ch. 7: memory Flashcards
What is memory?
A dynamic, malleable process that moves forward (prediction) and backward (past experiences) in time.
What are the stages of memory processing?
- Sensory memory (brief, milliseconds)
- Short-term memory (if attended to, lasts < 1 min)
- Long-term memory (stored if encoded)
- Retrieval (recall from short- or long-term memory)
What are the two main types of long-term memory (LTM)?
Explicit (Declarative) and Implicit (Non-declarative) memory
What are the subtypes of explicit memory?
- Episodic memory (personal experiences)
- Semantic memory (facts & general knowledge)
What are the subtypes of implicit memory?
- Priming (preparing responses)
- Conditioning (associative learning)
- Procedural memory (motor/muscle memory)
What is retrograde amnesia?
The inability to remember events before brain damage
What is anterograde amnesia?
The inability to form new memories after brain damage.
What memory abilities remain intact in severe amnesia?
- Immediate (working) memory
- Procedural (muscle) memory
- Very remote memories
- Intelligence & personality
What was H.M.’s memory deficit?
Severe anterograde amnesia due to medial temporal lobe damage.
What brain region was damaged in N.A.?
The left dorsomedial nucleus of the thalamus, leading to verbal memory deficits.
What brain areas support declarative memory?
- Medial temporal lobes (hippocampus, perirhinal cortex)
- Diencephalon (thalamus & hypothalamus)
- Basal forebrain (cholinergic output to cortex)
What is the Papez Circuit?
A major declarative memory system that includes:
- Hippocampus
- Cingulate gyrus
- Mammillary bodies
- Anterior thalamus
What happens when the basal forebrain is damaged?
Severe anterograde amnesia and confabulation (filling in memory gaps with false information).
What is working memory?
The active manipulation of information in the present moment.
What brain area is critical for working memory?
Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC).
What are the four components of working memory (Baddeley’s Model)?
- Central executive (controls processing)
- Phonological loop (verbal/auditory info)
- Visuospatial sketchpad (visual info)
- Episodic buffer (integrates info from other systems)
What types of memory are outside the limbic system?
- Implicit priming (e.g., “parachute” primes “par___”)
- Procedural memory (motor skills, learned habits)
- Habit memory (conditioning)
What brain regions support implicit memory?
Basal ganglia, cerebellum, and motor cortex.
What are some conditions that affect memory?
- Dementia (progressive decline)
- Toxic exposure (e.g., neurotoxins)
- Anoxia/Hypoxia (lack or reduction of oxygen)
- Stroke (infarcts)
- Wernicke-Korsakoff’s syndrome (thiamine deficiency)
- Traumatic brain injury (TBI)
- Seizures
- Psychogenic amnesia (trauma-related memory loss)
What is “normal” memory loss?
- Infantile amnesia (no memories before age 3)
- Mild episodic decline with age
- Forgetting over time
- Memory loss immediately after waking up
What are the key areas tested in memory assessment?
- Encoding
- Storage
- Retrieval
- Immediate vs. delayed recall
- Recognition vs. free recall
What is the Wechsler Memory Scale (WMS-IV) used for?
Assessing verbal, visual, working memory, and attention.
What does the California Verbal Learning Test (CVLT-3) measure?
- Word list learning
- Semantic categorization
- Immediate and delayed recall
- Recognition
What does poor free recall but good recognition suggest?
Storage issues.
