maps time to make a time field. Time measurement is only in the present.
properties: tip of tongue
If people cannot remember something, they can judge whether they will soon recall it.
properties: verb tense
Verbal memory requires verb tense.
effects: automatic response
Memories allow automatic responses. Automatic responses do not necessarily fit current problems, so memories must alter.
factors: age
Newborns can learn but need longer times for memory consolidation. At 3 to 6 years, hippocampus becomes mature and so long-term memories can form. Working memory information content increases up to age 20 to 35 and then declines. Perhaps, old age does not affect short-term memory [Selkoe, 1992]. At all ages, people can access memories by cues, such as habits.
factors: anesthesia
Even light anesthesia causes memory loss and analgesia.
factors: anxiety
Anxiety can cause consciousness loss and long-term memory loss.
factors: arousal
Long-term memory improves with increased arousal but short-term memory does not.
factors: consciousness
Attended items in sensory memory can become experiences. Consciousness uses external stimuli and memories {remembered present, consciousness} to make images. Short-term memory holds image parts and features as whole image develops. Sense-quality representations can be in short-term memory. People without long-term memory can be conscious. Sense-quality representations can be in long-term memory. Long-term declarative-fact memories can become conscious. Reporting recalled items requires consciousness.
factors: dreaming
Dream pattern changes do not affect memory.
factors: emotion
Because emotions include semantic and perceptual codes, more inferences, more intense perceptions, or more integration into life causes stronger coding. Positive and negative emotions attach to memories unconsciously. Sense signals go from thalamus to amygdala basolateral nucleus, then perirhinal and entorhinal cortex, and then amygdala central nucleus, which sends signals to make fear responses, such as freezing motion, high heart rate, and slow digestion. Stress hormones, like adrenaline, cortisol, and ACTH, activate amygdala. Perhaps, amygdala stores memory emotional part or transfers it from perirhinal and entorhinal cortex.
factors: environment
Environment does not much affect memory and ability to concentrate. Environment, especially social environment, affects memory storage and retrieval.
factors: fatigue
Over time, performance slows, people make more errors, concentration is poor, perception fades, and memory decreases.
factors: hypnosis
People can remember what happened while under hypnosis.
factors: inference
Inferences derive from knowledge structures. Inferences seem to affect encoding process and recall process.
factors: intelligence
Developmentally disabled people can have special right-brain talents, such as music, painting, or procedural memory.
factors: motivation
Motivation does not affect ability to retrieve information, only persistence in trying.
factors: perception
Memory affects extracting perceptual features.
factors: reflex inhibition
Inhibiting reflexes does not affect memory.
factors: sleep
Perhaps, paradoxical sleep is for memory consolidation. Brain substance can contain memories, and memory is a material process, because memory survives unconsciousness and sleep [Hering, 1878].
problems
People can have amnesia, anterograde amnesia, dementia, Korsakoff syndrome, and senility.
problems: schizophrenia
Schizophrenia has memory disturbances.
problems: amnesia
After brain damage, people cannot recall recent long-term memories. Amnesia still allows short-term memory, procedural learning, and conditioning. People can improve performance even if they cannot remember previous practice [Farthing, 1992] [Young, 1996]. Amnesiacs can feel that they are not fully conscious [Campbell and Conway, 1995] [Sacks, 1985] [Wilson and Wearing, 1995].
Social Sciences>Psychology>Cognition>Memory
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Date Modified: 2022.0224