SCIENCE

The Science of Memory – WSC 2018

HIPPOCAMPUS

The hippocampus, latin for seahorse, is named for its S-

like shape. It is located in the brains medial temporal
lobe, just above the brains stem in the center core of
the brain. The hippocampus is part of the limbic
system, an area of the brain responsble for many
functions of the body associated with memory,
emotions, and motivation. The hippocampus is the part
of the system that is mainly responsible for memory but also for our sense of navigation.
The hippocampus is what encodes information whether it should be stored as memory
or discarded.

AMYGDALA

o an almond-shape set of neurons located deep in the brain's medial temporal lobe
o play a key role in the processsing of emotions
o forms part of the limbic system
o In humans, it is the most sexually-dimorphic (different between male and female)
brain structure
o shrinks by more than 30% in males upon castration (loses use of the testicles)
o Conditions such as anxiety, autism, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder,
and phobias are suspected of being linked to abnormal functioning of the
amygdala, owing to damage, developmental problems, or neurotransmitter
imbalance

CEREBELLUM

Location: Lower area of the brain, below the

pons, behind the top part of the brain stem
(where the spinal cord meets the brain) and
is made of two hemispheres (halves).

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Function: Responsible for balance and coordination of muscles and the body

It is a relatively small portion of the brain -- about ten percent of the total weight, but it
contains roughly half of the brain's neurons, specialized cells that transmit information
via electrical signals. The cerebellum is one of the most identifiable parts of the brain
due to its unique shape and location. It is extremely important for being able to perform
everyday voluntary (done with purpose and intent) tasks such as walking and writing. It
is also essential to being able to stay balanced and upright. Patients who have suffered
from damaged cerebellums often struggle with keeping their balance and maintaining
proper muscle coordination. Damage to the cerebellum, while not causing paralysis or
intellectual impairment, might lead to a lack of balance, slower movements, and
tremors (shaking). Complex physical tasks would become unsteady and halting.
(https://www.healthline.com)

ACETYLCHOLINE

What? Acetylcholine is an important

neurotransmitter in the nervous system.

Function: In the body, acetylcholine is the primary

neurotransmitter which nerves use to signal
muscles for movement.

ACh and nervous system:

Ach is the chemical that motor neurons of the nervous system release in order to
activate muscles.

Low in Ach:

If our body stop releasing acetylcholine, our respiratory muscles will paralyze and it will
cause suffocation and death.

ACh and Alzheimer’s disease:

In the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease, the cells in the forebrain that produce
acetylcholine will be destroyed.

ACh and Hippocampus and Memory:

By suppressing signal transmission in the hippocampus, acetylcholine actually prevents

the retrieval of old memories from interfering with the making of new memories.

LOCALIZATION OF JUNCTION

an idea that different parts of the brain has different functions.

Suggested by numerous nuero studies including one case of man named Phinease Gage.

In 1841, while working on a railroad, an iron rod pierced through Gage’s skull. Despite
him surviving, he experienced changes in his personalities, like anger issues and lack

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inhibition. After studying the case, a strong evidence was found that the damaged part
of his brain was the part responsible of personalities.

NEUROPLASTICITY

is the brain’s ability to reorganize itself by forming new neural connections. It allows
neurons to compensate for injury and disease and to adjust their activities in response
to new situations or changes in the environment.

NEURONS

- Special cells that carry signals from one place to another, around the many parts of
the nervous system.
- They connect receptors to the central nervous system and also connect one part of
the nervous system to another. They also carry signals from the nervous system to
the effectors.
- Neurons transmit electrical impulse when stimulated
- Sensory neuron: carries nerve impulses from receptors to the central nervous
system, found in sense organs
- Relay neuron: carry nerve impulses from sensory neuron to motor neuron, found in
spinal chord
- Motor neuron: carry nerve impulse from the central nervous system to the
effectors, found in muscles and glands
- Neurons each have a nucleus in a cytoplasm surrounded by cell membrane called
axons which carries the electrical impulse and is protected by a fatty sheath called
the myelin sheath that increase the speed in which the nerve impulse is transmitted
- Two neurons that meet are separated by a gap called the synapse. In order to
continue the journey, neurons have to diffuse through the synapse.

NERVOUS SYSTEM

The nervous system is a complex network of nerves and cells that carry messages to and
from the brain and spinal cord to various parts of the body. The nervous system includes
both the Central nervous system and Peripheral nervous system.

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J. PIAGET

Who is J. Piaget: Jean Piaget was a Swiss developmental psychologist known for the
Theory of Cognitive Development that he created in the year 1936.

Theory of Cognitive Development:

This suggests that children move through four different stages of mental development.
His theory focuses not only on understanding how children acquire knowledge, but also
on understanding the nature of intelligence.

Piaget believed that children take an active role in the learning process, acting much like
little scientists as they perform experiments, make observations, and learn about the
world. As kids interact with the world around them, they continually add new
knowledge, build upon existing knowledge, and adapt previously held ideas to
accommodate new information.

The Four Stages of Mental Development According to His Theory:

1. Sensorimotor stage: birth to 2 years

The sensorimotor stage is the earliest in Piaget's theory of cognitive development. He

described this period as a time of tremendous growth and change.

During this initial phase of development, children utilize skills and abilities they were
born with (such as looking, sucking, grasping, and listening) to learn more about the
environment. In other words, they experience the world and gain knowledge through
their senses and motor movements.

As children interact with their environments, they go through an astonishing amount of

cognitive growth in a relatively short period of time—the sensorimotor stage lasts from
birth to approximately age 2.

Object Permanence:

According to Piaget, developing object permanence is one of the most important

accomplishments at the sensorimotor stage of development. Object permanence is a
child's understanding that objects continue to exist even though they cannot be seen
or heard.

Imagine a game of peek-a-boo, for example. A very young infant will believe that the
other person or object has actually vanished and will act shocked or startled when the
object reappears. Older infants who understand object permanence will realize that the
person or object continues to exist even when unseen.

This is a classic example of how, during this stage, an infant's knowledge of the world is
limited to his or her sensory perceptions and motor activities and how behaviours are
limited to simple motor responses caused by sensory stimuli

2. Preoperational stage: ages 2 to 7

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This stage begins around age 2, as children start to talk, and lasts until approximately
age 7. During this stage, children begin to engage in symbolic play and learn to
manipulate symbols. However, Piaget noted that they do not yet understand concrete
logic.

Major Characteristics:

Language development is one of the hallmarks of this period. Piaget noted that children
in this stage do not yet understand concrete logic, cannot mentally manipulate
information, and are unable to take the point of view of other people, which he termed
egocentrism.

During the preoperational stage, children also become increasingly adept at using
symbols, as evidenced by the increase in playing and pretending. For example, a child is
able to use an object to represent something else, such as pretending a broom is a
horse.

Role-playing also becomes important— Children often play the roles of "mommy,"
"daddy," "doctor," and many other characters.

3. Concrete operational stage: ages 7 to 11

The concrete operational stage is the third stage in Piaget's theory of cognitive
development. This period spans the time of middle childhood—it begins around age 7
and continues until approximately age 11—and is characterized by the development of
logical thought. While their thinking still tends to be very concrete, children become
much more logical and sophisticated in their thinking during this stage of development.

While this is an important stage in and of itself, it also serves as an important transition
between earlier stages of development and the coming stage where kids will learn how
to think more abstractly and hypothetically. While kids at this age become more logical
about concrete and specific things, they still struggle with abstract ideas.

4. Formal operational stage: ages 12 and up

The formal operational stage is the fourth and final stage of Jean Piaget's theory of
cognitive development. It begins at approximately age 12 and lasts into adulthood. At
this point in development, thinking becomes much more sophisticated and advanced.
Kids can think about abstract and theoretical concepts and use logic to come up with
creative solutions to problems. Skills such as logical thought, deductive reasoning, and
systematic planning also emerge during this stage.

< https://www.verywellmind.com/formal-operational-stage-of-cognitive-development-
2795459>

F. BARTLETT

o Sir Frederic Charles Bartlett/ Frederic C. Bartlett

o born October 20, 1886, Stow-on-the-Wold, Gloucestershire, England
o died September 30, 1969, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire
o British psychologist best known for his studies of memory
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 o 1922 : director of the Cambridge Psychological Laboratory
o 1931: appointed the university’s first professor of experimental psychology, until
his retirement in 1952
o 1932: elected to the Royal Society
o 1948: knighted
o Major work: Remembering: A Study in Experimental and Social Psychology (1932)
 advanced the concept that memories
of past events and experiences are
actually mental reconstructions that
are coloured by cultural attitudes and
personal habits
 rather than being direct recollections
of observations made at the time
 experiments showed that very little of
an event is actually perceived at the
time of its occurrence but that, in reconstructing the memory, gaps in
observation or perception are filled in with the aid of previous
experiences
o Later work, Thinking: An Experimental and Social Study (1958), broke no new
theoretical ground but added observations on the social character of human
thinking

E.F. LOFTUS & J.C. PALMER

Psychologist Elizabeth Loftus has been particularly concerned with how subsequent
information can affect an eyewitness’s account of an event. Mainly focus on the
influence of (mis)leading information in terms of both visual imagery and wording of
questions in relation to eyewitness testimony. Loftus’ findings seem to indicate that
memory for an event that has been witnessed is highly flexible. If someone is exposed
to new information during the interval between witnessing the event and recalling it,
this new information may have marked effects on what they recall. The original
memory can be modified, changed or supplemented. The fact the eyewitness testimony
can be unreliable and influenced by leading questions is illustrated by the classic
psychology study by Loftus and Palmer (1974) Reconstruction of Automobile Destruction
described below.

Aim: To test their hypothesis that the language used in eyewitness testimony can alter
memory. Thus, they aimed to show that leading questions could distort eyewitness
testimony accounts and so have a confabulating effect, as the account would become
distorted by cues provided in the question.

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  Experiment One

Procedure: Forty-five American students formed an opportunity sample. This was a

laboratory experiment with five conditions, only one of which was experienced by each
participant (an independent measures experimental design). 7 films of traffic accidents,
ranging in duration from 5 to 30 seconds, were presented in a random order to each
group.After watching the film participants were asked to describe what had happened
as if they were eyewitnesses. They were then asked specific questions, including the
question “About how fast were the cars going when they (smashed / collided / bumped
/ hit / contacted) each other?”

