The Effects of LOP on Implicit and Explicit Memory

The Effects of LOP on Implicit and Explicit Memory

The importance of memory is very high in comparison to the content of the memory. We use memory to recall information such as where you park your car upon arrival at the mall, the time and channel a particular news special is to be aired, or the types of drugs to which your child may be allergic. The former two are processed very shallowly. The information may be needed today but two weeks later, it is not important and most likely not remembered due to the weak memory trace. The latter of the three examples is vital information which is processed much more deeply that the other two.

With the way that amnesiacs’ memory work, and patients with MS or focal lesions or Alzheimer’s disease, their implicit memory still functions as would be expected and their explicit memory performs lower than typical . This would explain why they can remember how to speak, walk, and do other basic living and survival functions and why they cannot recall their own name or phone number without the right retrieval method.

There have been many researchers that have studied the various effects on implicit and explicit memory. Most studies have been in comparing both implicit and explicit memories to better understand how each function, both dependently and independently of each other.

These studies tend to use word completion tasks to differentiate between implicit and explicit memory. Word-stem completion tasks are typically used to employ the implicit memory. The participant is presented with a word completion task and the participant can fill in the missing letters to form any word they choose. The implicit memory is one that is used involuntarily and unconsciously.

Explicit memory is used when th...

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...are no results that any one explanation on its own is an accurate one.

Study on memory is important in the subconscious brain functions. Patients with amnesia, and other brain injuries affecting the brain, have trouble accessing their explicit memories. With more insight into what processes are occurring in the typical mind, it may be possible to better treat amnesiac and cognitively impaired patients to improve their condition in some way. More research in this area should be conducted to further understand and support the findings in this area. Perhaps an improvement to this study may be to perform the experiment while being observed by fMRI. This would make it possible to visually observe the areas affected in four instances: deep LOP, shallow LOP, implicit memory, explicit memory. Procedures may be devised to develop methods of cognitive exercises and therapy.