Memory

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This article is about human memory. For other uses, see Memory (disambiguation).

Overview of the forms and

functions of memory.

Neuropsychology

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Memory is the faculty of the brain by which information is encoded (process often
known as Learning), stored, and retrieved when needed.
Memory is vital to experiences and related to limbic systems, it is the retention of
information over time for the purpose of influencing future action.[1] If we could not
remember past events, we could not learn or develop language, relationships, or personal
identity (Eysenck, 2012).
Often memory is understood as an informational processing system with explicit and
implicit functioning that is made up of a sensory processor, short-term (or working)
memory, and long-term memory (Baddely, 2007).[better source needed] This can be
related to the neuron. The sensory processor allows information from the outside world to
be sensed in the form of chemical and physical stimuli and attended to with various levels
of focus and intent. Working memory serves as an encoding and retrieval processor.
Information in the form of stimuli is encoded in accordance with explicit or implicit
functions by the working memory processor. The working memory also retrieves
information from previously stored material. Finally, the function of long-term memory is
to store data through various categorical models or systems (Baddely, 2007).[better 
source needed]
Explicit and implicit functions of memory are also known as declarative and non-
declarative systems (Squire, 2009).[better source needed] These systems involve the
purposeful intention of memory retrieval and storage, or lack thereof. Declarative, or
explicit, memory is the conscious storage and recollection of data (Graf & Schacter,
1985). Under declarative memory resides semantic and episodic memory. Semantic
memory refers to memory that is encoded with specific meaning (Eysenck, 2012), while
episodic memory refers to information that is encoded along a spatial and temporal plane
(Schacter & Addis, 2007; Szpunar, 2010). Declarative memory is usually the primary
process thought of when referencing memory (Eysenck, 2012).[better source needed]
Non-declarative, or implicit, memory is the unconscious storage and recollection of
information (Foerde & Poldrack, 2009). An example of a non-declarative process would
be the unconscious learning or retrieval of information by way of procedural memory, or
a priming phenomenon (Eysenck, 2012; Foerde & Poldrack, 2009; Tulving & Schacter,
1990). Priming is the process of subliminally arousing specific responses from memory
and shows that not all memory is consciously activated (Tulving & Schacter, 1990),
whereas procedural memory is the slow and gradual learning of skills that often occurs
without conscious attention to learning (Eysenck, 2012; Foerde & Poldrack, 2009).
[better source needed]
Memory is not a perfect processor, and is affected by many factors. The manner
information is encoded, stored, and retrieved can all be corrupted. The amount of
attention given new stimuli can diminish the amount of information that becomes
encoded for storage (Eysenck, 2012). Also, the storage process can become corrupted by
physical damage to areas of the brain that are associated with memory storage, such as
the hippocampus (Squire, 2009). Finally, the retrieval of information from long-term
memory can be disrupted because of decay within long-term memory (Eysenck, 2012).
Normal functioning, decay over time, and brain damage all affect the accuracy and
capacity of memory.[citation needed]
Memory loss is usually described as forgetfulness or amnesia.

Contents
 1Sensory memory
 2Short-term memory
 3Long-term memory

 3.1Multi-store model
 3.2Working memory

 4Types

 4.1By information type

 4.1.1Declarative
 4.1.2Procedural

 4.2By temporal direction

 5Study techniques
 5.1To assess infants
 5.2To assess older children and adults
 6Failures
 7Physiology
 8Cognitive neuroscience
 9Genetics
 10In infancy
 11Aging
 12Disorders
 13Influencing factors
 14Stress
 15Sleep
 16Construction for general manipulation
 17Improving
 18In plants
 19See also
 20Notes
 21References
 22Further reading
 23External links

Sensory memory[edit]
Main article: Sensory memory
Sensory memory holds sensory information less than one second after an item is
perceived. The ability to look at an item and remember what it looked like with just a
split second of observation, or memorization, is the example of sensory memory. It is out
of cognitive control and is an automatic response. With very short presentations,
participants often report that they seem to "see" more than they can actually report. The
first experiments exploring this form of sensory memory were precisely conducted
by George Sperling (1963)[2] using the "partial report paradigm". Subjects were
presented with a grid of 12 letters, arranged into three rows of four. After a brief
presentation, subjects were then played either a high, medium or low tone, cuing them
which of the rows to report. Based on these partial report experiments, Sperling was able
to show that the capacity of sensory memory was approximately 12 items, but that it
degraded very quickly (within a few hundred milliseconds). Because this form of
memory degrades so quickly, participants would see the display but be unable to report
all of the items (12 in the "whole report" procedure) before they decayed. This type of
memory cannot be prolonged via rehearsal.
Three types of sensory memories exist. Iconic memory is a fast decaying store of visual
information; a type of sensory memory that briefly stores an image which has been
perceived for a small duration. Echoic memory is a fast decaying store of auditory
information, another type of sensory memory that briefly stores sounds that have been
perceived for short durations.[3] Haptic memory is a type of sensory memory that
represents a database for touch stimuli.