Findings: The estimated speed was affected by the verb used. The verb implied
information about the speed, which systematically affected the participants’ memory of
the accident. Participants who were asked the “smashed” question thought the cars
were going faster than those who were asked the “hit” question. The participants in the
“smashed” condition reported the highest speed estimate (40.8 mph), followed by
“collided” (39.3 mph), “bumped” (38.1 mph), “hit” (34 mph), and “contacted” (31.8
mph) in descending order.

Conclusion: The results show that the verb conveyed an impression of the speed the car
was travelling and this altered the participants' perceptions. In other words, eyewitness
testimony might be biased by the way questions are asked after a crime is committed.
Loftus and Palmer offer two possible explanations for this result:

Response-bias factors: The misleading information provided may have simply influenced
the answer a person gave (a 'response-bias') but didn't actually lead to a false memory
of the event. For example, the different speed estimates occur because because the
critical word (e.g. 'smash' or 'hit') influences or biases a person's response. The memory
representation is altered: The critical verb changes a person's perception of the accident
- some critical words would lead someone to have a perception of the accident being
more serious. This perception is then stored in a person's memory of the event.

 Experiment Two

Procedure: 150 students were shown a one minute film which featured a car driving
through the countryside followed by four seconds of a multiple traffic accident.
Afterwards the students were questioned about the film. The independent variable was
the type of question asked. It was manipulated by asking 50 students 'how fast were the
car going when they hit each other?', another 50 'how fast were the car going when they
smashed each other?', and the remaining 50 participants were not asked a question at
all (i.e. the control group). One week later the dependent variable was measured -
without seeing the film again they answered ten questions, one of which was a critical
one randomly placed in the list: “Did you see any broken glass? Yes or no?" There was
no broken glass on the original film.

Findings: Participants who were asked how fast the cars were going when they smashed
were more likely to report seeing broken glass.

Conclusion: This research suggests that memory is easily distorted by questioning

technique and information acquired after the event can merge with original memory
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causing inaccurate recall or reconstructive memory. The results from experiment two
suggest that this effect is not just due to a response-bias because leading questions
actually altered the memory a participant had for the event.The addition of false details
to a memory of an event is referred to as confabulation. This has important implications
for the questions used in police interviews of eyewitnesses.

Critical Evaluation

One limitation of the research is that it lacked mundane realism / ecological validity.
Participants viewed video clips rather than being present at a real life accident. As the
video clip does not have the same emotional impact as witnessing a real-life accident
the participants would be less likely to pay attention and less motivated to be accurate
in their judgements. A study conducted by Yuille and Cutshall (1986) conflicts the
findings of this study. They found that misleading information did not alter the memory
of people who had witnessed a real armed robbery. This implies that misleading
information may have a greater influence in the lab rather and that Loftus and Palmer's
study may have lacked ecological validity. A further problem with the study was the use
of students as participants. Students are not representative of the general population in
a number of ways. Importantly they may be less experienced drivers and therefore less
confident in their ability to estimate speeds. This may have influenced them to be more
swayed by the verb in the question. A strength of the study is it's easy to replicate (i.e.
copy). This is because the method was a laboratory experiment which followed a
standardised procedure. (https://www.simplypsychology.org)

THE WAR OF GHOSTS

- “War of Ghosts” story

One night two young men from Egulac went down to the river to hunt seals, and
while they were there it became foggy and calm. Then they heard war-cries, and they
thought: "Maybe this is a war-party". They escaped to the shore, and hid behind a log.
Now canoes came up, and they heard the noise of paddles, and saw one canoe coming
up to them. There were five men m the canoe, and they said:

"What do you think? We wish to take you along. We are going up the river to make war
on the people".

One of the young men said: "I have no arrows".

"Arrows are in the canoe", they said.
"I will not go along. I might be killed. My relatives do not know where I have gone.

But you", he said, turning to the other, "may go with them."

So one of the young men went, but the other returned home.
And the warriors went on up the river to a town on the other side of Kalama. The

People came down to the water, and they began to fight, and many were killed.
But presently the young man heard one of the warriors say: "Quick, let us go home: that
Indian has been hit". Now he thought: "Oh, they are ghosts". He did not feel sick, but
they said he had been shot.

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 So the canoes went back to Egulac, and the young man went ashore to his
house, and made a fire. And he told everybody and said: " Behold I accompanied the
ghosts, and we went to fight. Many of our fellows were killed, and many of those who
attacked us were killed. They said I was hit, and I did not feel sick".

He told it all, and then he became quiet. When the sun rose he fell down.
Something black came out of his mouth. His face became contorted. The people jumped
up and cried.

He was dead.

- Reproduction 10

Two Indians were out fishing for seals in the Bay of Manpapan, when along
came five other Indians in a war-canoe. They were going fighting. "Come with us," said
the five to the two, "and fight."
"I cannot come," was the answer of the one, "for I have an old mother at home who is
dependent upon me." The other also said he could not come, because he had no arms.
"That is no difficulty" the others replied, "for we have plenty in the canoe with us"; so he
got into the canoe and went with them.

In a fight soon afterwards this Indian received a mortal wound. Finding that his
hour was come, he cried out that he was about to die. " Nonsense," said one of the
others, "you will not die." But he did.

- Bartlett
Bartlett said that when remembering, we piece together a few highlights, then
fill in details based in what we think should have happened. Our memories working like
rough notebooks rather than video recorders.

- Bartlett’s and Schema

Bartlett viewed schema as organizations of past experience. In other words, we tend to
see and in particular interpret and recall what we see according to what we expect and
assume is ‘normal’ in a given situation.

Example: Your schemas tell you that if you see someone wearing a short sleeved shirt
outside then there is unlikely to be snow on the ground.

Conclusion: Schemas can lead us to make assumptions which may be wrong.

*Source:
https://mechanism.ucsd.edu/teaching/philpsych.w03/memory4class.pdf
https://slideplayer.com/slide/10025453/

CAR CRASH STUDY

In 1974, it was tested by Elizabeth Loftus and John Palmer.

experiment One:

Forty-five students were asked to participate in a laboratory study in which they would
be entered in one of five conditions. Each participant was to watch a film of a traffic
accident provided to them, ranging in duration from 5 to 30 seconds. After watching the
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film, the participants were to describe what they witnessed. They were each asked a
series of specific questions, with careful wording. The main focus question was “About
how fast were the cars going when they ______ each other?” The blank represents
where one of the five conditions would be placed. Each participant was asked that
question but the missing verb could be any of the following: smashed, collided, bumped,
hit, or contacted.

This was done to see if the change in the verb has an effect on the speed that the
participants answered. Findings proved that the participants that were asked the
question with the verb “smashed” reported that the cars were going faster than the
participants who were asked with the verb “hit.”

Experiment Two:

145 students were shown a video of a car driving down a countryside and then in the
last four seconds, the video showed a multiple car accident. After the video the students
were asked questions about the film. 50 students were asked “how fast were the cars
going when they hit each other?”, another 50 were asked the same questioned but the
verb was replaced with “smashed”, similar to experiment one. The other 50 students
weren’t asked any questions to serve as a control group.

One week after this setting, the students were asked to return and were asked if they
saw broken glass in the accident scene. Results showed that the students who were
originally asked the question with the verb “smashed” reported the broken glass twice
as much as the students who were asked with the verb “hit.” The control group, which
was not asked any questions, reported broken glass just as much as the group who were
asked with the verb “hit.” Here are the results:

WEAPONS EFFECT

is a social psychology study that was being conducted and shows that a presence of a
weapon leads to more aggressive behavior in humans, particularly if these humans are
already aroused. It is because weapons tend to link to aggression in our minds. This
could happen to anyone, in both angry and non- angry individuals.

LONG TERM VS SHORT TERM MEMORY

LONG TERM MEMORY SHORT TERM MEMORY

- Long-term memory is intended for storage of
information over a long period of time. It
seems likely that long-term memory actually
decays very little over time, and can store a
seemingly unlimited amount of information
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- Short-term memory is responsible for
storing information temporarily and
determining if it will be dismissed or
transferred on to long-term memory.
Although it sounds complicated, this
 almost indefinitely.
- The establishment of long-term memory
involves a process of physical changes in the
structure of neurons in the brain, a process
known as long-term potentiation, although
there is still much that is not completely
understood about the process. At its simplest,
whenever something is learned, circuits of
neurons in the brain, known as neural
networks, are created, altered or
strengthened.
- Long-term memories aren't all of equal
strength. Stronger memories enable you to
recall an event, procedure, or fact on demand
while long term memories can’t always do
that.
- Long term memories aren't formed and
retained in a single part of the brain; instead,
the process of creating and storing long-term
memories is spread throughout multiple
regions. The two major subdivisions are
explicit memory and implicit memory.
Explicit memories are those that you
consciously remember, such as an event in
your life or a particular fact. Implicit
memories are those that you do without
thinking about, like riding a bike—you once
learned how, and you remembered how, but
now do it without conscious thought.
( www.brainhq.com , www.human-memory.net )
EXPLICIT VS. IMPLICIT
EXPLICIT MEMORY
- purposeful intention of memory
retrieval and storage; conscious
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process takes your short-term memory
less than a minute to complete.
- Short-term memories can become
long-term memory through the process
of consolidation, involving rehearsal
and meaningful association.
- Information in short term memory will
quickly disappear forever unless we
make a conscious effort to retain it.
The transfer of information to long-
term memory for more permanent
storage can be improved by giving it a
meaning and associating it with other
previously acquired knowledge.
Motivation is also a consideration, in
that information relating to a subject of
strong interest to a person, is more
likely to be retained in long-term
memory.
- The central executive part of the
prefrontal cortex at the front of the
brain appears to play a fundamental
role in short-term memory.
- The short-term memory has a limited
capacity
IMPLICIT MEMORY
- 1 of the 2 main types of long-term
human memory
- Acquired and used unconsciously
- Affect thoughts and behaviour
DECLARATIVE VS. PROSEDURAL MEMORY

