Cognitive Neuroscience Analyses of Memory: A Historical Perspective The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters. Polster, Michael R., Lynn Nadel, and Daniel L. Schacter. 1991. Citation Cognitive neuroscience analyses of memory: A historical perspective. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 3(2): 95-116. Published Version doi:10.1162/jocn.1991.3.2.95 Accessed September 15, 2015 1:48:53 PM EDT Citable Link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:3622258 This article was downloaded from Harvard University's DASH Terms of Use repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA (Article begins on next page) Critical Review Cognitive Neuroscience Analyses of Memory: A Historid Perspective Michael R. Polster, Lynn Nadel, and Daniel L. Schacter Department of Psychology University of Arizona Abstract As part of the general trend toward interdisciplinary re- and neuroscientific approaches to each of these issues with search in recent years, a growing number of investigators have respect to the distinction between collateral, complementary, come to consider both cognitive and neuroscientific perspec- and convergent relations (Schacter, 1986).Although some early tives when theorizing about memory. Although such cognitive investigators offered analyses that linked psychological and neuroscience analyses are a relatively recent development, the physiological perspectives, there is little historical evidence of approach has precedents in earlier scientific thinking about systematic or sustained interdisciplinary research. However, memory. In this article we present a historical review of three more recent work, especially with respect to hypotheses about major issues in memory research-consolidation processes, the memory systems, suggests progress toward establishing pro- nature of memory representations, and multiple memory sys- grammatic interdisciplinary research. m tems. We discuss the nature of the relation between cognitive Cognitive neuroscience is a fundamentally interdiscipli- Hebb (1949), and even Freud (1895; in Bonaparte, Freud, nary pursuit that draws on the methodological tools and & &is, 1954) put forward what could be broadly con- theoretical frameworks of both of its constituent disci- strued as memory theories that drew on both psycho- plines. In doing so, it promises to provide a more com- logical and physiological perspectives. Nevertheless, we plete understanding of mnemonic processes than could are not aware of any scholarly attempt to trace system- be achieved by either discipline alone. During the past atically the extent to which memory researchers have few decades, the cognitive neuroscience approach has attempted to combine these two approaches. The main become increasingly prominent in the analysis of mem- purpose of this article is to provide the beginnings of ory. A growing number of cognitive scientists have made such an analysis. use of findings and ideas about brain function (e.g., There are several reasons why such a historical analysis Schacter, 1985a; McClelland and Rumelhart, 1986a, is worth pursuing. First, there is simple intellectual cu- 1986b; Shimamura, 1989), and similarly an increasing riosity about the antecedents to what is now an estab- number of neuroscientists have drawn on cognitive the- lished trend in memory research. Second, the early ories and paradigms (e.g., Kean & Nadel, 1982; Mishkin investigators who attempted to develop cognitive neu- & Petri, 1984; Squire, 1987). Although still in its infancy, roscience analyses should be recognized for their efforts. this approach has already begun to yield important in- Third, and most importantly, examining previous inter- sights into various aspects of memory, and there is every actions between psychological and physiological ap- reason to believe that it will become even more promi- proaches may provide useful insights and lessons for nent in the future. contemporary researchers, showing how progress to- Although the emergence of widespread interest in cog- ward resolving critical issues in the domain of memory nitive neuroscience analyses of memory is a relatively can often be made most easily within an interdisciplinary recent phenomenon, the approach itself is not entirely framework. without precedent in the history of scientific thinlung Instead of attempting to provide a comprehensive his- about memory. Thus, for example, investigators such as torical analysis, we have focused on three issues that Ribot (1882), Burnham (1903), Semon (19041921), have been, and continue to be, major problems of inter- 0 1991 Massachusetts Institute of Technology Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience Volume 3, Number 2 est: consolidation processes, the nature of memory rep- organization. Yet another area of debate concerns the resentations, and multiple memory systems. The paper duration of the consolidation process. Estimations of the is divided into three main sections that are devoted to time required for consolidation to conclude have varied each of these issues, respectively. Within each section, from several seconds to years. These issues have framed we provide a historical overview of the cognitive and the nature of consolidation research for the past 100 neuroscientific approaches to the issue, discuss the na- years, and serve as the focus for the present review. ture and extent of interdisciplinary interactions, and as- sess the degree to which the two approaches have Historical Overview influenced each other. We will consider the interactions (or lack of them) Although analogies for memory have been around at between cognitive and neuroscientific approaches to least since the ancient Greeks (e.g., Plato’s notion of memory in terms of a distinction between collateral, etchings in a tablet of wax), the explicit identification of complementary, and converging relations between re- the notion that it might take time for a process to create search methodologies (Schacter, 1986). Collateral rela- permanent memories is relatively new. Quintillian, in his tions refer to situations in which two or more approaches treatise Institutio Oratoria (On the Education of the Or- to a particular issue are pursued independently, with ator), seems to be the first person to make reference to little or no interaction. Complementary relations, in con- such a process of fixation or consolidation. In reflecting trast, are observed when the analysis of a phenomenon on how the interval of one night can greatly increase the in one discipline can usefully supplement the analysis of strength of memory, he referred to “a process of ripening a similar phenomenon in another discipline. Finally, con- and maturing” (Herrmann & Chaffin, 1988, p. 103). Other vergent relations refer to situations in which scientists in than this passing mention of the possibility that the two or more disciplines coordinate their research pro- strength of a memory can increase over time, we have grams so as to investigate a particular issue or phenom- been unable to find evidence that the concept of con- enon with the tools and ideas of each of the disciplines. solidation was considered until the late nineteenth cen- The existence of convergent relations signals the pres- tury. ence of a true interdisciplinary enterprise. In what fol- lows, we discuss the kind of relations that have Early Psychological Investigations and historically existed between cognitive and neuroscientific Physiological Speculations approaches to each of the three memory issues, and consider the extent to which convergent relations have Muller and Pilzecker (1900) are usually cited as the pri- begun to develop. mary reference to consolidation. Although they may have been the first to use the term “consolidation,” hypotheses about such a concept based on clinical evidence predate CONSOLIDATION their work by about 20 years. Ribot (1882, 1892), for The notion that memories become permanently fixed, instance, invoked the notion of consolidation to explain or consolidated, only some time after registration of a brief periods of retrograde amnesia, finding that when stimulus or event, is a familiar construct in memory recovering from unconsciousness, a patient “lost not only research. Although a consolidation stage is a generally, the recollection of the accident . but also the recol- though not universally, accepted part of the memory lection of a more or less long period of his life before formation process, exactly what is meant by the term the accident” (1892, p. 779). He cited 26 cases of retro- consolidation remains largely unspecified after nearly grade amnesia that were first reported by Dr. Frank Ham- 100 years of research-so much so that Crowder (1989) ilton. In these early anecdotal accounts, the amnesia was recently referred to the term as “bankrupt.”For example, thought to be very short, affecting memory for events in consolidation can be used in a physiological sense to the minutes preceding the trauma. Ribot concluded that refer to neural activation or reverberation following “in order that a recollection may organize and fix itself, presentation of a stimulus (e.g., Muller & Pilzecker, 1900; a certain time is necessary, which in consequence of the Burnham, 1903; Decamp, 1915; Hebb, 1949), or in a cerebral excitement [in the case of trauma] does not psychological sense to refer to more abstract processes