Short-term memory[edit]
Main article: Short-term memory
Short-term memory is also known as working memory. Short-term memory allows recall
for a period of several seconds to a minute without rehearsal. Its capacity is also very
limited: George A. Miller (1956), when working at Bell Laboratories, conducted
experiments showing that the store of short-term memory was 7±2 items (the title of his
famous paper, "The magical number 7±2"). Modern estimates of the capacity of short-
term memory are lower, typically of the order of 4–5 items;[4] however, memory
capacity can be increased through a process called chunking.[5] For example, in recalling
a ten-digit telephone number, a person could chunk the digits into three groups: first, the
area code (such as 123), then a three-digit chunk (456) and lastly a four-digit chunk
(7890). This method of remembering telephone numbers is far more effective than
attempting to remember a string of 10 digits; this is because we are able to chunk the
information into meaningful groups of numbers. This may be reflected in some countries
in the tendency to display telephone numbers as several chunks of two to four numbers.
Short-term memory is believed to rely mostly on an acoustic code for storing
information, and to a lesser extent a visual code. Conrad (1964)[6] found that test
subjects had more difficulty recalling collections of letters that were acoustically similar
(e.g. E, P, D). Confusion with recalling acoustically similar letters rather than visually
similar letters implies that the letters were encoded acoustically. Conrad's (1964) study,
however, deals with the encoding of written text; thus, while memory of written language
may rely on acoustic components, generalisations to all forms of memory cannot be
made.
Long-term memory[edit]
Main article: Long-term memory

Olin Levi
Warner, Memory (1896).
Library of Congress Thomas
Jefferson Building,
Washington, D.C.

The storage in sensory memory and short-term memory generally has a strictly limited
capacity and duration, which means that information is not retained indefinitely. By
contrast, long-term memory can store much larger quantities of information for
potentially unlimited duration (sometimes a whole life span). Its capacity is
immeasurable. For example, given a random seven-digit number we may remember it for
only a few seconds before forgetting, suggesting it was stored in our short-term memory.
On the other hand, we can remember telephone numbers for many years through
repetition; this information is said to be stored in long-term memory.
While short-term memory encodes information acoustically, long-term memory encodes
it semantically: Baddeley (1966)[7] discovered that, after 20 minutes, test subjects had
the most difficulty recalling a collection of words that had similar meanings (e.g. big,
large, great, huge) long-term. Another part of long-term memory is episodic memory,
"which attempts to capture information such as 'what', 'when' and 'where'".[8] With
episodic memory, individuals are able to recall specific events such as birthday parties
and weddings.
Short-term memory is supported by transient patterns of neuronal communication,
dependent on regions of the frontal lobe (especially dorsolateral prefrontal cortex) and
the parietal lobe. Long-term memory, on the other hand, is maintained by more stable and
permanent changes in neural connections widely spread throughout the brain.
The hippocampus is essential (for learning new information) to the consolidation of
information from short-term to long-term memory, although it does not seem to store
information itself. It was thought that without the hippocampus new memories were
unable to be stored into long-term memory and that there would be a very short attention
span, as first gleaned from patient Henry Molaison[9] after what was thought to be the
full removal of both his hippocampi. More recent examination of his brain, post-mortem,
shows that the hippocampus was more intact than first thought, throwing theories drawn
from the initial data into question. The hippocampus may be involved in changing neural
connections for a period of three months or more after the initial learning.
Research has suggested that long-term memory storage in humans may be maintained
by DNA methylation,[10] and the 'prion' gene.[11][12]
Multi-store model[edit]
See also: Memory consolidation

The multi-store model (also

known as Atkinson–Shiffrin
memory model) was first
described in 1968
by Atkinson and Shiffrin.
The multi-store model has been
criticised for being too
simplistic. For instance, long-term memory is believed to be actually made up of multiple
subcomponents, such as episodic and procedural memory. It also proposes that rehearsal
is the only mechanism by which information eventually reaches long-term storage, but
evidence shows us capable of remembering things without rehearsal.
The model also shows all the memory stores as being a single unit whereas research into
this shows differently. For example, short-term memory can be broken up into different
units such as visual information and acoustic information. In a study by Zlonoga and
Gerber (1986), patient 'KF' demonstrated certain deviations from the Atkinson–Shiffrin
model. Patient KF was brain damaged, displaying difficulties regarding short-term
memory. Recognition of sounds such as spoken numbers, letters, words and easily
identifiable noises (such as doorbells and cats meowing) were all impacted. Visual short-
term memory was unaffected, suggesting a dichotomy between visual and audial
memory.[13]
Working memory[edit]
Main article: Working memory

