Memory & Learning  (based on Lezak (3rd ed), 1995, pp. 27-34, et al.)

Endel Tulving presenting at the APA meeting in Toronto, Aug 8, 2003		George Miller receives a Lifetime Achievement Award from Bob Sternberg at the APA meeting in Toronto, Aug 7, 2003

          Two Systems

Declarative: What memory

Endel Tulving's Model

• Semantic: not time dependent; facts; language & general knowledge competence
• Episodic: "mental time travel"; chronesthesia
  • Autobiographical: is it a distinct form of memory or is it simply part of episodic memory? 

Procedural: How to do memory

Stages & Processes of Learning

A. Time: Shorter

1. Perceptual Registration: the sensory register

2. Short-term Storage

Very short term attention: a couple of seconds

Earlier model of short-term memory: a few seconds to perhaps a half hour

• 7 +/- 2 (George Miller in 1956)
• Newer research suggests that it may be closer to 4 +/- 2
  

Elaborated model of Working Memory by Alan Baddeley

• phonological rehearsal loop: auditory & linguistic information
• visuospatial sketch pad
• episodic buffer
• central executive control system
• [in addition to audition & vision, there may be other temporary holding areas for the other senses ?]

The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is a major focus of investigation for the functioning of working memory.

B. Time: Longer

1. Consolidation: from a few seconds to several hours to longer. Memory consolidation appears to take place during sleep.

2. Patient H.M.'s Contribution to Memory Research

• Remember the brain operation of Patient H.M. (Henry Molaison) in 1953 to deal with his seizures involved removal of the hippocampus and nearby tissue on both sides of his brain. As a result of this operation, Molaison could no longer store any declarative (what) memories for more than a very few minutes. It was the study of Patient H.M. which was crucial for establishing the difference between declarative (what) and procedural (how to do) memories.
  

3. Long-term Storage: from consolidation to a lifetime

4. Retrieval: Newer models argue that memories are labile (changeable or vulnerable to alteration). Why? Memories are NOT videotapes or audio recordings that are merely played back. When memories are recalled, they are assembled again from already stored pieces in various places in the brain's tissue. This is process of reconstructing memories can be affected by other information or factors resulting in a different reconsolidation of the memory.

As Lisa Feldman Barrett (2020) argues

Brains of higher complexity can remember more. A brain doesn’t store memories like files in a computer​—​it reconstructs them on demand with electricity and swirling chemicals. We call this process remembering but it’s really assembling. A complex brain can assemble many more memories than [earlier models of memory could explain]. And each time you have the same memory, your brain may have assembled it with a different collection of neurons (pp. 42-43).

Barrett, Lisa Feldman. (2020). Seven and a half lessons about the brain. New York: HarperCollins.