The memory is a complex subject with many scientists still studying it. Dr. Priya Rajasethupathy had a talk called, “Where Did The Memory Go?” at the Rockefeller University. It was held there from 4:30-7 pm on September 15, 2017. She discussed her scientific research on how memories were stored in the brain.
The talk was engaging, thought-provoking, and confusing. It was engaging because there were hands-on activities towards the end to actually test our memory. I never thought about why some memories were long-term and others were short term. It caused me to inquire more about how the brain stores memories and how you can test animals to learn more about it. However, it soon got confusing because of the way she described testing the mice. They used different machines and I didn’t exactly understand how it worked so I was puzzled for a small portion of the talk.
Dr. Rajasethupathy mainly explained her experiments with mice. One experiment was that a mouse was shocked inside of a box one day. The next day, the put the mouse in the same box and as predicted, the mouse tried to escape the box at first, then froze because it wasn’t able to escape. This assessed the mouse’s memory because remembered the box and associated it with the shock it felt the day
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Rajasethupathy cleared up my misconception of studying. I never understood how continuously seeing information could help you memorize it better. I thought once it was in your memory, it’ll stay there until you didn’t need it anymore. But the concept of consolidation helped me understand why studying over a long period of time is more efficient than studying for hours the night before a test. This can be applied in the medical profession because it’s completely related to neurology. The study of memories is linked to neurology because your memories are made up of neurons in your brain. Anybody can benefit from this talk because it’ll help them understand how their own memories work and where they’re
Like Zimbardo, Milgram invited participants to take part in a memory study through a newspaper ad. When the participants arrived they were introduced to a supposed fellow participant who was in fact a plant and part of the experiment. Both were asked by a man in a white coat which of them would like to be the teacher, and which would like to be the learner. The participant would unknowingly always be chosen to be the teacher. The teacher was then made to strap the learner into an electric chair, then told by the man in the white coat to secure nodes to the learner’s body that would act as a conduit for electricity to flow from the teacher’s switch to the learner’s body. The teacher was then led into a separate room and was only allowed to communicate with the learner through an intercom system, preventing any visual communication or observation. The experiment called for the teacher to recite words to the learner in a specific order. The learner would then recite them back perfectly, or suffer the consequences of an electric shock with any mistake made. All would go well the first few rounds; the teacher reciting the words, the learner reciting them back, a rhythmic sort of contentment developing between them. Finally, however, the learner would inevitably make a mistake. This is
Elizabeth Loftus is what we know of today as an expert in cognitive psychology. While going through school Elizabeth was very interested by the fact that human memories could change so quickly. Knowing that they could change quickly she wondered if we could make them change in anyway. This is what sparked her theory. To prove this theory, in 1974 she decided to test it out by asking multiple participates to watch a video of an accident. Directly after the video she asked them how fast they believed the c...
The first issue that needs to be addressed however is what exactly is memory? “ Without memory we would be servants of the moment, with nothing but our innate reflexes to help us deal with the world. There would be no language, no art, no science, no culture. Civilization itself is the distillation of human memory” (Blakemore 1988). The simple interpretation of Blakemore’s theory on what memory is that a person’s memory is at least one of the most important things in their life and without it civilization itself could not exist.
The experiment was designed in such a way that first, participants were made to watch video clips and then over a period of 2 to 3 months, they were trained to rehearse memory we call mental replay. During the process particip... ... middle of paper ... ...to see when this reconstruction mainly happens. Does it happen while encoding or retrieval.
Overall, this article was very informative. I believed Loftus and Bernstein did a great job analyzing these different methods of research. I would of like the article more if the findings in thus research were more elaborate on the process. Finally, the reader is left with various detailed procedures but no definite answer on how to really tell false or true memories.
I chose this task because I was rather skeptical and unsure if the task would accomplish its goal in just fifteen minutes. Curious as to how this ZAPS would work, I approached the task with a simple theory. I was not sure how the experiment would give participants false memories, but judging by other tests I had taken on ZAPS, I was certain that it would be an uncomplicated experim...
