October 3 Blog (sorry so late)

So sorry this is late. My computer has been down, along with all of my saved work. It's back now and let's hope it stays that way!

After reading Schacter, I started thinking about memory consolidation as well. Like Bailey, I was always told by dance teachers to go over combinations, phrases and everything in my head before falling asleep. When I was younger this was really hard for me because, lying in bed trying to do a dance combination without actually doing it felt impossible. I had a hard time lying still when I was moving in my head. It’s easier now, and I think it does help me to remember. But it is a different thing if I’m trying to remember what I read that day, or things for a test compared to going over a physical thing without the physical aspect. I’m also curious about how consolidation when we are awake affects memory while we sleep. When I do run over dance combinations in my head before sleep, sometimes I find myself even more exhausted afterward, before sleeping. Does this affect how I feel the next morning, or in those instances when I do wake from vivid dreams exhausted because the dream was physically exhausting?

Reading for 10/3

After reading this week's reading I started thinking about people who go on the witness stand, and the importance of a statement. A couple years ago I was involved in a car accident myself, and my Mom had me write out a statement the minute I got home. This was so I wouldn't forge any detail. Luckily, I never had to testify, but the insurance company did take my statement. Had I been asked to recall the accident the way people in Shacter's experiment were, I would have forgotten the details. To this day I still remember what happened, but I'm sure if I recalled the story now I would surely forget something.
The same thing goes for a witness. They have to write out a statement as soon as the police call them in, and the lawyers get a copy of the statement. Now, these are written out to make sure the witness doesn't lie, but sometimes a witness can accidentally go off of their statement just because they forgot certain parts of the event. Court dates are usually a year or so later after the crime occurred. According to Shacter's findings this would make it very hard for the person to recall the details of the crime that had taken place. This is why it's of such high importance that a witness statement is taken so close to the event. Otherwise, nobody would be able to testify properly.

Memory Consolidation

After reading Schacter I began to think about sleeping and the effects it may have on memory consolidation of autobiographical memories. Aside from long term memory consolidation I wonder whether or not sleep plays a role in all forms of memory consolidation. In music class when I was younger, our teacher told us to sing the songs that we had learned in class that day before falling asleep and we would remember them better. Ever since then, I have gone over things I need to remember right before falling asleep and it has always helped to solidify them in my mind. Music certainly doesn't fall into the episodic autobiographical memory realm. I wonder if the sleeping on it approach works for kinesthetic memories and learning specific tasks.

Impressionability

This week’s readings generated several questions that I figured would be addressed in further readings, but perhaps they would be difficult to answer in concrete terms. The chapters we read about Bartlett’s experimentation on reproduction were rather verbose, but I understood from his research that humans have a tendency to compartmentalize experiences based on generalized notions of how one thing has occurred in relation to another, and that this act of comparison inherently occurs in our minds whether we are conscious of it or not. This concept of interdependency was apparent throughout all of the readings, and it seems to transcend all aspects of memory; we cannot pin down why we remember what we remember to one single entity because our memories are not a product of any one specific cause. Every memory is both conditioned and conditioning. Although I feel that Bartlett’s experimentation might be a little dated, I think that his research does provide valid and relevant information. It seems that it is necessary to further personalize this type of experimentation; I think it would be interesting to test an individual’s reproduction based on events that were markedly traumatic or personally recognized as “memorable” after several years had passed since their occurrence. To be able to trace every correspondence that had an effect on the construction of this memory would be another endeavor entirely, and I’m not sure how one would go about it, but it would seem quite relevant.

After reading about Korsakoff’s syndrome in Schacter’s “Of Time and Autobiography” chapter, I contemplated the idea of long-term consolidation. How does writing down one’s personal experiences affect their recollection of these memories in the future? It would be interesting to test this question by studying subjects that write in personal journals or diaries on a daily basis (not simply college students that have been asked to write down a few notable things they did during the day and ask them to recall this information later). It would be especially remarkable to see how accurately subjects could recall their emotional versus physical actions and reactions. Schacter posits that “Memory consolidation during sleep is likely influenced by what we think about and talk about while awake” (88). This seems tangible, but does one action (thinking) have greater influence over another action (talking) in this type of memory consolidation? To what extent are the memories that we consolidate during sleep affected by these actions? And how does this relate to the dreams that we have? Sometimes I wake from dreams that are so vivid and feel so real that it is difficult for me to accept that they haven’t actually occurred.