The working memory model

In 1974 Baddeley and Hitch

proposed a "working memory
model" that replaced the general
concept of short-term memory
with an active maintenance of information in the short-term storage. In this model,
working memory consists of three basic stores: the central executive, the phonological
loop and the visuo-spatial sketchpad. In 2000 this model was expanded with the
multimodal episodic buffer (Baddeley's model of working memory).[14]
The central executive essentially acts as an attention sensory store. It channels
information to the three component processes: the phonological loop, the visuo-spatial
sketchpad, and the episodic buffer.
The phonological loop stores auditory information by silently rehearsing sounds or words
in a continuous loop: the articulatory process (for example the repetition of a telephone
number over and over again). A short list of data is easier to remember.
The visuospatial sketchpad stores visual and spatial information. It is engaged when
performing spatial tasks (such as judging distances) or visual ones (such as counting the
windows on a house or imagining images).
The episodic buffer is dedicated to linking information across domains to form integrated
units of visual, spatial, and verbal information and chronological ordering (e.g., the
memory of a story or a movie scene). The episodic buffer is also assumed to have links to
long-term memory and semantical meaning.
The working memory model explains many practical observations, such as why it is
easier to do two different tasks (one verbal and one visual) than two similar tasks (e.g.,
two visual), and the aforementioned word-length effect. However, the concept of a central
executive as noted here has been criticised as inadequate and vague.[citation
needed] Working memory is also the premise for what allows us to do everyday activities
involving thought. It is the section of memory where we carry out thought processes and
use them to learn and reason about topics.[14]

Types[edit]
Researchers distinguish between recognition and recall memory. Recognition memory
tasks require individuals to indicate whether they have encountered a stimulus (such as a
picture or a word) before. Recall memory tasks require participants to retrieve previously
learned information. For example, individuals might be asked to produce a series of
actions they have seen before or to say a list of words they have heard before.
By information type[edit]
Topographic memory involves the ability to orient oneself in space, to recognize and
follow an itinerary, or to recognize familiar places.[15] Getting lost when traveling alone
is an example of the failure of topographic memory.[16]
Flashbulb memories are clear episodic memories of unique and highly emotional events.
[17] People remembering where they were or what they were doing when they first heard
the news of President Kennedy's assassination,[18] the Sydney Siege or of 9/11 are
examples of flashbulb memories.
Anderson (1976)[19] divides long-term memory into declarative
(explicit) and procedural (implicit) memories.
Declarative[edit]
Main article: Declarative memory
Declarative memory requires conscious recall, in that some conscious process must call
back the information. It is sometimes called explicit memory, since it consists of
information that is explicitly stored and retrieved.
Declarative memory can be further sub-divided into semantic memory, concerning
principles and facts taken independent of context; and episodic memory, concerning
information specific to a particular context, such as a time and place. Semantic memory
allows the encoding of abstract knowledge about the world, such as "Paris is the capital
of France". Episodic memory, on the other hand, is used for more personal memories,
such as the sensations, emotions, and personal associations of a particular place or time.
Episodic memories often reflect the "firsts" in life such as a first kiss, first day of school
or first time winning a championship. These are key events in one's life that can be
remembered clearly.Autobiographical memory – memory for particular events within
one's own life – is generally viewed as either equivalent to, or a subset of, episodic
memory. Visual memory is part of memory preserving some characteristics of our senses
pertaining to visual experience. One is able to place in memory information that
resembles objects, places, animals or people in sort of a mental image. Visual memory
can result in priming and it is assumed some kind of perceptual representational system
underlies this phenomenon.[citation needed]
Procedural[edit]
In contrast, procedural memory (or implicit memory) is not based on the conscious recall
of information, but on implicit learning. It can best be summarized as remembering how
to do something. Procedural memory is primarily employed in learning motor skills and
should be considered a subset of implicit memory. It is revealed when one does better in a
given task due only to repetition – no new explicit memories have been formed, but one
is unconsciously accessing aspects of those previous experiences. Procedural memory
involved in motor learning depends on the cerebellum and basal ganglia.
A characteristic of procedural memory is that the things remembered are automatically
translated into actions, and thus sometimes difficult to describe. Some examples of
procedural memory include the ability to ride a bike or tie shoelaces.[20]
By temporal direction[edit]
Another major way to distinguish different memory functions is whether the content to be
remembered is in the past, retrospective memory, or in the future, prospective memory.
Thus, retrospective memory as a category includes semantic, episodic and
autobiographical memory. In contrast, prospective memory is memory for future
intentions, or remembering to remember (Winograd, 1988). Prospective memory can be
further broken down into event- and time-based prospective remembering. Time-based
prospective memories are triggered by a time-cue, such as going to the doctor (action) at
4pm (cue). Event-based prospective memories are intentions triggered by cues, such as
remembering to post a letter (action) after seeing a mailbox (cue). Cues do not need to be
related to the action (as the mailbox/letter example), and lists, sticky-notes, knotted
handkerchiefs, or string around the finger all exemplify cues that people use as strategies
to enhance prospective memory.

