n What are retrograde amnesia and anterograde amnesia?
Retrograde amnesia involves loss of memory of events prior to
the amnesia-inducing event. Anterograde amnesia is loss of ability
to remember events that occur after the amnesia-inducing
event.
n What role does the hippocampus play in long-term memory?
The hippocampus seems to play a crucial role in the consolidation
of memorythe process of shifting new information from
short-term to longer-term storage.
n What are explicit and implicit memory? Are they related to
different parts of the brain? Explicit memory permits us to
remember information that has been stored in memory, that we
actively try to bring to mind and that can be described verbally.
Implicit memory allows us to use stored information without
necessarily being able to express it in words. Existing evidence
suggests that the hippocampus may play an important role in
explicit memory, while the occipital lobe may play an important
role in implicit memory.
n What are Korsakoffs syndrome and Alzheimers disease?
What do they tell us about the biological bases of memory?
Korsakoffs syndrome is a serious illness caused by long-term
abuse of alcohol which involves profound retrograde amnesia.
Persons suffering from this illness often have damage to portions
of the thalamus and hypothalamus, so these brain structures
appear to be linked to amnesia. Alzheimers disease
involves severe mental deterioration, including retrograde
amnesia. It may be linked to damage in neurons projecting from
the basal forebrain to the hippocampus and cerebral cortex.
The Biological Bases of Explicit Memory and Implicit
Memory Throughout this chapter, we have focused primarily on what might be termed intentional memorymemory that permits us to remember information that has been stored as a result of previous learning and that we actively try to bring to mind. Psychologists refer to this as explicit memory, since we can describe its contents verbally, in fairly specific terms. (Both episodic and semantic memory, which we considered earlier, fall under this general heading.) There is another kind of memory, however, that is also importanta kind of memory that involves being able to use information without necessarily being able to put it into words. This is known as implicit memory, and it operates in subtle ways. (Procedural memory, which we considered earlier, is one kind of implicit memory.) For instance, suppose you see a series of words. Then you are shown another series containing some of these words along with others that you didnt see previously. This second list is presented so quickly that its hard for you to recognize the words shown. Will you do better at identifying the words you saw before than the new ones? Research findings indicate that you will, and such effects provide one demonstration of the operation of implicit memory (e.g., Gabrieli et al., 1995). Now, heres where things get interesting. Many persons suffering from amnesia do very poorly on tests of explicit memorythey cant recognize or recall information they have seen very recently. However, their implicit memory does not seem to be affected: They perform as well as normal persons on tasks such as the one described above. Such deficits in explicit memory appear to be linked to damage to the hippocampus, a portion of the temporal lobes (Knowlton, Ramus, & Squire, 1992). What about implicit memoryis it related to other parts of the brain? Research evidence indicates that this is the case. Specifically, persons whohave had portions of their occipital lobe removed for medical reasons sometimes
show deficits in implicit memory, while maintaining their explicit memory
largely intact (e.g., Gabrieli et al., 1995). So in sum, existing evidence
points to two conclusions: (1) We do seem to possess two distinct kinds of
memory, explicit and implicit; and (2) the functioning of these memory systems
is related to different portions of the brain. For this reason, damage to
different portions of the brain, as a result of accidents or medical procedures,
can produce very differentand sometimes very surprisingeffects on