Multi story memory

Presented to the seminar in
COGNITIVE SCIENCE

It wasn’t long ago that psychologists regarded memory as a single-thread of stimulus-response associations; strengthened by repetition. What went on between the time information was stored and retrieved was terra incognito. Memory was commonly thought to be a passive record of stimulus-events. Once events were stored, they became a reliable part of memory. The information was always there; forgetting was blamed on a failure of retrieval. The associative principles of memory no longer apply. They fail to capture clinical reports of patients with aphasia or Alzheimer’s. Aphasia patients can usually remember current events, but they forget long-term information such as the meaning of words or the names of familiar objects. On the other hand, Alzheimer’s patients can remember long-term information, such as the meaning of words, but they forget recent events such as a visit by a relative or their arrival at the clinic. These observations suggest different types of memory at work. Some temporarily hold events in our immediate surroundings while others preserve them on a more lasting basis.   

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