Study techniques[edit]
To assess infants[edit]
Infants do not have the language ability to report on their memories and so verbal reports
cannot be used to assess very young children's memory. Throughout the years, however,
researchers have adapted and developed a number of measures for assessing both infants'
recognition memory and their recall memory. Habituation and operant
conditioning techniques have been used to assess infants' recognition memory and the
deferred and elicited imitation techniques have been used to assess infants' recall
memory.
Techniques used to assess infants' recognition memory include the following:

 Visual paired comparison procedure (relies on habituation): infants are first

presented with pairs of visual stimuli, such as two black-and-white photos of
human faces, for a fixed amount of time; then, after being familiarized with the
two photos, they are presented with the "familiar" photo and a new photo. The
time spent looking at each photo is recorded. Looking longer at the new photo
indicates that they remember the "familiar" one. Studies using this procedure have
found that 5- to 6-month-olds can retain information for as long as fourteen days.
[21]
 Operant conditioning technique: infants are placed in a crib and a ribbon that is
connected to a mobile overhead is tied to one of their feet. Infants notice that
when they kick their foot the mobile moves – the rate of kicking increases
dramatically within minutes. Studies using this technique have revealed that
infants' memory substantially improves over the first 18-months. Whereas 2- to 3-
month-olds can retain an operant response (such as activating the mobile by
kicking their foot) for a week, 6-month-olds can retain it for two weeks, and 18-
month-olds can retain a similar operant response for as long as 13 weeks.[22][23]
[24]

Techniques used to assess infants' recall memory include the following:

 Deferred imitation technique: an experimenter shows infants a unique sequence

of actions (such as using a stick to push a button on a box) and then, after a delay,
asks the infants to imitate the actions. Studies using deferred imitation have
shown that 14-month-olds' memories for the sequence of actions can last for as
long as four months.[25]
 Elicited imitation technique: is very similar to the deferred imitation technique;
the difference is that infants are allowed to imitate the actions before the delay.
Studies using the elicited imitation technique have shown that 20-month-olds can
recall the action sequences twelve months later.[26][27]

To assess older children and adults[edit]

Researchers use a variety of tasks to assess older children and adults' memory. Some
examples are:

 Paired associate learning – when one learns to associate one specific word with
another. For example, when given a word such as "safe" one must learn to say
another specific word, such as "green". This is stimulus and response.[28][29]
 Free recall – during this task a subject would be asked to study a list of words
and then later they will be asked to recall or write down as many words that they
can remember, similar to free response questions.[30] Earlier items are affected by
 retroactive interference (RI), which means the longer the list, the greater the
interference, and the less likelihood that they are recalled. On the other hand,
items that have been presented lastly suffer little RI, but suffer a great deal from
proactive interference (PI), which means the longer the delay in recall, the more
likely that the items will be lost.[31]
 Cued recall – one is given significant hints about the information. This is similar
to fill in the blank assessments used in classrooms.
 Recognition – subjects are asked to remember a list of words or pictures, after
which point they are asked to identify the previously presented words or pictures
from among a list of alternatives that were not presented in the original list.
[32] This is similar to multiple choice assessments.
 Detection paradigm – individuals are shown a number of objects and color
samples during a certain period of time. They are then tested on their visual ability
to remember as much as they can by looking at testers and pointing out whether
the testers are similar to the sample, or if any change is present.
 Savings method – compares the speed of originally learning to the speed of
relearning it. The amount of time saved measures memory.[33]

Failures[edit]

The garden of oblivion,

illustration by Ephraim
Moses Lilien.

 Transience – memories degrade with the passing of time. This occurs in the
storage stage of memory, after the information has been stored and before it is
retrieved. This can happen in sensory, short-term, and long-term storage. It
follows a general pattern where the information is rapidly forgotten during the
first couple of days or years, followed by small losses in later days or years.
 Absentmindedness – Memory failure due to the lack of attention. Attention plays
a key role in storing information into long-term memory; without proper attention,
the information might not be stored, making it impossible to be retrieved later.

