Empiricism (e.g. Hume, Harley, Hobbes) argued that all cognition was based on sensation and so could be understood mechanically - this gave rise to associationism, so associated or similar Made the famous distinction between episodic were grouped together. and semantic declarative . : "...receives and stores Kant (1724) argued that the mind imposes Episodic Memory does not just involve memory information about temporally dated episodes or innate categories on sensory experience; top- for the past though, it also modulates a persons events, and temporal-spatial relations among down cognition. ability to think about the future (autonoetic these events. A perceptual event can be stored in consciousness). Schacter et al. (2008) found that the episodic system solely in terms of its Herman Ebbinghaus (1850-1909) was the first simulating possible future events depends on the perceptible properties or attributes and it is to study memory experimentally. Using himself same neural machinery; they call this episodic always stored in terms of its autobiographical as a subject, he studied his own memory for simulation. nonsense syllables (to avoid influence of prior reference to the already existing". knowledge) and learnt that memory involves : "...mental thesaurus, formation of new associations and could be organised knowledge a person possesses about strengthened by repetition. He also words and other verbal symbols, their meaning documented the learning and retention curves and referents, about relations, rules, formulas with greatest learning occurring early and the and algorithms among them for manipulation." strongest memories being those repeated in a distributed fashion.

Bartlett (1886-1969) documented how Experimental can be facilitated by memories could incorporate fabrications and human and animal research, but these can difer. errors. This opposed the behaviourist wisdom of For example, long-term in animals can the time. take up to 6 hours, whereas human long-term storage can take minutes. Apparently obvious claims need experimental Historical Approaches backing, as layperson 'obvious' perceptions of memory such as the stores metaphor have been Memories are encoded (stored), stored/ shown not to be true. consolidated (transferred to long-term storage) and retrieved. : , Information load, Information processing, Perceptual aspects, Timing, Context, Valence, Motivation etc. (1972) Storage: Sleep, Interference, Retention interval, partial access etc. Retrieval: Instructions, Attention, Cues, Timing, Context etc.

Methodology Caveats

Approaches

Memory is a person's ability to remember things. William James said "without memory we would Memory in a psychological sense is the storage be servants of the moment, with nothing but Sufered from severe traumatic brain injury at 30 of an internal representation of an acquired our innate reflexes to help us deal with the years of age (1981). He could read and converse Types of Memory piece of knowledge. world". He was arguably the first to distinguish quite well but began to show slowed mentation between primary and secondary memory, now (mental activity). known as short-term and long-term memory, K.C. showed an inability to commit new Introduction to Memory respectively. information to any type of memory; severe anterograde and temporally graded . Unlike HM his semantic memory (e.g. tell the diference between Patient H.M Sufered from severe epilepsy and seizures that stalactites and stalagmites) was intact, but he totally impaired his every day life. He sufered lacked episodic memory for his entire past. from traumatic 'drop attacks' where he would fall to the floor, even when he was crossing the He also has severe impairment of his autonoetic street. consciousness (self-knowing) which means that he is unable to envision himself in the William Beecher Scoville was the neurosurgeon future. Patient K.C responsible for treating H.M's epilepsy. He decided to remove the anterior to His brain shows severe injury to the medial remove parts of H.M's medial temporal lobe and temporal lobes and the hippocampus, bilaterally Patient Clive so lost approximately two thirds of his anterior (both sides). hippocampus, perirhinal cortex and amygdala.

Clive Wearing was a former music producer for After the surgery, H.M unexpectedly was unable the BBC and sufered herpes-simplex to form new memories; severe anterograde encephalitis which caused a severe memory memory. He also had severe memory impairment or amnesia. The herpes-simplex is a impairments for events that had occurred in the viral infection that afects the medial temporal last 5 years; temporally graded retrograde lobe's and so are not only vulnerable to epilepsy amnesia. This suggests that memory was formed but to viruses. This is treatable, but often the in a neural system, and was not just an emergent treatment is ofered too late. He had very severe property of the mind. anterograde and retrograde amnesia. H.M lived in M.I.T and was further studied by Sue However, Clive was a remarkable piano player Corkin et al. In 2002, she found evidence that and was still able to play and use sheet music H.M was able to acquire new motor skills such (flawlessly). This theme linked to those from H.M, as drawing an object in a mirror. He was who could acquire such as therefore able to learn tasks using repetition mirror writing. despite his inability to acquire new semantic and episodic memories.