Emotional States and Memory

Although it is only briefly mentioned in Bourtcholadze, I found the connection of emotional states to memory to be extremely intriguing and wished that it would have been discussed more in depth. On page 92 she briefly discusses an experiment in manic-depressive patients where the quantity of memory recalled is directly linked to a change in emotional state. I found it interesting that the patients who experienced the most major mood swings were able to recall the least. I do understand the rareness that such a violent swing will occur during the time allowed for the experiment, but I find that the simple idea of mood-dependent retrieval important when discussing mental disorders and wish that Bourtcholadze had taken more time to concentrate on this idea, instead of giving me just a paragraph. She does continue on to discuss how post-traumatic stress disorder effects recall of certain events, but I find a distinct separation between these two topics.

As others have mentioned before in previous readings, I too find the idea of synaesthesia incredibly fascinating. However, I found it strange that Bourtcholadze generalized in saying that synaestheics have difficulty in math when I think of my two friends who are synaestheics, who actually have more trouble with literature based work than something as concrete as math. These might be rare cases, but I’m wondering if Bourtcholadze over generalized in her statement. I think I take issue with this because she does not back up her brief statement with any real studies, so I find room to question. (pg. 109) She does make a logical conclusion to assume that synaestheics would have more ease with artistic expression than math, but where is her proof?

At the end of chapter 5, Bourtcholadze finally addresses an issue I've had with the study of both amnesiacs and people with extraordinary memory, proposing that understanding how these anomalies arise will help in greater understanding of how memory works and the different pathways it might take. I feel that in the studies of amnesiacs, the researchers often lose sight of the big picture, at least when they write up their findings. I found it refreshing to have these ideas stated outright instead of just implied.