DECLARATIVE MEMORY PROCEDURAL MEMORY

- Requires concious thought
(Explicit Memory)
- Stores facts, concepts, and events
- Does not require concious thought
(Implicit Memory)
- responsible for storring information
on how to do different skills and
hobbies

SEMANTIC VS EPISODIC

o Are forms of Declarative Memory

SEMANTIC MEMORY EPISODIC MEMORY

- recall of general facts - recall of personal facts
- Remembering the capital of - Remembering what happened in
France and the rules for playing the last game of the World Series
football

EIDETIC MEMORY

Eidetic memory someti(mes called photographic memory) is an ability to vividly recall

images from memory after only a few instances of exposure, with high precision for a
brief time after exposure, without using a mnemonic device. Although the terms eidetic
memory and photographic memory are popularly used interchangeably, they are also
distinguished, with eidetic memory referring to the ability to view memories like
photographs for a few minutes, and photographic memory referring to the ability to
recall pages of text or numbers, or similar, in great detail. When the concepts are
distinguished, eidetic memory is reported to occur in a small number of children and as
something generally not found in adults, while true photographic memory has never
been demonstrated to exist, this type of ability has never been proven to exist and is
considered popular myth. Scholar Annette Kujawski Taylor stated, "In eidetic memory, a
person has an almost faithful mental image snapshot or photograph of an event in their
memory. However, eidetic memory is not limited to visual aspects of memory and
includes auditory memories as well as various sensory aspects across a range of stimuli
associated with a visual image.” "Eidetikers", as those who possess this ability are called,
report a vivid afterimage that lingers in the visual field with their eyes appearing to scan
across the image as it is described. Lilienfeld et al. stated, "People with eidetic memory
can supposedly hold a visual image in their mind with such clarity that they can describe
it perfectly or almost perfectly, just as we can describe the details of a painting
immediately in front of us with near perfect accuracy." (https://en.wikipedia.org)

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HYPERTHYMESIC

- What?

A condition in which an individual possesses a superior autobiographical memory,

meaning he or she can recall the vast majority of personal experiences and events in his
or her life.

- How?

Individuals with hyperthymesia can recall almost every day of their lives in near perfect
detail, as well as public events that hold some personal significance to them. Those
affected describe their memories as uncontrollable associations, when they encounter a
date, they “see” a vivid depiction of that day in their heads. Recollection occurs without
hesitation or conscious effort.

- Causes?

various studies and laboratory findings reveals that person

having hyperthymesia have enlarged temporal lobe and
caudate nucleus. Temporal lobe is important part of brain
because it contains various components that are regulating
process of semantic memory and episodic memory.

- Major signs and Symptoms

Some major sign and symptoms through which we may

able to distinguish such persons are deep semantic memory, exceptional episodic
memory, ability to recall minor events, exceptional capacity of memorizing, high
reasoning capacity etc.

*Source:
http://www.hyperthymesia.info

https://www.healthline.com/human-body-maps/caudate-nucleus

RECONSTRUCTIVE MEMORY

memories that add or omit details that were not part of an original event.

Example:

READ AND REMEMBER THE LIST OF WORDS

dream

Bed

Pillow

Night

Rest
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Tired

Blanket

Doze

Slumber

Drowsy

Yawn

Snore

Okay, without looking back at the list, how many words came before the word 'sleep?'
Think you've got it? Would you be surprised to know that the word 'sleep' never
appeared on the list? Well, you're not alone.

MUSCLE MEMORY

is a band or bundle of fibrous tissue in human bodies that has the ability to contract
producing movement in our body and it also maintain the parts of the body. Muscle
memory is not memory stored in our muscles, but it is more of memories that are stored
in our brain that are much like a cache of frequently enacted tasks for our muscles.

COLLECTIVE MEMORY

( www.study.com )

- Collective memory is the term for the memories of a group of people who have
collected them through shared social experiences.
- The theory of collective memory went through a step-by-step process of
development.
 Carl Jung proposed a theory of collective unconscious. He believed that
universal human leanings like fear of fire or desire for social status all
spring from a collective unconscious each of us carries within us. It
contains memories of how life was for past generations.
 Emile Durkheim also didn't coin the term collective memory but did
discuss how each new generation is connected to the past; as they are
taught about history, memories carry forward. Durkheim focused more
on social memory. He also asserted that as a people we needed to have
a connection to prior generations, and that we seek to repeat previous
actions in order to relate to the past.
 Maurice Halbwachs (student of Durkheim) said that all of our personal
memories are recorded through the filter of our collective and social
memories.
- Collective memory is a theory that people- whether by race, family, or culture-
gather memories which influence how we see or lives (how groups remember
their past)
- Collective memories can be about facts or interpretations
- Example: how Americans remember 9/11 as an important date in their lives for
the history that happened on that date, and is celebrated until now even though
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 Americans nowadays didn’t go through the accident themselves. They keep
celebrating in in order to connect to their past and for it has influence their
former generations’ past

GENETIC MEMORY

- memory that exists during birth, with lack of sensory experience

- Incorporated into the genome over long spans of time

OVERT VS. COVERT REHEARSAL

OVERT REHEARSAL COVERT REHEARSAL

- Overt rehearsal is when your body
practices something for your
external improvements
EXAMPLES: practicing how to eat
properly,talk with confidence.
INDIVIDUALISTIC VS COLLECTIVISTIC
- Covert rehearsal is when your body
practices or does an activity to
become mentally stable (for
internal improvements).
EXAMPLES: positive thinking, finding
motivation

INDIVIDUALISTIC
Individualistic is meant to be whether the
individual is different from everyone else,
or whether he makes up his own mind
about things, or what-not
COLLECTIVISTIC
Collectivistic values somehow different
from those of the individual members. The
group thinks its own thoughts. Instead of
judging the group as a bunch of individuals
interacting, it judges the group as a whole,
and views the individuals as just members
of the group

EMOTIONAL AROUSAL

Emotional arousal - the arousal of strong emotions and emotional behavior

Whilst we feel emotions on an ongoing basis, we sometimes enter a state of arousal, in

which our bodies experience heightened physiological activity and extremes of emotion.
This can be both powerful and dangerous, both for ourselves and for others. States of
arousal can be positive and negative and include fear, anger, curiosity and love, which
are felt with an overpowering intensity that drives us to act, often in an unthinking way.
Emotional arousal is a process, which means it happens as a sequence over time.
Arousal often happens through a trigger, which appears through one of our senses.
Arousal is sometimes talked of with the metaphor of heat, reflecting the energy created,
with arousing emotions described as 'hot' or 'warm; and calmer emotions as 'cold' or
Page 15 of 45
'cool'. Higher arousal tends to make people want to talk and communicate more. Hence
people talk more when they are joyful and less when they are just contented. Example :
In situations of negative stress, we enter the fight-or-flight state, when primitive
responses designed to keep us alive are kicked into motion.

Arousal  a state of heightened activity in both our mind and body that makes us more
alert. ; Arousal acts along a spectrum from low to high. You can be slightly aroused and
you can be extremely highly aroused. ; the result of stimulation. When we are
stimulated appropriately, then we become aroused. With greater stimulation, we
become more aroused. ; a fundamental human need. In particular when other basic
needs for safety and social position are adequate, we start looking for more excitement.
; can be both positive and negative in experience, for example in excitement or fear. A
lack of arousal can also be positive or negative, for example in relaxation or boredom.
(http://changingminds.org/)

Emotional Arousal is a state of heightened physiological activity. This includes having

strong emotions like anger and fear and we go to the emotional arousal state in
response to our daily experiences. Some people come into this world with their
emotional arousal response on high alert. For others it takes a lot to trigger their
emotional arousal response. However we come into this world, our emotional arousal
isn’t set in stone. It develops throughout our life. Arousal starts with a Nature
component as a hardwired response to our experiences. That emotional arousal then
develops over time as a reaction to a lifetime of experiences. There are a number of
factors that influence the development of our emotional arousal, including Attachment
Styles and Relational Feedback Loops

Attachment styles  Everyone has an attachment style that affects the way we interact
with others. As parents our attachment styles influence every interaction we have with
our children. Our children then take all their interactions with us, combine them with
their predisposed genetic temperament and develop their own attachment style.
Attachment styles typically fall in one of four categories: secure, anxious, avoidant or
anxious-avoidant. Every interaction parents have with their child contributes to her
attachment style development.

Relational Feedback Loops  Infants and parents can go through what we call a
bidirectional feedback loop. One loop looks like this: Infants with a higher
temperamental baseline of arousal may be fussy and difficult. This may also be a result
of physiological difficulties such as trouble digesting, This fussiness leads to parents
becoming tired, frustrated, and less responsive. As parents become less responsive to
the infant’s needs the infant will likely become more anxious manifesting in more
fussing and so on.

The inverse is also true. If we are able to remain highly responsive the infant learns to
trust this responsiveness. The baby knows it will have her needs met on a consistent
basis.

Levels of arousal can be conditioned and reconditioned, meaning that if we are anxious
in relationships we can be reconditioned through consistency, validation, and love.
(https://www.sunrisertc.com)
Page 16 of 45
NEISSER & HARSCH

Aim: To test the theory of flashbulb memory by investigating the extent to which
memory for a shocking event (the Challenger disaster) would be accurate after a period
of time.

Procedure:
106 students in an introductory psychology class were given a questionnaire and asked
to write a description of how they had heard the news. They also had to answer seven
questions related to where they were, what they were doing, etc., and what emotional
feelings they experienced at the time of the event.
- Result
Even though these were thought to be flashbulb memories,
the results showed that their memories did in fact fade from the time they took the
questionnaire to the time they took it again later. They had originally had 220 facts but
later were either completely or partially wrong on 150 of them. Even with these steep
errors, the members where very confident about their correctness of their memory.

BROWN & KULIK

Did an experiment about lightbulb memory

Brown and Kulik (1977)

Research on Flashbulb Memory

Aim:

To investigate whether shocking events are recalled more vividly and

accurately than other events.

Procedure:

Questionnaires asked 80 participants to recall circumstances where they

had learned of shocking events

Results:

The participants had vivid memories of where they were, what they did, and what they
felt when they first heard about a shocking public event such as the assassination of
John F. Kennedy.

The participants also said they had flashbulb memories of shocking personal events such
as the sudden death of a relative.