The one thing I kept thinking about after reading Rubin’s chapter was the pattern of the novice hero. Although this may be a rhetorical statement, I’d like to know if it is possible to trace these patterns in all forms of media. Is there a pattern or generalized notion of how news is reported on television and in newspaper or magazine articles? Can we also trace plot patterns in various movies?

The Importance of Accuracy

In this week’s reading, Bartlett discusses the complex process of creating and accessing a memory. As opposed to Ebbinghaus who explains memory as a collection of static articulated details, or “traces” in the brain, Bartlett’s “schema” is an active living thing that operates as a unitary mass. Citing experiments that much more closely resemble real life applications of memory, Bartlett contends that phenomena such as condensation, elaboration, and invention are actually quite common features of ordinary remembering.

While these characteristics may seem undesirable, they are a product of the constantly changing nature of the schema. Memories are not complete little moments that can be picked out and accessed as accurate reproductions. On the contrary, memories are constantly changing and being accessed in different way. Depending on personal attitude, the context of the remembering, and personal interest, different aspects of a memory will come to mind. Along that same line, attitude or personal character is tied up with memory. From the moment we are born our experiences shape our character and therefore dictate how we interact with the world. But exactly how much is our identity shaped by our memory? Does amnesia wipe out a part of your personality along with your memory? Can we experience self-awareness or experience emotions without creating new memories?

In the Searching for Memory chapters, Schacter describes instances in which the plasticity of memory can betray us. Though he makes a point of saying that only rarely do inaccurate memories result in tragedy, the examples he gives are truly frightening. While the stories of innocent people being wrongly imprisoned were horrible, I felt that not enough attention was paid to the other victim: the witness. Especially in the cases of false accusations of child molestation, is the child not even more of a victim than the adult? Though the children in these cases were presumably not molested, they were made to believe that they had been. Is an inaccurate memory of being sexually molested any less damaging than one based on actual events? And is it ethical to test the subjectivity of a child’s mind by planting a memory of having to go the hospital with a badly injured hand?

Relating False Memories to Schizophrenia

When I read Schacter's description of false memories, I related the concept of false memories to schizophrenia. Is it possible that the chemicals or regions in the brain that create false memories are crucial also in creating the hallucinations in Schizophrenia or any other psychological illness? For the sake of my argument, I will only relate false memories and schizophrenia. From what I've read, there isn't much definitive knowledge about the disorder, leaving the door open for questions. We know basic chemical interactions, some medications that work, and that somehow dopamine and dopamine receptors cause the disorder. Beyond that, we haven't been able to define the disorder. We don't know, for instance, which of the many kinds of dopamine receptors are important, or even how they work.

A leading commonality between the two is belief. The person remembering or the schizophrenic has absolute confidence that the event did/ is happening. This complete belief in one's own mind, when perception of events is considerably skewed, is a rare enough occurrence to warrant more investigation. I am, of course, relating an everyday occurrence and an extreme case, but I believe that all disorders are just exaggerated qualities of a normal personality.

Are the regions of the brain affected similarly? What chemicals are in play when these memories are recalled? Some of the same regions thought to be affected by schizophrenia (the hippocampus for example) are critical memory structures. There is not enough research on the physiology of memory to be able to compare the two, but again, a connection exists.

Research into these questions could lead to an advance in medicine. Finding more about the relationship between serotonin and emotion helped in the development of depression medication. Maybe finding the key to false memories will lead to a better treatment of schizophrenia. Or maybe, identifying what makes a false memory can remove the possibility of one.

I want to know why false memories exist, how we can believe in them. Are they protecting us from something? Or is it an occurrence of a slight chemical imbalance that is quickly corrected? From there I start to think of more existential questions, but those hardly relate to the topic at hand.

I realize I've made huge assumptions about both topics, so criticism is to be expected. Other things in the reading struck me, but they didn't lead to the same type of questions.

reproduction in memory research

One question which I have continued to have in response to our first data collection experiment, and in response to Bartlett’s paper on similar experiments, has to do with the issue of remembering versus recognition. We have discussed several times in class, and in online postings, the issue of the psychologist’s inability to reproduce a thoroughly convincing simulation of everyday instances in which memory is being used. Ebbinghaus seems to have neglected this issue by experimenting with a set of variables that, although controlled, are difficult to apply to ordinary memory. However, despite the seemingly short-sighted nature of these controlled variable experiments, they have proven to be useful in their nature of quantification of data that has otherwise been too difficult to quantify.