Physiology[edit]
Brain areas involved in the neuroanatomy of memory such as the hippocampus,
the amygdala, the striatum, or the mammillary bodies are thought to be involved in
specific types of memory. For example, the hippocampus is believed to be involved in
spatial learning and declarative learning, while the amygdala is thought to be involved
in emotional memory.[34]
Damage to certain areas in patients and animal models and subsequent memory deficits is
a primary source of information. However, rather than implicating a specific area, it could
be that damage to adjacent areas, or to a pathway traveling through the area is actually
responsible for the observed deficit. Further, it is not sufficient to describe memory, and
its counterpart, learning, as solely dependent on specific brain regions. Learning and
memory are usually attributed to changes in neuronal synapses, thought to be mediated
by long-term potentiation and long-term depression. However, this has been questioned
on computational as well as neurophysiological grounds by the cognitive scientist Charles
R. Gallistel and others.[35][36][37]
In general, the more emotionally charged an event or experience is, the better it is
remembered; this phenomenon is known as the memory enhancement effect. Patients
with amygdala damage, however, do not show a memory enhancement effect.[38][39]
Hebb distinguished between short-term and long-term memory. He postulated that any
memory that stayed in short-term storage for a long enough time would be consolidated
into a long-term memory. Later research showed this to be false. Research has shown that
direct injections of cortisol or epinephrine help the storage of recent experiences. This is
also true for stimulation of the amygdala. This proves that excitement enhances memory
by the stimulation of hormones that affect the amygdala. Excessive or prolonged stress
(with prolonged cortisol) may hurt memory storage. Patients with amygdalar damage are
no more likely to remember emotionally charged words than nonemotionally charged
ones. The hippocampus is important for explicit memory. The hippocampus is also
important for memory consolidation. The hippocampus receives input from different
parts of the cortex and sends its output out to different parts of the brain also. The input
comes from secondary and tertiary sensory areas that have processed the information a lot
already. Hippocampal damage may also cause memory loss and problems with memory
storage.[40] This memory loss includes retrograde amnesia which is the loss of memory
for events that occurred shortly before the time of brain damage.[33]

Cognitive neuroscience[edit]
Cognitive neuroscientists consider memory as the retention, reactivation, and
reconstruction of the experience-independent internal representation. The term of
internal representation implies that such definition of memory contains two components:
the expression of memory at the behavioral or conscious level, and the underpinning
physical neural changes (Dudai 2007). The latter component is also called engram or
memory traces (Semon 1904). Some neuroscientists and psychologists mistakenly equate
the concept of engram and memory, broadly conceiving all persisting after-effects of
experiences as memory; others argue against this notion that memory does not exist until
it is revealed in behavior or thought (Moscovitch 2007).
One question that is crucial in cognitive neuroscience is how information and mental
experiences are coded and represented in the brain. Scientists have gained much
knowledge about the neuronal codes from the studies of plasticity, but most of such
research has been focused on simple learning in simple neuronal circuits; it is
considerably less clear about the neuronal changes involved in more complex examples
of memory, particularly declarative memory that requires the storage of facts and events
(Byrne 2007). Convergence-divergence zones might be the neural networks where
memories are stored and retrieved. Considering that there are several kinds of memory,
depending on types of represented knowledge, underlying mechanisms, processes
functions and modes of acquisition, it is likely that different brain areas support different
memory systems and that they are in mutual relationships in neuronal networks:
"components of memory representation are distributed widely across different parts of the
brain as mediated by multiple neocortical circuits".[41]

 Encoding. Encoding of working memory involves the spiking of individual

neurons induced by sensory input, which persists even after the sensory input
disappears (Jensen and Lisman 2005; Fransen et al. 2002). Encoding of episodic
memory involves persistent changes in molecular structures that alter synaptic
transmission between neurons. Examples of such structural changes include long-
term potentiation (LTP) or spike-timing-dependent plasticity (STDP). The
persistent spiking in working memory can enhance the synaptic and cellular
changes in the encoding of episodic memory (Jensen and Lisman 2005).
 Working memory. Recent functional imaging studies detected working memory
signals in both medial temporal lobe(MTL), a brain area strongly associated
with long-term memory, and prefrontal cortex (Ranganath et al. 2005), suggesting
a strong relationship between working memory and long-term memory. However,
the substantially more working memory signals seen in the prefrontal lobe suggest
that this area play a more important role in working memory than MTL (Suzuki
2007).
 Consolidation and reconsolidation. Short-term memory (STM) is temporary and
subject to disruption, while long-term memory (LTM), once consolidated, is
persistent and stable. Consolidation of STM into LTM at the molecular level
presumably involves two processes: synaptic consolidation and system
consolidation. The former involves a protein synthesis process in the medial
temporal lobe (MTL), whereas the latter transforms the MTL-dependent memory
into an MTL-independent memory over months to years (Ledoux 2007). In recent
years, such traditional consolidation dogma has been re-evaluated as a result of
the studies on reconsolidation. These studies showed that prevention
after retrievalaffects subsequent retrieval of the memory (Sara 2000). New studies
have shown that post-retrieval treatment with protein synthesis inhibitors and
many other compounds can lead to an amnestic state (Nadel et al. 2000b; Alberini
2005; Dudai 2006). These findings on reconsolidation fit with the behavioral
evidence that retrieved memory is not a carbon copy of the initial experiences,
and memories are updated during retrieval.