The results indicated that FM is more likely for unexpected and personally relevant
events. The researchers suggested ‘the photographic model of flashbulb memory’.

Brown and Kulik suggest that FM is caused by the physiological emotional arousal (e.g.
activity in the amygdala).

Page 17 of 45
WANG & AYDIN

is a cross-cultural study that is conducted to find out the difference in the occurrence of
FBMs (vivid snapshot memories that is influenced by emotion) across individualistic
(independent) and collectivistic (valuing needs of a group/community more than the
individual) cultures. The study find outs that individualistic people have tendency to
form more FBMs because of encouragement of displaying emotions, which is the
opposite of collectivistic cultures. In conclusion, culture has an effect on the formation
of memories and the main factor is emotion.

ELABORATIVE ENCODING

- Elaborative encoding is a term used by psychologists to refer to techniques that

allow us to make information more memorable and therefore easier to learn
and recall.
- It is making information more elaborate and complex in order to be more
likely to remember it in the future. This is typically done by relating it and
connecting the new information to already existing knowledge.
- Elaborative encoding include the peg word system and the method of loci ways
of recalling information.
 A peg word system is a mnemonic device that is used to memorize lists
that need to be in order. An object or image is visualized which holds or
'pegs' the information that needs to be recalled and makes it easier to
remember. The main tenet of the peg system is associating ordered
information you already know well (such as numbers or the alphabet)
with the information you want to recall.
 Method of Loci is a technique in which a person visualizes the items
they're trying to learn in different spatial locations. To do this, the
person associates the items with landmarks in some familiar place,
which helps them recall the items later.
- These are the sorts of techniques described by Joshua Foer in his book
‘Moonwalking with Einstein’, particularly the ‘Memory Palace’. According to
Joshua, its much easier to remember the profession ‘baker’ than it is to
remember the name ‘Baker’. That’s because we have so many more associations
to the profession. There are loaves, baquettes and croissants. We imagine
people making it. We remember the smell of freshly baked bread. We may even
have made it ourselves.

( www.alleydog.com )

SPACED RETRIEVAL
- Spaced retrieval/ expanded retrieval/ uniform retrieval
- A learning technique  requires users to rehearse information to be learned at
different and increasing spaced intervals of time or a set uniform amount of time.

MNEMONICS

Definition: A mnemonic is a tool to help remember facts or a large amount of

information. It can be a song, rhyme, acronym, image, or a phrase to help remember a
list of facts in a certain order.
Page 18 of 45
Example:

 The order of taxonomy:

King Plays Chess On Fat Goat’s Stomach

(Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species)

MIND PALACE

- a method of memory enhancement which uses visualizations with the use of

spatial memory, familiar information about one's environment, to quickly and
efficiently recall information
- the subject memorizes the layout of some building, or the arrangement of shops
on a street, or any geographical entity
- When desiring to remember a set of items the subject 'walks' through these loci
in their imagination and commits an item to each one by forming an image
between the item
- Retrieval of items is achieved by 'walking' through the loci, allowing the latter to
activate the desired items
- mentally associated with specific physical locations
- relies on memorized spatial relationships to establish, order, and recollect
memorial content

SIMONIDES

As the story goes in 477 B.C. Simonides was in a room full

of people where the roof collapsed and killed everyone but
Simonides. As they were removing the rocks they came to
realize the bodies were crushed so badly that no one was
recognizable. In that moment Simonides spoke up and was
able to recall where each person was standing in the room.
That was when the light bulb went off in Simonides’ head.
He had just remembered a room full of data and a room
full of knowledge based upon a spot in his brain. The Mind
Palace technique was invented. At the end of the day he
went back to his house wondering if this could work with anything. Instead of visualizing
people in certain locations could he do the same with words, pictures, thoughts or
concepts? He sat down to number locations around his house and developed his very
own Mind Palace. With doing this Simonides could memorize lists with over 50 concepts
simply based on this new technique. He is now known as the father of memory training.
(http://memorise.org)

Page 19 of 45
Legend says that Simonides of Ceos was the inventor of the method of loci where large
amounts of data can be remembered in order by placing images that represent the data
into mental locations or journeys. He inferred that persons desiring to train this faculty
must select localities and form mental images of the facts they wish to remember and
store those images in the localities, with the result that the arrangement of the localities
will preserve the order of the facts, and the images of the facts will designate the facts
themselves, and we shall employ the localities and images respectively as a wax writing
tablet and the letters written on it. From what Simonides did on that occasion, it
appears to have been remarked that the memory is assisted by localities impressed on
the mind, and everyone seems able to attest the truth of the observation from his own
experience, for when we return to places, after an absence of some time, we not only
recognize them, but recollect also what we did in them. (https://blog.artofmemory.com)

WORKING MEMORY MODEL

- Multi-store model (Atkinson’s and Shiffrin’s (1968))

- Baddeley and Hitch (1974)

- Baddeley and Hitch (1974) argue that the picture of short-term memory (STM)
provided by the Multi-Store Model is far too simple. According to the Multi-Store
Model, STM holds limited amounts of information for short periods of time with
relatively little processing. It is a unitary system. This means it is a single system (or
store) without any subsystems. Working Memory is not a unitary store.

- Working memory is short-term memory. However, instead of all information going into
one single store, there are different systems for different types of information.

*Source:

- “Working Memory”

https://www.simplypsychology.
org/working%20memory.html

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MULTI-STORE MODEL

by Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968)

Also known as “Three Stage” memory model

Memory consists of 3 stages

Sensory Memorry

Short Term Memory

Long Term Memory

TRANSCRANIAL

also known as TMS (Transcranial Magnetic Simulation) is changing a magnetic field that
is used to cause electric current flow in a small region of the brain via electromagnetic
induction.

(TRANSCRANIAL) MAGNETIC STIMULATION

- Transcranial magnetic stimulation, or TMS, is a noninvasive form of brain

stimulation. TMS devices operate completely outside of the body and affect
central nervous system activity by applying powerful magnetic fields to specific
areas of the brain that we know are involved in depression.
- Transcranial magnetic stimulation. A non-invasive technique that consists of a
magnetic field emanating from a wire coil held outside the head. The magnetic
field induces an electrical current in nearby regions of the brain. TMS was
originally developed as a diagnostic tool for mapping brain function. It appears
promising as a treatment for some neuropsychiatric conditions, particularly
major depression.
- TMS doesn’t require anesthesia and it is generally exceptionally well tolerated
as compared to the side effects often seen with medications and ECT. The most
common side effect is headache during or after treatment.
- Approximately 50% to 60% of people with depression who have tried and failed
to receive benefit from medications experience a clinically meaningful response

Page 21 of 45
 with TMS. About one-third of these individuals experience a full remission,
meaning that their symptoms go away completely. However, the results are not
permanent.

( www.health.harvard.edu , www.medicinenet.com )

CHUNKING

- The process of taking chunks (individual pieces of information), then group them into
larger unit.
- By grouping into large whole, you remember more information.

PRIMING

Definition: Priming is an implicit memory (unconscious memory) effect in which

exposure to a stimulus influences a response to a later stimulus.

Example:

In the standard variation of this task, participants are given a long list of words to read.
The list is long enough that participants would not easily be able to memorize it and they
also do not know that the words might be helpful later on. Then, the participants are
asked to complete words that have some letters left out. For example _EX_G_ _, which
can be completed to HEXAGON. Participants who read hexagon on the list of words
earlier are more likely to get this task correct and also complete it more quickly.

INTERFERENCE

- an explanation for forgetting in long term memory

- The basic theory states that interference occurs when information that is similar
in format gets in the way of the information that someone is trying to recall
- two types : retroactive and proactive
 Retroactive interference
 when more recent information gets in the way of trying to recall
older information.
 calling your ex-boyfriend/girlfriend by your new
boyfriend/girlfriend’s name
o The new name retroactively interferes with the old one,
which is clearly problematic for recall
 Proactive interference
 reverse direction of interference to retroactive interference
 old information prevents the recall of newer information
 When trying to recall a new phone number, the old phone
number you have previously had for years could proactively
interfere with the recall
Page 22 of 45
 o to the point when it is very difficult to remember the
new number.

MEMORY INHIBITION

Memory inhibition is a psychological ability which relates to an individual being able to

not remember information which is considered irrelevant to their brain. Memory
inhibition is actually considered to be a vital part of any memory system. Most
memories created within a lifetime are eventually forgotten--if they were not, this
would simply become too taxing on the brain and could create problems with creating
new memories as the years go on. As an individual gets older, more of their memories
are usually forgotten or otherwise impaired, while or inhibited. For example, as a
teenager an individual might remember many particular events during their childhood
years at an elementary school and be able to call up more details, such as names and
places or even dates. That same person as an adult might remember only a choice few
instances from their childhood and even less--if any--particular details. This is because of
memory inhibition, which has inhibited irrelevant memories, such as those which are
not thought of often, to make room for more information in the brain. A more common
and everyday example of memory inhibition is to think of an individual stepping into a
parking lot. They want to remember where they parked their car. Without memory
inhibition, every place they had ever parked their car might come up in their memory.
With memory inhibition, they are able to narrow down the memory of parking their car
to more recent events. In this way, memory inhibition creates a more useful and
effective memory system.

Forced memory inhibition  The concept of forced memory inhibition states that an
event can be so traumatic to the mind that, in order to cope with the effects of the
memory, the brain forcibly inhibits or represses it. Example : sexual abuse during
younger age

Regular memory inhibition occurs every day without a conscious effort on the part of an
individual. Memories which are inhibited regularly are those which are irrelevant to the
current situation or lives of an individual. Forced memory inhibition, on the other hand,
involves the inhibition of memories which are considered psychologically important but
have been inhibited or repressed by the mind in order to shield the individual from a
psychological breakdown or an otherwise even more traumatic experience.

Some do not believe that memories can really be repressed on such a level that the
individual has completely forgotten about them, particularly traumatic events such as
sexual abuse, experiencing violence, or witnessing a violent act against another. Some
studies have shown that people who believe they have repressed memories are much
more likely to experience false memories, or memories which they believe to remember
but are actually entirely fictional scenarios created by their mind. Studies have also
shown that people who experience something traumatic are much more likely to
remember the incident, especially in detail, rather than forget it.

