week 6 lecture memory Flashcards
difference between memory and learning
learning is about how experience changes the brain and our behaviour, memory is about how that information is stored and subsequently reactivated
structure of working memory
You have the central executive, which goes down to the episodic buffer. coming off the side is the phonological loop and the visiospatial sketchpad.
long term memory key structure
declarative/explicit (episodic and semantic) and non-declarative/implicit (procedural and emotional)
how are memories spread throughout the brain?
diffusely. primarily in parts of the brain that took into the information in the first place (e.g. sensory memories in the corresponding areas).
Where are declarative memories stored
medial temporal lobe and the hippocampus (frontal cortex.) medial temporal lobe recieves information from visual cortex’s, the hippocampus deals with spatial memory
explain the rat watermaze experiment.
put rat in pool, with hidden platform. rats with normal brains will eventually find the hidden platform, and over time and repition find it faster and faster because they remember where it is. rats with damage to the hippocampus will never remember where it is and do not improve at all with repetition.
Where is procedural memory located?
In the striatum. it is totally independent from the medial temporal lobe.
fear conditioning
mediated by the amygdala and the cerebellum; individuals with their amygdala lesioned do not learn fear responses though they can recognise when stimuli are paired together.
where is working memory located?
the prefrontal cortex, with influence from parietal lobe
explain the primacy and recency effect
primary effect is how we are more likely to remember the first thing in a string of stimuli, wheras the recency effect is when you are more likely to remember the end of a string of stimuli. note the recency effect is mediated by the working memory, so when someone is distracted from memory the effect drops away.
anterograde amnesia
cannot make new memories, failure of encoding.
retrograde amnesia.
failure to remember the past, failure of recall.
patient HM key facts.
- man who had lobotomy at 27, with singificant parts of his frontal lobe being removed (like, a scary amount).
- found he couldn’t form any new declarative memories at all, short of working memory in the moment–every day would be a completely new day.
- however, striatum intact and though he wouldn’t remember doing practise, his procedural memory functined as relatively normal (star task)
the process of memory consolidation
integration, translocation, consolidation, CAN SWITCH INTO EITHER loss/erasure, or recall and reconsolidation.
what area of the frontal lobe is involved in object recognition?
perrinhel cortex (medial temporal cortex)