Genetics[edit]
Study of the genetics of human memory is in its infancy. A notable initial success was the
association of APOE with memory dysfunction in Alzheimer's Disease. The search for
genes associated with normally varying memory continues. One of the first candidates for
normal variation in memory is the protein KIBRA,[42] which appears to be associated
with the rate at which material is forgotten over a delay period. There has been some
evidence that memories are stored in the nucleus of neurons.[43][non-primary source
needed]

In infancy[edit]
For the inability of adults to retrieve early memories, see Childhood amnesia.
Up until the mid-1980s it was assumed that infants could not encode, retain, and retrieve
information.[44] A growing body of research now indicates that infants as young as 6-
months can recall information after a 24-hour delay.[45] Furthermore, research has
revealed that as infants grow older they can store information for longer periods of time;
6-month-olds can recall information after a 24-hour period, 9-month-olds after up to five
weeks, and 20-month-olds after as long as twelve months.[46] In addition, studies have
shown that with age, infants can store information faster. Whereas 14-month-olds can
recall a three-step sequence after being exposed to it once, 6-month-olds need
approximately six exposures in order to be able to remember it.[25][45]
Although 6-month-olds can recall information over the short-term, they have difficulty
recalling the temporal order of information. It is only by 9 months of age that infants can
recall the actions of a two-step sequence in the correct temporal order – that is, recalling
step 1 and then step 2.[47][48] In other words, when asked to imitate a two-step action
sequence (such as putting a toy car in the base and pushing in the plunger to make the toy
roll to the other end), 9-month-olds tend to imitate the actions of the sequence in the
correct order (step 1 and then step 2). Younger infants (6-month-olds) can only recall one
step of a two-step sequence.[45] Researchers have suggested that these age differences
are probably due to the fact that the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus and the frontal
components of the neural network are not fully developed at the age of 6-months.[26][49]
[50]
In fact, the term 'infantile amnesia' refers to the phenomenon of accelerated forgetting
during infancy. Importantly, infantile amnesia is not unique to humans, and preclinical
research (using rodent models) provides insight into the precise neurobiology of this
phenomenon. A review of the literature from behavioral neuroscientist Dr Jee Hyun
Kim suggests that accelerated forgetting during early life is at least partly due to rapid
growth of the brain during this period.[51]

Aging[edit]
Main article: Memory and aging
One of the key concerns of older adults is the experience of memory loss, especially as it
is one of the hallmark symptoms of Alzheimer's disease. However, memory loss is
qualitatively different in normal aging from the kind of memory loss associated with a
diagnosis of Alzheimer's (Budson & Price, 2005). Research has revealed that individuals'
performance on memory tasks that rely on frontal regions declines with age. Older adults
tend to exhibit deficits on tasks that involve knowing the temporal order in which they
learned information;[52] source memory tasks that require them to remember the specific
circumstances or context in which they learned information;[53] and prospective memory
tasks that involve remembering to perform an act at a future time. Older adults can
manage their problems with prospective memory by using appointment books, for
example.

Disorders[edit]
Main article: Memory disorder
Much of the current knowledge of memory has come from studying memory disorders,
particularly amnesia. Loss of memory is known as amnesia. Amnesia can result from
extensive damage to: (a) the regions of the medial temporal lobe, such as the
hippocampus, dentate gyrus, subiculum, amygdala, the parahippocampal, entorhinal, and
perirhinal cortices[54]or the (b) midline diencephalic region, specifically the dorsomedial
nucleus of the thalamus and the mammillary bodies of the hypothalamus.[55] There are
many sorts of amnesia, and by studying their different forms, it has become possible to
observe apparent defects in individual sub-systems of the brain's memory systems, and
thus hypothesize their function in the normally working brain.
Other neurological disorders such as Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease[56] can
also affect memory and cognition. Hyperthymesia, or hyperthymesic syndrome, is a
disorder that affects an individual's autobiographical memory, essentially meaning that
they cannot forget small details that otherwise would not be stored.[57]Korsakoff's
syndrome, also known as Korsakoff's psychosis, amnesic-confabulatory syndrome, is an
organic brain disease that adversely affects memory by widespread loss or shrinkage of
neurons within the prefrontal cortex.[33]
While not a disorder, a common temporary failure of word retrieval from memory is
the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon. Sufferers of Anomic aphasia (also called Nominal
aphasia or Anomia), however, do experience the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon on an
ongoing basis due to damage to the frontal and parietal lobes of the brain.

