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.

November 28 Blog

Eric Kandel does an excellent job of detailing the development of the science of neurobiology in his book In Search of Memory: The Emergence of a New Science of Mind while simultaneously giving an account of his own maturation as a scientist, especially concerning his interest in the science of memory. I was particularly impressed with the earliest steps that were taken to gain an understanding of neural science and was astonished as I read that these scientists were able to hypothesize such complex and detailed mechanisms of nerves, synapses, and impulses with such a limited foundation of knowledge. Though some of the conclusions seemed somewhat logical, such as Cajal’s interpretation of the shape of nerve cells by studying infant animals and using a staining method, other conclusion seemed to be more coincidental. For example, it states further that Cajal inferred that neurons interact through a synapse, in which the axon of one neuron communicates with the dendrites of another. Because it was not detailed in the book, I wonder how Cajal was able to determine this; considering that microscopy was not as well developed, I am curious as to which scientific methods, if any, he used, or if it was merely a “leap of imagination” as Kandel stated on the prior page.

I was also particularly interested in Bourtchouladze’s discussion of the amygdala being involved in emotionally related and emotionally explicit memory. On page 85, he describes a study in which patients with no brain damage, brain damage to the amygdala, brain damage to the hippocampus, and brain damage to both we analyzed in terms of recall and emotional conditioning. Patients with hippocampus damage had no recall but showed normal emotional conditioning, patients with amygdala damage showed accurate recall but no emotional conditioning, and patients with damage to both showed neither. Bourtchouladze comments on the importance of this finding, stating that the results “clearly demonstrate that the amygdala is indispensable for fear condition” and that “they illustrate the double dissociation between emotional and declarative aspects of memory.” While reading this, I thought about reading we had done in previous weeks concerning emotional memories and their higher recall, as compared with non-emotional memories, and I couldn’t help but assume that the amygdala is the key to this. I was also intrigued by the idea of emotional conditioning, which was discussed both in this book and in Kandel’s book, and wondered how a conditioned stimulus is represented within the brain in comparison with an unconditioned stimulus.

After such learning occurs, some sort of memory consolidation must occur to transform it into long-term memory. In Kandel’s discussion of the biological basis of the process, which supported the idea that the transformations necessary for learning and memory occur in the synapses rather than in the variety of cell, he discusses the idea of the number of synaptic terminals and active synapses changes. Specifically, he states that long-term sensitization results in a doubling in the number of synaptic terminals and an increase from 40% to 60% of active synapses, and when the memory fades, the numbers drop again. While this concept makes sense in terms of the words sensitization and habituation, I wondered what role the pruning of neurons and synapses played in the equation.

Habituation and Post Traumatic Memory Alterations

In the book, In Search Of Memory, Kandel discusses methods of Habituation, Sensitization, and Conditioning (pg 167). Habituation is when a subject is exposed to a stimulus so repeatedly and consistently that the subject grows accustomed to the stimulus and eventually begins to ignore it. This is something that we do many times throughout our lives. An example of how habituation to stimuli in our environment that might otherwise seem threatening can be seen through a wild animal’s reaction to a car opposed to a dog’s reaction to a car. Kandel writes about habituation that it “eliminates inappropriate or exaggerated defensive responses.” The dog no longer responds defensively to a speeding car, or in a large city, maybe even to a car horn which it encounters countless times a day. To habituation to something means to classify it as mundane and unworthy of notability. We are habituated to every rustle of the leaves that doesn’t seem abnormal. Without habituation we would be constantly unable to distinguish the important from the unimportant stimuli. Our reactions might commonly be inappropriately reactionary. We would live in a constant state of discomfort. Through habituation we achieve a level of stability in our world of expectations.

Though this stability and comfort we have learned to be shocked by what is unpredictable and new. If a situation arises which is extremely shocking and negative our system may be so effected by it that our memories and mindset may be altered as a result. This can be seen with post traumatic stress symptoms, discussed in Bourtchouldaze. She writes that traumatic memories so alter the way our memory records that they are extremely visual and they force other memories to be not recorded, such as route daily events (pg 101). The idea that someone’s memory can not only be amplified for a specific period of time, but that they way they remember is actually altered (made more visual) is really interesting to me. But even after reading about this phenomenon in both Schacter and Bourtchouldaze, I still wonder why exactly this occurs.

Furthermore, with regards to Kandel’s discussion of habituation, I started wondering if it is possible to be fully habituation to something that may otherwise cause symptoms of post traumatic stress. If someone expects a bad situation- if what would normally be classified as a traumatic event is part of someone’s world of expectations- then wouldn’t it seem that they shouldn’t exhibit post traumatic stress memory alterations? If a dog can become habituated to a car-horn over a period of time, can people be habituated to war or murder or something equally shocking? People seem to make the argument in the affirmative when they talk about desensitization and video games and America’s youth of today. But what about with actual events in people’s lives?