The film emphasizes on the power of our long-term memory and our episodic memories. Would we be happier if we forgot about traumatic past experiences? Or are our long-term memories so tangled up with emotions and sensations that our brain is unable to truly let go of long-term memories? The film also looks at the difference between explicit and implicit memories.
Memory refers to storage, for example, our thoughts, knowledge, past experience, retention and recalled information is part of our cognitive mapping. It depends on a person state of mind that’s specific information varies to the content of the information itself. Needless to say, information that is considered interesting, or exciting seems to be better remembered than information that is boring or uninterested. Usually, if information has failed adequately store than the memory can normally result as failure as well. Which means if the storage of information fails to retain (forgetting) or if failure to retrieve the person’s memory fails altogether. The neurons produce activity in other neurons which overtime will be strengthened, that is known to be located inside a person’s long-term potentiation. (Meyers,
Remembrance is an integral part of our everyday lives. Both pleasant and unpleasant memories shape who we are as human beings. The definition of memory is two fold 1. “the faculty by which the mind stores and remembers information” and 2. “Something remembered from the past; a recollection” (Google Definition). The life of memory has three stages in which it is created. An event occurs in ones life it becomes encoded and stored in the brain. Following the encoding, the brain then has full access to retrieve the memory in a response to any current activity or thought. Memories are unique to each person. There are three main types of memories that are studied. An individual memory is one that is formed by his or her personal experiences. An institutional
The ability of the brain to store and retrieve information it has learned is called memory, and it is connected to the vital function of remembering, which is linked to thoughts, learning and reasoning, and one could not occur without the other (Abrahams 42). Although people’s memories remain unchanged, there are conditions which may affect people’s memory and learning process, and some of these conditions, such as meningitis, can be fatal to the host (Abrahams
Memories are scattered across the brain in the many regions we have. However, there are a few different types of memories which are: Declarative (also known as Explicit) which this type of memory is about facts and events, and then there's Nondeclarative (also known as implicit) which has more to do with your skills and habits, priming, simple classic conditioning, which is where your emotional response and skeletal musculature comes in, also, nonassociative learning. The common ones that most know of are short-term and long-term memory. Have you ever wondered how the brain develops as you get older and why we remember the things we do? Our memories
Memory is a very complex system. It is broken down into many different parts. When these parts cease to work it creates such disorders that are discussed above. Many people suffer from these diseases and there is no way of knowing how to cure them as of yet. Cognitive scientists have been working to find cures and to identify where and what memory is. It is still an enigma, but someday they may be able to figure out how the mind wo
Henry Molaison or known as HM contributes to the deep understanding of memory by previous scientists and until now. His case had been a huge research and discussions among the well known scientists during his time and these results in the study of memories. Henry Molaison is living with a severe epilepsy where he need to undergo a surgery as medications were no longer gave him effects for his disease. So, his surgeon William Beecher Scoville suction out both of his hippocampus and when he got recovered from the surgery, his doctor realised that, Henry was having amnesia and seek him for another doctor. What confusing the doctors is that, even though the surgery was a success where Henry seizures decreasing; he is now facing dense memory loss. Then, once it was realized that the hippocampus plays a crucial roles for memory; the surgery of removing hippocampus was then banned for all and this brings to deep study of memory and hippocampus.
Learning and memory are fascinating. The world could not function without either. They both are used in many different fashions in a wide variety of places. Learning and Memory have been carefully studied by professionals but are also well known and used by the common people on a daily basis. I am one of those common people, a student who is constantly learning and making the most of my memory. Since enrolling in The Psychology of Learning and Memory class I have come to the realization that I encounter situations in my life that exemplify the very concepts I have studied. I have also learned that it is beneficial to apply the lessons learned in class to my everyday life. Positive reinforcement, learned helplessness and serial recall are a few among many of the learning and memory models that have come to action in my life and in my final reflections surrounding the course.