Influencing factors[edit]
Interference can hamper memorization and retrieval. There is retroactive interference,
when learning new information makes it harder to recall old
information[58] and proactive interference, where prior learning disrupts recall of new
information. Although interference can lead to forgetting, it is important to keep in mind
that there are situations when old information can facilitate learning of new information.
Knowing Latin, for instance, can help an individual learn a related language such as
French – this phenomenon is known as positive transfer.[59]

Stress[edit]
Stress has a significant effect on memory formation and learning. In response to stressful
situations, the brain releases hormones and neurotransmitters (ex. glucocorticoids and
catecholamines) which affect memory encoding processes in the hippocampus.
Behavioural research on animals shows that chronic stress produces adrenal hormones
which impact the hippocampal structure in the brains of rats.[60] An experimental study
by German cognitive psychologists L. Schwabe and O. Wolf demonstrates how learning
under stress also decreases memory recall in humans.[61] In this study, 48 healthy female
and male university students participated in either a stress test or a control group. Those
randomly assigned to the stress test group had a hand immersed in ice cold water (the
reputable SECPT or 'Socially Evaluated Cold Pressor Test') for up to three minutes, while
being monitored and videotaped. Both the stress and control groups were then presented
with 32 words to memorize. Twenty-four hours later, both groups were tested to see how
many words they could remember (free recall) as well as how many they could recognize
from a larger list of words (recognition performance). The results showed a clear
impairment of memory performance in the stress test group, who recalled 30% fewer
words than the control group. The researchers suggest that stress experienced during
learning distracts people by diverting their attention during the memory encoding
process.
However, memory performance can be enhanced when material is linked to the learning
context, even when learning occurs under stress. A separate study by cognitive
psychologists Schwabe and Wolf shows that when retention testing is done in a context
similar to or congruent with the original learning task (i.e., in the same room), memory
impairment and the detrimental effects of stress on learning can be attenuated.
[62] Seventy-two healthy female and male university students, randomly assigned to
the SECPT stress test or to a control group, were asked to remember the locations of 15
pairs of picture cards – a computerized version of the card game "Concentration" or
"Memory". The room in which the experiment took place was infused with the scent of
vanilla, as odour is a strong cue for memory. Retention testing took place the following
day, either in the same room with the vanilla scent again present, or in a different room
without the fragrance. The memory performance of subjects who experienced stress
during the object-location task decreased significantly when they were tested in an
unfamiliar room without the vanilla scent (an incongruent context); however, the memory
performance of stressed subjects showed no impairment when they were tested in the
original room with the vanilla scent (a congruent context). All participants in the
experiment, both stressed and unstressed, performed faster when the learning and
retrieval contexts were similar.[63]
This research on the effects of stress on memory may have practical implications for
education, for eyewitness testimony and for psychotherapy: students may perform better
when tested in their regular classroom rather than an exam room, eyewitnesses may recall
details better at the scene of an event than in a courtroom, and persons suffering
from post-traumatic stress may improve when helped to situate their memories of a
traumatic event in an appropriate context.
Stressful life experiences may be a cause of memory loss as a person
ages. Glucocorticoids that are released during stress, damage neurons that are located in
the hippocampal region of the brain. Therefore, the more stressful situations that someone
encounters, the more susceptible they are to memory loss later on. The CA1
neurons found in the hippocampus are destroyed due to glucocorticoids decreasing the
release of glucose and the reuptake of glutamate. This high level of extracellular
glutamate allows calcium to enter NMDA receptors which in return kills neurons.
Stressful life experiences can also cause repression of memories where a person moves an
unbearable memory to the unconscious mind.[33] This directly relates to traumatic events
in one's past such as kidnappings, being prisoners of war or sexual abuse as a child.
The more long term the exposure to stress is, the more impact it may have. However,
short term exposure to stress also causes impairment in memory by interfering with the
function of the hippocampus. Research shows that subjects placed in a stressful situation
for a short amount of time still have blood glucocorticoid levels that have increased
drastically when measured after the exposure is completed. When subjects are asked to
complete a learning task after short term exposure they often have difficulties. Prenatal
stress also hinders the ability to learn and memorize by disrupting the development of the
hippocampus and can lead to unestablished long term potentiation in the offspring of
severely stressed parents. Although the stress is applied prenatally, the offspring show
increased levels of glucocorticoids when they are subjected to stress later on in life.[64]