My question is in regards to Bartlett’s experiments on reproduction (and the similar experiment which our class is currently analyzing). Bartlett gives many engaging examples of instances in which his subject has forgotten, changed, or altered the material in some way. The most notable examples to me are the subjects he mentions testing over extended periods of time, sometimes even years. Ebbinghaus’ experiments with the nonsensical syllables revealed to us that most of what someone is going to forget they forget within the first few minutes. Bartlett’s experiments, while going into more detail on the specifics of each aspect of the story which he was testing, also revealed that after the first reproduction the changes to the story stayed more constant. Any thematic or stylistic changes were already made, or on their way to being fully formed by the first reproduction.

My question is what role the act of reproduction plays in these experiments. Bartlett shows us that when someone doesn’t reproduce the story for many years they may still remember certain parts (which vary on an individual basis). The experiment seems to act as a very interesting view into the methods of reproduction and the ways in which certain people in a certain society reconcile the faults they find in a story. The experiment also tests which elements of a story a subject is most inclined to initially reproduce. For example, if a subject initially leaves out the proper nouns in a story they will probably not re-introduce them. The subject’s ability to remember a specific detail from the story relies on the subject’s initial ability to reproduce that detail (with few exceptions where the subject reintroduced details they previously left out). I think that this is key to note because it highlights the influence of the reproduction in the subject’s ability to remember a given detail. The act of reproduction is often a tool used for remembering something (for example taking notes in class or from a book or making a study guide). The instances when the subjects did add in information they had previously left out of the story was most striking to me because it revealed the workings of that person’s memory. For example someone may have a feeling of a rock, but they initially leave the rock out. Several weeks or months or years later, however, they will have forgotten that that rock was not in the story, but the feeling they initially had of the rock being present remains, and thus they put the rock into their reproduction of the story. I would find it hard to believe that in their initial reproduction if someone thinks about the rock’s place (or lack of place) in the story, this thought process doesn’t resonate and linger until later reproductions. Although someone may not remember that the initial story didn’t have a rock in it, they may be very likely to remember that their initial reproduction didn’t have a rock in it. This is the issue I have with the place of reproduction in experiments testing memory.

October 3 --- Bartlett

Perhaps the most profound concept of memory present in Bartlett’s writings was that of a schema, which he defines as “an active organization of part reactions, or of past experiences, which must always be supposed to be operating in any well-adapted organic response.” This acts as a sort of filter through which all memories pass through when being remembered, due to its very nature, is constantly adjusted as individuals have more reactions and more experiences. As I read through Bartlett’s readings, I thought about the chapters in Schacter’s book I had just read and his discussion of the effects of time on memory, which ultimately presented the ideas that “time is the enemy of memory” and that distortions and failures of memory are somewhat inevitable. When put in the same context as Bartlett’s ideas, it brought to mind a conversation I had this past summer with my aunt during which she told me she’d read that when we remember things, we are really only remembering our last memory of them, an idea we have also briefly touched upon in class. This seems to give the schema even more importance, for the schema someone has at the moment they recall a specific memory will, it seems, shape the next recollection they have of the same memory. Consequently, if a memory is cued and recalled today, will it be remembered differently than if it were cued and recalled in a year, simply because the schema that would filter this memory would be different? Based on this week’s readings, I would have to assume that the answer to that question is yes.

Another thing I found particularly interesting was the idea of false memories that was presented in Chapter 4 of Schacter’s book. While he did briefly mention the idea of adults have false memories, especially upon cuing, like the Bavarian monk who thought he saw a dragon, he focused primarily on recounting example of children who create false memories. This made me wonder about the neuroscience behind creating false memories. In the instance of the woman who mistook a psychologist for a rapist, a certain deal of trauma (and possibly head injury) must have been involved to stimulate such a mistake. Patients with brain damage are also mentioned in reference to amnesia and memory failure. Does neuroscience play a role in the memory failures of children as well? Because the brain structures in children are still developing, it seems likely that immature brain structures would have an effect on proper functioning. How susceptible are children versus adults to recall false memories? How vulnerable are they to cuing to create false memories? And, most importantly, what brain structures and functions are responsible for such actions?