Page 23 of 45
GASLIGHTING

- What? Gaslighting is a form of intimidation or psychological abuse in which false

information is presented to the victim, making them doubt their own memory and
perception. The classic example of gaslighting is to change things in a person’s
environment without their knowledge, and to explain that they “must be imagining
things” when they challenge these changes.

- Brief History: The term gaslight comes from a film in 1938 called “Gaslight” and its
1940 and 1944 film adaptation. Maureen Dowd was the first to use the term gaslighting
in a political context. Since then, the term has been used in clinical and research
literature, as well as in political commentary.

- Example: Someone with the intent to make them question their own sanity for the
purposes of causing them severe emotional distress, and also possibly with the intent to
make others question the person’s sanity as well, gaslighting is perpetrated by a person
known to the gaslighter. For example: an abusive and controlling husband who wants to
manipulate his wife into questioning her own sanity and experience the severe
emotional distress that results, changes things in the home environment — he moves
her keys from where she knows (or thinks she knows) she left them, after she changes a
light bulb he puts the burned-out one back in the socket, etc.; and when his wife says
“gee, that’s odd, I could swear I remember doing XYZ”, he acts genuinely surprised and
perhaps even insists that he saw her doing the opposite. It may sound harmless, but
with properly-chosen actions executed over a period of time, a person can be worn
down.

*Source: https://gaslightingbully.wordpress.com/gaslighting-explained/

PROCEDURE

Memory comes from the environment through the 5 senses

Briefly stored in the Sensory Memory (lasts less than a second)

If information is attended, it goes to the Short Term Memory (which has a duration up
to 20 seconds)

If rehearsed, then it will go to the Long Term Memory (Unlimited Duration).

LEVELS OF PROCESSING (LOP)

is made by Fergus I.M. Clark and Robert S. Lockhart in 1972 that says that memory can
be recalled in a number of different levels. For instance, deeper processing leads to
better recall. It determines how much you learn from it.

HUMOR EFFECT

- The humor effect is a psychological phenomenon that causes people to

remember information better when that information is perceived as funny or
humorous.

Page 24 of 45
 - The use of humor enhances people’s memory, whether they are trying to
remember verbal information, such as words and sentences, or visual
information, such as pictures and videos. This improvement in memorization
ability is attributed to two primary factors:
 Increased attention- we find humorous information to be inherently
interesting, that we tend to pay attention to it when we see it, which
naturally increases the likelihood that we will remember it.
 Improved encoding- our brain gives preferential treatment to
humorous information when it comes to storing it in our memory; this
is true even after accounting for the fact that we tend to pay more
attention to humorous information in the first place.
- Additional benefits of humor:
 Mitigation of negative emotions- the use of humor serves as a
distraction from negative emotions, such as anger or anxiety, that
people might experience when processing certain information. This is
due to the fact that our brain focuses on humorous things rather than
on the negative emotions that we would otherwise experience.
 Energizing effect- reading or viewing something humorous has a positive
and energizing effect, which is beneficial for your overall wellbeing, and
which can help improve your memorization and recall for material
encountered after the humorous material was originally viewed.
 Increased interest- adding humor to the information that you are
presenting can make it more interesting to others.

(effectiviology.com)

GENERATION EFFECT

- A phenomenon, which shows that information is better remembered if it is generated

from one's own mind rather than simply read.
- However, researches are struggling to find out why generated information is better
recalled than read information

POSITIVITY EFFECT

Meaning: The "positivity effect" refers to an age-related trend that favors positive over
negative stimuli in cognitive processing. Relative to their younger counterparts, older
people attend to and remember more positive than negative information

DECAY THEORY

- suggests that memories fade and disappear over the natural passage of time,
especially if they are not accessed frequently
- encompasses the broad loss and decay of memories over time
- affects mostly short term memories and if a memory isn't recalled frequently it
is more likely to be lost or lessened in strength

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MOTIVATED FORGETTING

Motivated forgetting is a theorized psychological behavior in which people may forget

unwanted memories, either consciously or unconsciously. Although it might get
confusing for some, it’s completely different from defense mechanism. Motivated
forgetting is also defined as a form of conscious coping strategy. For instance, a person
might direct his/her mind towards unrelated topics when something reminds them of
unpleasant events. This could lead to forgetting of a memory without having any
intention to forget, making the action of forgetting motivated, hence, Motivated
Forgetting. There are 2 classes :

Psychological Repression  The concept of psychological repression was first developed

in 1915. The concept was based on Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic model, which
suggested that people subconsciously push unpleasant thoughts and feelings into
unconscious. However, repressed memories, although repressed, have been known to
influence behavior, dreams, decision making, emotional response and so on. For
instance, a child abused by a parent, who had repressed the memory, has trouble
forming relationships. Psychoanalysis was the treatment method offered by Freud for
repressed memories, with the goal to bring back the fears and emotions unto the
conscious level.

Thought Suppresion  The deliberate or conscious attempt to suppress memories is

referred to as thought suppression. This phenomenon involves conscious strategies and
intentional context shifts, so it is goal directed. For instance, if a person faces with
stimulants of unpleasant memories, he/she might deliberately try to push the memory
into the unconscious by thinking about something else. But, thought suppression can be
a time consuming task and quite difficult too. Also, the memories can easily resurface
with minimal prompting, which is why it’s closely associated with Obsessive-Compulsive
Disorder.

Theories :

Retrieval suppression  “People forget things because they either do not want to
remember them or for another particular reason.” Human mind tends to push
disturbing and painful memories deeper into the storage so that it’s difficult to retrieve.
Retrieval suppression is a way to stop negative memories from surfacing onto our brain.
This theory was tested using the Think/No-Think Paradigm by Anderson and Green.

Decay theory  Decay theory is another theory of forgetting that refers to the loss of
memory over time. Neurons are activated when any information enters the brain and
those memories stay in our heads as long as the neurons are active. Frequent recall of
the information and rehearsal are two ways to keep the neurons active. But, if the
activation isn’t maintained, the memory decays and fades, which is why the
phenomenon is referred to as decay theory.

Interference theory  Suggests that subsequent learning of more than one information
can hamper person’s ability to retain information. There are two types of interference
theory. Proactive interference amd Retroactive interference. Was tested by giving
nonsense syllables to ten different participants. Some participants slept while others
Page 26 of 45
carried on with their day. It was later seen that the participants who slept were able to
recall the syllables better, which could be because their memory wasn’t interfered with
any new information.

Gestalt Theory of Forgetting  Created by Gestalt psychology. The theory suggests that
memories are forgotten through distortion, also known as false memory syndrome. In
simple terms, when a memory lacks detail, the individual uses additional information to
complete the memory. This leads to recalling of false memories.

DRUM MEMORY

What? A magnetic drum is a magnetic storage

device used in many early computers as the
main working memory, similar to how modern
computers use random access memory (RAM)
cards.

Brief History?

A magnetic data storage device invented by

Gustav Tauschek in 1932 in Austria.

Drums were widely used in the 1950s and into the 1960s as computer memory.

Use: Tauschek's original drum memory (1932) had a capacity of about 500,000 bits
(62.5 kilobytes).

*Source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drum_memory

TBI

is the short for Traumatic Brain Injury. TBI is when the brain is pushed against the inside
of a skull and can be bruised usually because a violent blow to the head. It causes
different parts of the brain to move at different speeds, which can tear nerve tissues.
Even some severely injured nerve fibers can lose their ability to send signals.

AMNESIA

Condition when a person can no longer memorize or recall information that is stored in
memory (large-scale loss of memories)

Types of Amnesia:

-Anterograde amnesia

The person with this amnesia can’t learn new information. New information going in the
short term memory will immediately disappear. This is resulted by brain trauma.

-Retrograde amnesia

Page 27 of 45
This kind of amnesia is the opposite of Anterograde. The person can’t remember
memories before the trauma. But, the person could still remember new information
after the trauma. In rare conditions, both Anterograde and Retrograde could occur the
same time.

-Transient global amnesia

This kind of amnesia occurs when someone temporarily loss a memory. When someone
is having this, he/she might forget who they are and where they are. This causes them
to repeatedly ask the same questions. This occurs on older adults.

-Traumatic amnesia

Memory loss when someone receives a hard blow to the head like from car accidents.
The person may experience a brief loss of consciousness or a coma. The amnesia is
usually temporary, the time needed for the memory to come back depends on how
severe the injury is.

-Wernicke-Korsakoff's psychosis

Overconsuming alcohol may cause progressive memory loss the worsens as time goes.
That person may also have neurogical problems like poor coordination and loss feelings
of the toes and finger. This can also be caused by malnutrition, specifically a thiamin
(vitamin B1) deficiency.

-Hysterical (fugue or dissociative) amnesia

In rare conditions, someone will forget their past and in additional also their identity.
He/she will wake up not knowing who they are suddenly. Even they will not recognize
their reflections on the mirror. The ability to remember the memories usually
come back after a few days either suddenly or slowly.

-Childhood amnesia (infantile amnesia)

Person cannot recalls childhood events. Possible because of a language development

problem or part of brain which fails to develop maturely during childhood.

-Source amnesia

That person can remember certain information but, can’t remember how they got it.

-Blackout phenomenon

A bout (pertandingan) of heavy drinking can cause memory gaps of the party they
were in.

-Prosopamnesia

The person can’t remember faces. This could either be acquired or be born with it.