November 14th Blog

I was particularly interested in the section of the reading (which I believe was in Schacter) that discussed the idea that memories can be inaccurate, either because they were transformed over time or because they have varied from their original and true form. In the first instance, he gave an example of a girl who was traumatized by the memory of having her clitoris removed only to discover that it never actually happened and, in the second instance, gives an example of a man who thought his wife was present when he learned certain information even though she wasn’t. This made me wonder what is necessary to create such a false memory, particularly how rumination can become so powerful that it creates such a memory. I was also interested in the role the amygdala plays in this process. A study mentioned in the book showed that stress hormones can enhance memory, and I wonder if the stress that is induced during rumination is powerful enough to cause the brain to “remember” the thought as if it were real.

November 14 Post

Like Bailey, I was interested in Schacter’s “flashbulb memories” and how they tied in with some of the ideas in Pillemer’s chapters. Although it seems obvious, Pillemer is right (in my opinion) when he says that the stronger the emotions, the more vivid the memory. Even if the emotions were not your own, external displays of emotion have an affect on us, whether we realize it or not. This is probably true for someone like Bailey, who was not directly affected by the death of Princess Diana, but in watching others become affected, or have an emotional reaction, was actually affected. I remember where I was when I found out about Princess Diana as well. But more then that, I remember the news footage of people mourning and all of the memorials shown. I remember a friend’s memory of driving on the same road where Princess Diana’s car crash took place. I remember her memory because it was so vivid and because it was personal.

Pillemer is also right when he talks about personal memories having a greater impact as well simply because they are personal and true. It makes me wonder about dreams as well. Pillemer says that fabricated stories generally do not have a strong impact. I wonder if, because we know our dreams aren’t real, we lose some of the details and the vividness of them?

There are 22 bones in the head

In second grade my father, a family doctor, would come in one day a month to help teach our heath curriculum. We covered such subjects as oral hygiene and nutrition, nothing our teacher wasn’t more than capable of explaining, but he did add some color. His first day he came in, dressed in a suit, looking like a dad, introduced himself, and proceeded to jump around the room yelling, “there are twenty two bones in the head!” he must have said it 20 times while jumping on tables and desks and then calmly returned to the front of the class and told us that we would never forget that there are twenty two bones in the head for the rest of our lives. At the beginning of each subsequent visit he would ask the class how many bones in the head there were, and we would always answer correctly.

In light of this week’s readings I understand more than ever why I can understand why it is that to this day I run into classmates I haven’t seen in years who say, “Hey, twenty two bones in the head.” The initial “flashlight” memory obviously takes most of the credit, but I’m sure that the longevity of the accuracy of the correct number has a lot to do with the repeated reminders over the course of an entire school year. I’ve always wondered who out of that class still remembers that fact, and further, how they remember the event during which they were informed. I have a feeling that out of all of them I remember the actual incident best because of its personal significance. Eight year olds usually aren’t embarrassed by their parents yet, but that day I was. It is still one of my clearest memories from that time in my life.

To go in a totally different direction, I’d like to mention the other section of information in this week’s texts that most got me thinking. Pillemer discusses the differences between what and how males and females remember. In his comparison between how men and women learn I found that many of the practices associated with female learning are ones practiced at this school. Discussion and openness is not only allowed, but encouraged, and evaluations are, for the most part, based on explanation and contextualization of ideas in written form rather than on rote memory. This makes me wonder how and if men and women at Sarah Lawrence experience their education differently. Furthermore, it makes me wonder how institutions that rely more on lecture format deal with this same question. Could this difference in learning preference be the reason why there are still more men than women in math and sciences? Should we just accept that there are certain fields that men are generally better at than women, and vice versa?

Schacter

I found the Schacter reading very interesting because so many of the points that he was making using experimental data seemed to put into words what I experienced in my own life. The flashbulb memories section was interesting because I have always wondered about why they occur. I still remember where I was when I found out Princess Diana died, which is so weird because I had only heard about her once or twice before, and her death had no real affect on me or my life. Schacter talked a lot about how the emotional aspect of the event is what makes it stick out in your mind and what allows you to remember it clearly even after many years. He also briefly touches on how the rehearsals of the events are the other reason why flashbulb memories occur. I didn’t feel like he placed enough importance on that side of it. Many of the memories he talked about were momentous events that affected a lot of people. When something like that happens, there is a general sense among people that it is something that everyone will remember and be affected by.

When I heard that Princess Diana died, my mom told me at that same time that it would be something that I would always remember and then preceded to tell me about how she will always remember where she was when she found out that JFK was shot. This general ideal among a community about an event has to have some affect on individuals and their memories of the events. Maybe it makes them feel the need to have more vivid memories than they actually have so they are swayed in that direction, or maybe it just makes the event have more emotional weight than it otherwise would. Since my memory of the Princess Diana’s death definitely did not carry any emotional weight, this other aspect seemed to be a strong contributor to my later memory.

Kind of along those same lines, I had some trouble with the experiments about flashbulb memories that Schacter described. The experiments where the participants were asked to write down the situations that they were in when they found out about some traumatic event seemed like they would be very inaccurate gauge for some of what they were testing. If the person was told to write down what they experienced, then the added importance that was placed on the event would have an affect on their memories as well as their later recall of the memories. Also, the act of writing it down seems like it would aid in later recall, something which most people don’t do with their flashbulb memories. It just seems like the act of conducting the experiment would skew the results. There would be no way around that fact though, since in order to confirm the accuracy of the memories the subjects must first write them down.