thinking about learning and memory

1. thinking about learning and memory • Memory? • Types of memory, CNS regions, memory impairments • Learning? • Models for learning

2. Memory Processing if attended

3. Short-term Memory (STM) • Limited capacity (7 items) • can use chunking • Brief duration • Can be lost without rehearsal or with interference

5. Memory Processing if attended

6. Short-term Memory (STM) • Limited capacity (7 items) • can use chunking • Brief duration • can be lost without rehearsal or with interference • Long-term Memory (LTM) • more permanent storage • Consolidation - Process by which rehearsal of information in STM results in transfer to LTM

7. Memory Processing retrieval if attended

8. Amnesia • Amnesia refers to a failure to remember • Anterograde amnesia - difficulty in forming new memories for events that occur after a brain trauma • Retrograde amnesia - inability to recall events that occurred prior to a trauma • Amnesia can be temporary or permanent

10. Hippocampal Damage and Amnesia • Severe anterograde amnesia follows bilateral damage to the hippocampus

12. H.M. • Surgery – 1953 for debilitating epilepsy • bilateral removal of hippocampus • consequences: • severe anterograde amnesia • short-term memory intact • long term memory prior to surgery intact • motor memories intact • medial temporal amnesia

17. Memory Processes • Declarative memory: memories available as facts, events, or specific stimuli • Nondeclarative memory: stimulus-response and motor memories that control behaviors at an unconscious level

18. Hippocampal dependent

19. these can be true or false

20. Other CNS regions important for memory • Prefrontal Cortex- • memory deficits – planning, sequence of events • Cerebellum • motor memories

22. amygdala • part of the limbic system; emotional memories

24. some other ways that memory can be affected • Alzheimers disease • Hippocampus has many cholinergic neurons • basal forebrain – area specifically affected by AD • Korsakoff’s syndrome

25. some other ways that memory can be affected • Korsakoff’s syndrome • severe anterograde amnesia with elements of confabulation • consequence of chronic alcohol abuse • lesions in a number of brain structures including

27. some other ways that memory can be affected • ECS – electroconvulsive shock • State dependent memories (and state dependent learning)