Page 28 of 45
BLACKOUTS

- A blackout is a temporary condition that affects your memory. It’s characterized

by a sense of lost time. Blackouts occur when your body's alcohol levels are
high. Alcohol impairs your ability to form new memories while intoxicated. It
doesn't erase memories formed before intoxication.
- Memory loss, or a blackout, is thought to occur when your blood alcohol
content reaches 14 percent or higher. You may not have any memory of the
time that’s passed when your blood alcohol content is above that threshold.
During this time, you may experience: difficulty walking, difficulty talking,
difficulty standing, impaired judgement, impaired vision
- Blackouts can generally be divided into 2 categories, "en bloc" blackouts and
"fragmentary" blackouts.
 En bloc blackouts are classified by the inability to later recall any
memories from the intoxication period, even when prompted. These
blackouts are characterized also by the ability to easily recall things that
have occurred within the last 2 minutes, yet being unable to recall
anything prior to this period.
 Fragmentary blackouts are characterized by a person having the ability
to recall certain events from an intoxicated period, and yet being
unaware that other memories are missing until reminded of the
existence of those 'gaps' in memory.
- Blackouts are periods of unconsciousness or memory loss. Generally, a blackout
is described as a period of unconsciousness or lack of awareness when you are
unable to recall what happened or what you did. Blackouts may occur as a
result of brain damage, drug side effects, excessive alcohol consumption, or
disorders affecting brain function, such as epilepsy. Fainting, also known as
syncope, is a term used to refer to a blackout.
- A generally harmless form of blackout is known as vasovagal syncope. In this
condition, there is a disruption in the balance of neurotransmitters that
regulate the blood vessels and heart rate, causing a temporary decrease in
blood flow to the brain. This is a common cause of fainting that may even occur
as a reaction to stressful or frightening situations.

( www.healthline.com , www.healthgrades.com )

NOSTALGIA

- A desire to return in thought, or in former time of the life, or homeland, or friends and
families

ALZHIEMER’S

A progressive disease that destroys memory and other important mental functions.

- Brain cell connections and the cells themselves degenerate and die, eventually
destroying memory and other important mental functions.
- Memory loss and confusion are the main symptoms.
- No cure exists, but medication and management strategies may temporarily
improve symptoms.
- Mainly affect people aged 60+
Page 29 of 45
DEMENTIA

- is not a specific disease

- an overall term that describes a group of symptoms associated with a decline in
memory or other thinking skills severe enough to reduce a person's ability to
perform everyday activities
- Types:
 Alzheimer's disease.
 Vascular dementia.
 Dementia from Parkinson's disease and
similar disorders.
 Dementia with Lewy bodies.
 Frontotemporal dementia (Pick's
disease)
 Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease
- caused by damage to brain cells
 interferes with the ability of brain cells to communicate with
each other
 When brain cells cannot communicate normally, thinking,
behavior and feelings can be affected
- People with dementia may have problems with short-term memory
- Impaired:
 Memory
 Communication and language
 Ability to focus and pay attention
 Reasoning and judgment
 Visual perception
- Many dementias are progressive, meaning symptoms start out slowly and
gradually get worse

KORSAKOFF’S SYNDROME

Korsakoff syndrome is a chronic memory disorder caused by severe deficiency of

thiamine (vitamin B-1). Korsakoff syndrome is most commonly caused by alcohol
misuse, but certain other conditions also can cause the syndrome. Korsakoff syndrome
causes problems learning new information, inability to remember recent events and
long-term memory gaps. Memory problems may be strikingly severe while other
thinking and social skills are relatively unaffected. For example, individuals may seem
able to carry on a coherent conversation, but moments later be unable to recall that the
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conversation took place or to whom they spoke. Those with Korsakoff syndrome may
"confabulate," or make up, information they can't remember. They are not "lying" but
may actually believe their invented explanations. Scientists don't yet understand why
Korsakoff syndrome may cause confabulation. Korsakoff syndrome is often, but not
always, preceded by an episode of Wernicke encephalopathy, which is an acute brain
reaction to severe lack of thiamine. Wernicke encephalopathy is a medical emergency
that causes life-threatening brain disruption, confusion, staggering and stumbling, lack
of coordination, and abnormal involuntary eye movements. Because the chronic
memory loss of Korsakoff syndrome often follows an episode of Wernicke
encephalopathy, the chronic disorder is sometimes known as Wernicke-Korsakoff
syndrome. But Korsakoff syndrome can also develop in individuals who have not had a
prior episode of Wernicke encephalopathy.( https://www.alz.org/)

There are seven major symptoms of alcoholic Korsakoff syndrome (amnestic-

confabulatory syndrome):

- anterograde amnesia, memory loss for events after the onset of the syndrome
- retrograde amnesia, memory loss extends back for some time before the onset
of the syndrome
- amnesia of fixation, also known as fixation amnesia (loss of immediate memory,
a person being unable to remember events of the past few minutes)
- confabulation, that is, invented memories which are then taken by the patient
as true due to gaps in memory, with such gaps sometimes associated with
blackouts
- minimal content in conversation
- lack of insight

AKS causes deficits in declarative memory in most patients, but leaves implicit spatial,
verbal, and procedural memory functioning intact. People with AKS have deficits in the
processing of contextual information. Context memories refers to the where and when
of experiences, and is an essential part of recollection. The ability to store and retrieve
this information, such as spatial location or temporal order information, is impaired.
Research has also suggested that Korsakoff patients have impaired executive functions,
which can lead to behavioral problems and interfere with daily activities. It is unclear,
however, which executive functions are affected most. Nonetheless, IQ is usually not
affected by the brain damage associated with Korsakoff's syndrome.apathy – the
patients lose interest in things quickly, and generally appear indifferent to change. At
first it was thought that AKS patients used confabulation to fill in memory gaps.
However, it has been found that confabulation and amnesia do not necessarily co-occur.
Studies have shown that there is dissociation between provoked confabulation,
spontaneous confabulation (which is unprovoked), and false memories. That is, patients
could be led to believe certain things had happened which actually had not, but so could
people without alcoholic Korsakoff syndrome. (https://en.wikipedia.org)

FLASHBACK

What?

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A flashback, or involuntary recurrent memory, is a psychological phenomenon in which
an individual has a sudden, usually powerful, re-experiencing of a past experience or
elements of a past experience. These experiences can be happy, sad, exciting, or any
other emotion one can consider.

What happen when you have flashback?

It helps to understand what the person is experiencing: During a flashback, someone is

reliving a moment of terror that happened in the past. That can take the form of literally
seeing, hearing, feeling the event take place, or just being very frightened without
understanding why.

Flashbacks and Drugs

Studies generally show that roughly a quarter of LSD and cannabis users experience
some kind of flashback. Such flashbacks may or may not be triggered by a sight or
sound. In the most extreme cases, strong visual hallucinations occur without warning,
often causing alarm.

Can we trigger a flashback?

Flashbacks are considered one of the re-experiencing symptoms of PTSD. In a flashback,

you may feel or act as though a traumatic event is happening again. For example, a rape
survivor, when triggered, may begin to smell certain scents or feel pain in her body
similar to that which was experienced during her assault.

*Source:

https://www.verywellmind.com/coping-with-flashbacks-2797574
https://www.quora.com/What-happens-during-a-PTSD-flashback
www.drugwise.org.uk/flashbacks/

PTSD

(posttraumatic stress disorder)

Mental Health problem when a person experience a life-threatening event, like combat,
a natural disaster, a car accident, or sexual assault.

Causes aggressiveness, hard to concentrate, anxiety or being easily moved to tears.

DISSOCIATION

is the state of being detached from immediate surroundings, or reality. Usually to

minimize or tolerate stress such as boredom or conflict. Some examples include
daydreaming. It is usually triggered by trauma in the problems we face in reality.

SEVEN SINS OF MEMORY

1. TRANSIENCE: Memory for facts and events typically becomes less accessible
over time. Memories, even long term memories are reduced over time.
2. ABSENT- MINDEDNESS: forgetting over time—can occur even when an
event or fact is initially well-encoded and remembered immediately and can
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 occur even when we deliberately search memory in an attempt to recall a
specific event or fact. However, a good deal of forgetting likely occurs
because insufficient attention is devoted to a stimulus at the time of
encoding or retrieval or because attended information is processed
superficially. Such incidents of forgetting associated with lapses of attention
during encoding or during attempted retrieval can be described as errors of
absent-mindedness; Reduced memory due to failing to pay attention
3. BLOCKING: Even when a fact or event has been encoded deeply, and has not
been lost over time, it may sometimes be temporarily inaccessible. When
people are provided with cues that are related to a sought-after item, but
are nonetheless unable to elicit it, a retrieval block has occurred; Inability
to access needed information.
4. MISATTRIBUTION: memory is also characterized by sins of commission,
situations in which some form of memory is present, but is misattributed to
an incorrect time, place, or person. People may remember correctly an
item or fact from a past experience but misattribute the fact to an
incorrect source.
5. SUGGESTIBILITY: The foregoing material indicates that false memories can
occur spontaneously when a current situation or test item is conceptually
or perceptually similar to a previous one. But such illusory memories may
also occur in response to suggestions that are made when one is
attempting to recall an experience that may or may not have occurred.
Suggestibility in memory refers to the tendency to incorporate information
provided by others; Altering of memory because of misleading of
information.
6. BIAS: Memory encoding and retrieval are highly dependent on, and
influenced by, preexisting knowledge and beliefs. Unfortunately, cognitive
psychologists have known that memories can be influenced and even
distorted by current knowledge, beliefs, and expectations. Likewise,
memories of past experiences may be colored by present mood and
emotional state. Bias refers to the distorting influences of present
knowledge, beliefs, and feelings on recollection of previous experiences;
influence on current knowledge of our memories of past events.
7. PERSISTENCE: Involves remembering a fact or event that one would prefer
to forget. Persistence is revealed by intrusive recollections of traumatic
events, rumination over negative symptoms and events, and even by
chronic fears and phobias; Resurgence of disturbing or unwanted
memories that we want to forget.

( http://scholar.harvard.edu )

SELF-SERVING BIAS

- Common human’s tendency  attributes one’s success to personal characteristics,

one's failures to factors beyond one's control.
- Why personalize success? Helps self-esteem level
(Based on Gilian Fournier)

ROSY RETROSPECTION

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Meaning: Rosy retrospection refers to the psychological phenomenon of people
sometimes judging the past disproportionately more positively than they judge the
present.

Although this effect appears the strongest with events that were only moderately
pleasant at the time, it is explained as the result of the memories of the minor
annoyances associated with it fading away much more quickly than the positive
memories. An example of this could be a memory of a picnic or fishing trip where you
remember the people you were with and the fun you had while tending to forget
negatives such as heat, flies, mosquitoes, discomfort, etc.

