Transcript What is Memory For?

Memory and its disorders The Self
and Memory
Chris Moulin
School of Psychology
University of Leeds
[email protected]
What is Memory For?
• To learn
locations
language
skills
people
• To be yourself
your life story
your responses
your ideas
your understanding
Plan
• The Self
• The Self Reference Effect
• AM Basics
• The Self Memory system
The Self
• An adaptive, biological entity (e.g. Daniel
Dennett)
• Many definitions
• Don’t get too bogged down in these
The self reference effect
• Self is a powerful organizing structure in
memory
• E.g. the self reference effect
Incidental memory task
How much do these adjectives relate to you (or a
friend, or levels of processing)
Material processed in relation to the self is better
retained
Autobiographical Memory
• Autobiographical memory is a complex
interaction of:
Episodic memory
Semantic memory
Constrained by:
Self processes
Executive function
A memory freely recalled by a 54-year old
recalling memories from any point in his life.
I remember a bright sunny morning walking down
a hill near our house. I had on a red jacket, red
shirt, blue jeans, and brown suede boots. I was
seventeen. I was going into town and I felt
great...it was a feeling of being sort of utterly
calm, utterly well, a feeling of expectancy:
interesting things were about to happen. It was a
feeling I don’t think I have had in such a pure
form since.
A response made by a person asked to
recall a memory to the (cue) word “Ship”.
We were going on holiday to France. I remember that we stayed
at a boarding house in Dover and went down to the ferry very
early the following morning. My brother and I were wildly excited
it was the first time we had been abroad and the first time we
had been on a ship of any sorts. I have a vivid memory of
looking back at the White Cliffs as the boat pulled out of the
harbour - they seemed immensely tall, (Conway, 1996).
Things that go bump in
your life
• Accessibility of AM changes across the lifespan
• Most memories are retrieved from 20-30
recency
Number of Memories
reminiscence
bump
forgetting
childhood
amnesia
Figure 1: The
lifespan retrieval
curve.
Age
Conway’s contribution
Conway, M.A., & Pleydell-Pearce, C.W. (2000) The
construction of autobiographical memories in the Self
Memory System. Psychological Review,107, 261-288.
Conway, M.A., Meares, K., & Standart, S. (2004). Images
& goals. Memory, in press.
Conway, M.A., Singer, J.A., & Tagini, A. (2004). The Self
and Autobiographical Memory: Correspondence and
Coherence. Social Cognition, 22, 495-537.
The working self
• Control processes of the working self cannot
directly influence the generation of patterns of
activation in the knowledge base.
• But they can control or channel them by
altering/elaborating cues.
In Conway’s model memories are generated within a
complex mental system called the “self-memory-system” or
SMS.
The SMS has two major components:
 A knowledge base (in long-term
memory).
 A set of control processes - which we
call the “Working Self”.
Conway suggests there are two forms of memory:
The phylogenetically older memory system - protoepisodic memory primarily concerned with
correspondence.
And the phylogenetically more recent - conceptual system
primarily concerned with coherence.
Older
route
Newer
route
• The fronto-temporal system is largely concerned
with issues to do with coherence.
• The temporo-occipital system is largely concerned
with issues to do with correspondence.
Primary Global Impairments
•
Patient S.S. (Cermak & O’Connor, 1983)
Injury: Extensive - taking in left frontal, orbitofrontal, temporofrontal junction, bilateral
hippocampus and amygdala.
Impairment: Dense RA & AA. No Memories - knew events had occurred, general idea of
events and periods in his life.
•
Patient K.C. (Tulving, et al., 1988)
Injury: left frontal-parietal, right parietal-occipital
Impairment: Dense RA & AA. No memories - some lifetime period knowledge.
•
Patient L.T. (Kapur, et al., 1992)
Injury Bilateral temporofrontal
Impairment: Dense RA Mild AA - No memories, some personal fact remained, indication
of emotional recognition.
•
Patient E.D. (Markowitsch, et al., 1993; see too Kroll, Markowitsch, et al., 1997)
Injury: Bilateral temporofrontal
Impairment: Dense RA Mild AA - No memories, some personal facts remained.
Secondary Global Impairments
•
Patient M.H. (Ogden, 1993)
Injury: Occipital lesions (+other areas)
Impairment: Severe disruption of visual imaging abilities.Dense RA (for visual memories)
no AA. Post-morbid memories all nonvisual.
•
Patient L.D. (O’Connor, et al., 1992)
Injury: R.H. Lesion extending from posterior frontal regions through the temporal lobe to
occipital regions. Plus, more circumscribed LH lesion.
Impairment: Severe disruption of visual imaging abilities.Dense RA no AA, virtually no
memories even for childhood but retained some factual knowledge.
•
Patient D.H. (Hunkin, et al., 1995)
Injury: Circumscribed lesions in right parieto-occipital and left occipital lobes.
Impairment: Dense RA for pre-injury events, very mild AA, and 18 years after the injury
has a good but visually impoverished autobiographical memory.
Fractionation of AM
•
Patient P.S. (Hodges & McCarthy, 1993)
- Injury: Bilateral paramedian thalamic lesion.
Impairment: Dense RA and AA. Preservation of an ‘island’ of AM knowledge relating to
when he had been a naval rating during WWII. He believed himself to be at home on
shore leave.
•
Patient R.F.R. (McCarthy & Warrington, 1993).
- Injury: Temporal lobe lesions
Impairment: Dense RA & AA. Had preserved access to lifetime period knowledge (a sort
of personal c.v. of his life) with very occasional and sporadic recall of a specific
memory. He was found to have excellent knowledge about the appearance of people
he knew but could recall no events associated with them.
•
Patient K.S. (Ellis, et al., 1989)
- Injury: Right anterior temporal lobectomy for intractable epilepsy
Impairment: No amnesia but could not access knowledge about people who featured in
events she was otherwise able to recall ‘normally’.