< https://www.alleydog.com/glossary/definition.php?term=Rosy+Retrospection>

CONFABULATION

- a memory disturbance in which a person confuses imagined scenarios with

actual memories with no intent to deceive
- Most cases are the result of dementia, brain damage, aneurism or Wernicke-
Korsakoff syndrome (thiamine deficiency due to alcoholism)
- People who confabulate stories are often very confident in their memories even
after being shown contradicting evidence
- classified into two categories
 provoked
 when a patient invents an untrue story in response to a
question
 quite common among patients with amnesia or
dementia.
 spontaneous.
 A more rare occurrence
 Involves the telling of an untrue story with no apparent
motivation

REPRESSION

Repression is a psychological defense mechanism that occurs when a person

consistently pushes away a particularly painful or disturbing thought, memory or desire
in an attempt to keep his or her mind in a more pleasurable, less anxious state. The
phenomenon was first discovered and theorized by the famous psychoanalyst Sigmund
Freud. The theory holds that although these painful thoughts are out of the conscious
mind, they inevitably remain in the unconscious mind and often lead to psychological
problems. In fact, Freud would later call his theory of repression the “cornerstone” on
which the whole structure of psychoanalysis rests. According to Freud, neurotic behavior
can appear when repression develops under one’s superego (the part of the mind that
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acts as a self-critical conscience due to learned social standards) along with the
accompanying internalized anxiety. This might lead to self-destructive or antisocial
behaviors. During therapy, a psychotherapist might try to curb these behaviors by
bringing the patient’s repressed thoughts to the conscious mind, essentially lifting the
repression. When people are unaware that they are hiding their memories in their
subconscious, it is called suppression. One particularly problematic issue for Freud
regarding repression therapy is that he soon discovered that a majority of his patients’
“repressed memories” from childhood turned out to be completely untrue. In fact, more
recently, American psychologist Elizabeth Loftus, an expert on human memory, has
shown that it is quite possible to implant false memories in people. Today, most
psychiatrists believe that true memory repression is actually quite rare. In fact, there is
quite a bit of debate surrounding the possibility of the repression of psychological
trauma. Although there is some evidence suggesting that adults who have suffered
enormous trauma can experience psychic numbing in which they block out the memory
of the event, other research suggests that trauma usually strengthens one’s memory
surrounding the painful experience due to the intense emotions. Example: A child who
grew up in an abusive home situation doesn’t remember being beaten but has trouble
trusting anyone. (https://psychcentral.com)

MEMORY IMPLANTATION

-What?

Memory implantation is a technique used in cognitive psychology to investigate

human memory. In memory implantation studies researchers make people believe that
they remember an event that actually never happened.

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- Memory Implantation and False Memory Steve Ramirez, a 24-year-old doctoral
student at the time, placed the mouse in a small metal box with a black plastic floor.
Instead of curiously sniffing around, though, the animal instantly froze in terror, recalling
the experience of receiving a foot shock in that same box. It was a textbook fear
response, and if anything, the mouse’s posture was more rigid than Ramirez had
expected. Its memory of the trauma must have been quite vivid. Which was amazing,
because the memory was bogus: The mouse had never received an electric shock in that
box. Rather, it was reacting to a false memory that Ramirez and his MIT colleague Xu Liu
had planted in its brain.

*Source:

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/meet-two-scientists-who-implanted-
false-memory-mouse-180953045/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_implantation

THE MEMORY WARS

During the late 1980s to early 1990s “repressed memories” or “recovered memories”
were considered admissible evidence in American courts.

A person with an unrest or upset in their life would receive a recovered memory
therapy. They would suddenly remember traumatic memories which supposedly had
been blocked out. Those memories might be sexual abuse, rape, or worse. Some of
these were just so serious the that the health care providers counselled their patients to
talk to the police.

By the early 1990s, people were making accusations to the court based on their
“recovered” memories, a lot of people were convicted and sent to jail over them.

MEMORY CONFORMITY

or also known as social contagion of memory is when one’s recollection of a memory

influences 1 person or a groups report of that same experience. It is a memory error due
to social influences like social interaction, media broadcasting and eyewitness
testimony. It occurs when individual discuss what they saw or experienced and the other
person can be influenced. It is one of the social influences on memory.

TELESCOPING EFFECT
- The telescoping effect is the tendency to have inaccurate memories concerning
how recent and frequently events occurred. There are two main categories of
telescoping effects:

 Backward telescoping: The belief that recent events occurred further in the
past
 Forward telescoping: The belief that events that remote occurred more
recently

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  Time Compression theory; Time subjectively feels shorter than it is in
reality.
- A theory which may explain the telescoping effect is variance theory, which
argues that we have uncertainty about memories, and this uncertainty
increases with more distant memories. However, neither of this theories
completely describes telescoping.
- For example, you are asked to estimate how frequently it snows in December in
your area. Due to forward telescoping, you are likely to include November snow.
Similarly, due to backward telescoping, you are likely to include January snow.
As a result, you will overestimate the frequency of snow in December.

( https://thedecisionlab.com )

RECALL BIAS

- Recall bias is a systematic error that occurs when participants do not remember
previous events or experiences accurately or omit details

JACQUARD LOOM

Definitions: A machine devised by Frenchmen Joseph-Marie Jacquard

to allow looms to produce complex patterns on fabric. It was essentially
a paired device, designed to use punch-cards that controlled the
weaving of the cloth so a desired pattern could be created.

PUNCH CARD

- also known as Hollerith cards and IBM cards

- paper cards containing several punched or perforated holes that were punched
by hand or machine to represent data
- allowed companies to store and access information by entering the card into the
computer
- data can be entered into the card by punching holes on each column to
represent one character data can be entered into the card by punching holes on
each column to represent one character
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STORED-PROGRAM COMPUTER

Storage of instructions in computer memory to enable it to perform a variety of tasks in

sequence or intermittently. The idea was introduced in the late 1940s by John von
Neumann, who proposed that a program be electronically stored in binary-number
format in a memory device so that instructions could be modified by the computer as
determined by intermediate computational results. Other engineers, notably John W.
Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert, contributed to this idea, which enabled digital computers
to become much more flexible and powerful. Nevertheless, engineers in England built
the first stored-program computer, the Manchester Mark I, shortly before the
Americans built EDVAC, both operational in 1949. (https://www.britannica.com/)

A stored program computer keeps its program in addressable memory.

Addressable memory was the last and hardest thing for the computer pioneers to
invent. Computers such as Colossus or the Zuse Z3 used paper tape. But it’s difficult to
make jumps and loops like that. There was a need to have a memory that allowed the
computer to jump to any location to find the next instruction. A larger memory also
allowed them to solve harder problems with more variables. Two technologies were
invented at about the same time. Here in the UK there was the Williams-Kilburn tube,
which stored 2048 bits on a cathode-ray tube. In the USA they went with acoustic delay
tubes filled with mercury. Other computers stored the instructions individually on
magnetic drums but they were much slower. Within a few years those were replaced
with magnetic core memories which lasted until the first medium-scale integrated
circuits. All of the computers we see now are stored-program. In fact they are electronic,
stored-program, digital computers. Each of those terms has alternatives that have been
used in the past. For example, mechanical analogue computers were used on bombers
during the second Word War to calculate the right time to drop the bombs. A desktop
adding machine is a mechanical digital computer. Electronic analogue computers are
good at solving integration problems. They are still used in a small way whenever we
need to generate a signal that is of higher frequency than the signal that we have. You
will find them in the clock circuits of many computers. (https://www.quora.com)

A stored-program computer is a computer that stores program instructions in electronic

memory. This contrasts with machines where the program instructions are stored on
plugboards or similar mechanisms. Often the definition is extended with the
requirement that the treatment of programs and data in memory be interchangeable or
uniform. A computer with a von Neumann architecture stores program data and
instruction data in the same memory; a computer with a Harvard architecture has
separate memories for storing program and data. Both are stored-program designs.
Stored-program computer is sometimes used as a synonym for von Neumann
architecture, however Professor Jack Copeland considers that it is "historically
inappropriate, to refer to electronic stored-program digital computers as 'von Neumann
machines'". Hennessy and Patterson write that the early Harvard machines were
regarded as "reactionary by the advocates of stored-program computers"
(https://en.wikipedia.org)

Page 38 of 45
GIORDANO BRUNO

In the first fixed ring the practitioner will assign a mythological or heroic figure to each
letter. Bruno provides some examples : A Lycaon; B Deucalion; C Apollo. The letters of
the second ring correspond to an action or a scene associated with each figure. The
examples provided are:

- AA Lycaon at a banquet (Banquet: An elaborate and formal evening meal for many
people, often followed by speeches: a banquet table.z)

- BB Deucalion and pebbles (pebbles: A small stone made smooth and roundby the
action of water or sand.)

- CC Apollo and Python ( Python: A large heavy-bodied nonvenomous constrictor snake

occurring throughout the Old World tropics.)

Thus rotating the first inner ring operates permutations between the figures and their
action. Further permutation occurs when the third wheel is set in motion. It contains
attributes or enseignes which can be easily passed from one figure to another. Bruno
provides only four examples and leaves the rest to the imagination of his reader. These
are: AAA, Lycaon at a banquet with a chain; BBB, Deucalion and pebbles with a
headband; CCC, Apollo and Python with a baldric. This way the systems makes it
possible to create combinations of letters representing words, acronyms or syllables to
be remembered by means of animated images mixing the attributes and accustomed
actions of familiar mythological figures.

BAA: B Deucalion A at a banquet A with a chain

MAD: M Perseus A at a banquet D with a hood
CAD: C Apollo A at a banquet D with a hood
COD: C Apollo O and Proserpina D with a hood

*Source: https://blog.artofmemory.com/giordano-brunos-memory-system-130.html

DIGITIZATION

is the process of converting analog signals or information of any form into a digital
format that can be understood by computer systems or electronic devices.

- Is it possible to digitize human memory?

A: organic brains are not like electronic computers: they are analog,
not digital. One critical distinction is simply "Granularity – for a continuously
variable analog value to be represented in digital form there occur quantization error

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which is difference in actual analog value and digital representation and this
property of digital communication is known as granularity."

CACHING

is the act of storing things in our brain until we need it later. For example, the things we
study in school until we need it for later use in exams. Once awhile we need to clear the
cache in our brain by sleeping. The brain would throw away information we no longer
need.

(WEB) CRAWLER

- A web crawler (also known as a web spider or web robot) is a program or

automated script which browses the World Wide Web in a methodical,
automated manner. This process is called Web crawling or spidering.
- Web crawlers are mainly used to create a copy of all the visited pages for later
processing by a search engine that will index the downloaded pages to provide
fast searches.
- Crawlers can also be used for automating maintenance tasks on a Web site, such
as checking links or validating HTML code, it can also be used to gather specific
types of information from Web pages, such as harvesting e-mail addresses
(usually for spam).

( www.sciencedaily.com )

METADATA

A set of data that gives information/ explanation about other data.

EMULATION

Definition: A piece of software or a program that allows one computer system (known
as the host) to act like another (known as the guest)

RAM

- Random access memory

 you can access any memory cell directly if you know the row
and column that intersect at that cell
- the best known form of computer memory.

ABANDONWARE

Abandonware is software that has been abandoned or ignored by its developer,

whether on purpose on unintentionally. There are a variety of reasons that a software
program is left ignored by a developer, and even the term itself isn’t super specific and
can refer to many types of software program types like shareware, freeware, free
software, open source software, and commercial software. Abandonware does not
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necessarily mean that the program is no longer available for purchase or download but
instead means that it’s simply no longer maintained by the creator, meaning that there
is no technical support and that patches, updates, service packs, etc., are no longer
released. In some cases, even copyright infringement is ignored by the creator because
everything about the software is abandoned and left as-is without a second thought to
how the program is being used, who is selling it or reusing it, etc.
(https://www.lifewire.com/)

DIGITAL DARK AGE

- What?
The digital dark age is a lack of historical information in the digital age as a direct
result of outdated file formats, software, or hardware that becomes corrupt, scarce, or
inaccessible as technologies evolve and data decays.
 The digital dark age is a possible future situation where it will be
difficult or impossible to read historical electronic documents and multimedia, because
they have been in an obsolete and obscure file format.

*Source:

- “What is the digital dark age?” https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-digital-dark-age

- “Digital dark age – Wikipedia” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_dark_age

OBSOLESCENCE

-being outdated

- usually used for technologies like

"computers are infamous for their rapid obsolescence"

“Mobile phone technology is developing so quickly that many customers are

concerned about obsolescence.

LINK ROT

is the process by which hyperlinks on individual websites in the internet become

permanently unavailable. It is crated when a webpage is moved, taken down or
reorganized. Basically, the link stops where they’re supposed to go.

VINYL

- Vinyl is not a natural substance but is a synthetic man-made material. It is a

type of plastic that is made from ethylene (found in crude oil) and chlorine
(found in regular salt). When processed, both the substances are combined to
form Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) resin, or as is commonly referred to - Vinyl.

Page 41 of 45
 - It was first invented in 1920 by scientists who wanted to develop a material that
would help to manufacture everyday products that were easier to make, more
durable, and cheaper than what was available.
- Vinyl is resistant to moisture and humidity, it is a very strong and durable plastic
material, it can be manufactured in a variety of colors, both transparent and
solid, it is a very low cost material to produce.
- Vinyl is a very environment friendly material, not only because it can be
recycled, but also for many other reasons. Vinyl helps in the preservation of
environmental resources as 57% of vinyl is made from common salt, which is a
renewable natural substance. Non-replenish able resources such as crude oil
only account for 43% of vinyl resin, thus making it nature friendly.
- In comparison to various other materials used by the packing industry, vinyl
requires less amounts of natural resources to make, utilizes much less energy
for manufacture, and also releases lower emissions into the environment.

( http://www.whatisvinyl.com )

GEOCITIES

- Webhost service

TIMEHOP

Definition: An application for smartphones that collects old images from Facebook,
Instagram, Twitter and Dropbox to tell the past

THE WAYBACK MACHINE

- website is dedicated solely to storing web pages so that you can look through
them again later
- created to provide a place to preserve digital artifacts for researchers, historians
- can just as easily be used for entertainment to see what a page used to look like,
like Google way back in 2001
- to access a page from a website that no longer exists and was shut down
- has over 300 billion web pages from as far back as 1996

RESTORING ACTIVE MEMORY

The goal of RAM is to develop a fully implantable device that can electrically stimulate
the brain to improve memory function. The program’s immediate focus is to deliver new
treatments for those who have experienced a traumatic brain injury, such as veterans
returning from combat. In the long term, such therapies could help patients with a
broad range of ailments, from Alzheimer’s to dementia. RAM is part of a broader
portfolio of programs within DARPA that support President Obama’s BRAIN initiative. As
part of the RAM project, the University of Pennsylvania (including the Computational
Memory Lab, the School of Arts and Sciences and the Perelman School of Medicine) is
partnering with the following hospitals, institutes and universities: Columbia University,

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Dartmouth College, Emory University, Thomas, Jefferson University, Mayo Clinic,
National Institutes of Health, University of Texas Southwestern, Medtronic, Inc.,
Lawrence Livermore National Labs. (http://memory.psych.upenn.edu)

The Restoring Active Memory (RAM) program aims to mitigate the effects of traumatic
brain injury (TBI) in military Service members by developing neurotechnologies to
facilitate memory formation and recall in the injured brain. More than 270,000 Service
members have been diagnosed with TBI since 20001. The condition frequently results in
an impaired ability to retrieve memories formed prior to injury and a reduced capacity
to form or retain new memories following injury. Despite the scale of the problem, few
effective therapies currently exist to mitigate the long-term consequences of TBI on
memory. Enabling restoration of memory function would support military readiness by
providing injured personnel the option of returning to duty, and would improve quality
of life for wounded veterans. DARPA’s end goal for the RAM program is to develop and
test a wireless, fully implantable neural interface for human clinical use. To achieve that
goal, the program blends fundamental research and technology development.
Performer teams are building multi-scale computational models with high spatial and
temporal resolution that describe how neurons code declarative memories—the well-
defined parcels of knowledge that can be consciously recalled and described in words,
such as events, times, and places. Teams are also exploring new methods for analyzing
and decoding neural signals to understand how targeted stimulation might be applied to
help restore function to the injured brain. Building on this foundational work,
researchers are integrating the computational models into new, implantable, closed-
loop systems able to deliver targeted neural stimulation to restore normal memory
function. Volunteers living with deficits in the encoding and/or retrieval of declarative
memories and/or volunteers undergoing neurosurgery for other neurological conditions
are taking part in human clinical studies to help test and refine the RAM systems. RAM
also supports animal studies to advance the state-of-the-art of quantitative models that
account for the encoding and retrieval of complex memories and memory attributes,
including their hierarchical associations with one another. This work aims to identify any
characteristic neural and behavioral correlates of memories facilitated by therapeutic
devices. The RAM program is informed by independent Ethical, Legal, and Social
Implications (ELSI) experts to help DARPA proactively identify potential issues related to
memory and neurotechnology. Communications with ELSI experts supplement the
standard oversight provided by institutional review boards that govern human clinical
studies and animal use.

RAM Replay : RAM Replay aims to support military training and effectiveness by using
non-invasive interventions to accelerate and improve the performance of complex,
military-relevant skills by healthy individuals. The program is developing new closed-
loop, non-invasive systems that leverage the role of neural “replay” in the formation and
recall of memory to help individuals better remember specific episodic events and
learned skills. Replay is a process in the brain that occurs during waking and sleep to
consolidate memory. In the RAM Replay effort, systems are designed to detect, model,
and facilitate real-time correlates of replay in humans, leveraging neurophysiology and
other factors including physiological state and external elements in the surrounding
environment. The novel intervention strategies under development help investigators

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determine not only which neural, physiological, and environmental components matter
for memory formation and recall, but also how much they matter.
(https://www.darpa.mil)

HDAC INHIBITION

Over the past few years, neuroscientists have begun to recognize the importance of
epigenetics–molecular processes that change the expression of genes without altering
DNA–in the brain, and in memory in particular. One of the key regulators of epigenetics
is a group of enzymes known as histone deacetylases (HDACs), which trigger DNA to
wind more tightly around neighboring proteins, ultimately dampening gene expression.
Recent studies have shown that existing drugs that inhibit these enzymes can enhance
learning in both normal mice and those that are cognitively impaired.

“We have solid evidence that HDAC inhibitors massively promote growth of dendrites
and increase synaptogenesis *the creation of connections between neurons+,” says Tsai.
The process may boost memory or allow mice to regain access to lost memories by
rewiring or repairing damaged neural circuits. “We believe the memory trace is still
there, but the animal cannot retrieve it due to damage to neural circuits,” she adds.

The findings suggest that scientists will need to develop compounds that act selectively
on the different HDAC enzymes, perhaps inhibiting some and activating others. At this
point, little is known about the specific functions of the nearly 20 different enzymes. But
Tsai says that her group has identified one enzyme that appears to be specifically
involved in memory. The researchers are also developing more selective compounds.
“We hope to have something in the near future that we feel comfortable evaluating in
people,” says Tsai.

OPTOGENETICS

-Optogenetics is a method that uses light to modulate molecular events in a targeted

manner in living cells or organisms. It relies on the use of genetically-encoded proteins
that change conformation in the presence of light to alter cell behaviour, for example,
by changing the membrane voltage potential of excitable cells.

NEUROPLASTIC IMPLANTS

Neuroprosthetics that is linked to our nervous system by computers. It is used to control

artificial limbs and restore lost sensory functions.

CREATING FALSE MEMORIES

- Ramirez and Xu Liu once put a false memory of a mouse being electric shocked
in a metal box into its brain. The mouse was then put into the same box and it
was terrified. That was because of its reaction towards its false memory, when it
has never actually been shocked in that place.

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REWRITING EXISTING MEMORIES

- Memories aren’t just written once, but every time we remember them.
- Every time we bring back an old memory, we run the risk of changing it. It’s more like
opening a document on a computer – the old information enters a surprisingly
vulnerable state when it can be edited, overwritten, or even deleted.

- Example: some of the volunteers came to believe that an assassin (Mandy!) knocked
out a flight attendant with a stun gun, when she actually used a hypodermic syringe. It
wasn’t just a simple matter of saying Mandy used a stun gun. That wouldn’t have
worked. Instead, Chan and LaPaglia fed their volunteers with false information
immediately after they had actively remembered what they had seen. Then, and only
then, did the new memories overwrite their old ones.

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