Sleep[edit]
Making memories occurs through a three-step process, which can be enhanced by sleep.
The three steps are as follows:

1. Acquisition which is the process of storage and retrieval of new information in

memory
2. Consolidation
3. Recall

Sleep affects memory consolidation. During sleep, the neural connections in the brain are
strengthened. This enhances the brain's abilities to stabilize and retain memories. There
have been several studies which show that sleep improves the retention of memory, as
memories are enhanced through active consolidation. System consolidation takes place
during slow-wave sleep (SWS).[65] This process implicates that memories are
reactivated during sleep, but that the process doesn't enhance every memory. It also
implicates that qualitative changes are made to the memories when they are transferred to
long-term store during sleep. During sleep, the hippocampus replays the events of the day
for the neocortex. The neocortex then reviews and processes memories, which moves
them into long-term memory. When one does not get enough sleep it makes it more
difficult to learn as these neural connections are not as strong, resulting in a lower
retention rate of memories. Sleep deprivation makes it harder to focus, resulting in
inefficient learning.[65] Furthermore, some studies have shown that sleep deprivation can
lead to false memories as the memories are not properly transferred to long-term memory.
One of the primary functions of sleep is thought to be the improvement of the
consolidation of information, as several studies have demonstrated that memory depends
on getting sufficient sleep between training and test.[66]Additionally, data obtained from
neuroimaging studies have shown activation patterns in the sleeping brain that mirror
those recorded during the learning of tasks from the previous day,[66] suggesting that
new memories may be solidified through such rehearsal.[67]

Construction for general manipulation[edit]

Although people often think that memory operates like recording equipment, it is not the
case. The molecular mechanisms underlying the induction and maintenance of memory
are very dynamic and comprise distinct phases covering a time window from seconds to
even a lifetime.[68] In fact, research has revealed that our memories are constructed:
"current hypotheses suggest that constructive processes allow individuals to simulate and
imagine future episodes, happenings, and scenarios. Since the future is not an exact
repetition of the past, simulation of future episodes requires a complex system that can
draw on the past in a manner that flexibly extracts and recombines elements of previous
experiences – a constructive rather than a reproductive system."[41] People can construct
their memories when they encode them and/or when they recall them. To illustrate,
consider a classic study conducted by Elizabeth Loftus and John Palmer (1974)[69] in
which people were instructed to watch a film of a traffic accident and then asked about
what they saw. The researchers found that the people who were asked, "How fast were
the cars going when they smashed into each other?" gave higher estimates than those who
were asked, "How fast were the cars going when they hit each other?" Furthermore, when
asked a week later whether they had seen broken glass in the film, those who had been
asked the question with smashed were twice more likely to report that they had seen
broken glass than those who had been asked the question with hit. There was no broken
glass depicted in the film. Thus, the wording of the questions distorted viewers' memories
of the event. Importantly, the wording of the question led people to construct different
memories of the event – those who were asked the question with smashed recalled a more
serious car accident than they had actually seen. The findings of this experiment were
replicated around the world, and researchers consistently demonstrated that when people
were provided with misleading information they tended to misremember, a phenomenon
known as the misinformation effect.[70]
Research has revealed that asking individuals to repeatedly imagine actions that they
have never performed or events that they have never experienced could result in false
memories. For instance, Goff and Roediger[71] (1998) asked participants to imagine that
they performed an act (e.g., break a toothpick) and then later asked them whether they
had done such a thing. Findings revealed that those participants who repeatedly imagined
performing such an act were more likely to think that they had actually performed that act
during the first session of the experiment. Similarly, Garry and her colleagues (1996)
[72] asked college students to report how certain they were that they experienced a
number of events as children (e.g., broke a window with their hand) and then two weeks
later asked them to imagine four of those events. The researchers found that one-fourth of
the students asked to imagine the four events reported that they had actually experienced
such events as children. That is, when asked to imagine the events they were more
confident that they experienced the events.
Research reported in 2013 revealed that it is possible to artificially stimulate prior
memories and artificially implant false memories in mice. Using optogenetics, a team of
RIKEN-MIT scientists caused the mice to incorrectly associate a benign environment
with a prior unpleasant experience from different surroundings. Some scientists believe
that the study may have implications in studying false memory formation in humans, and
in treating PTSD and schizophrenia.[73][74]

Improving[edit]
Main article: Improving memory
A UCLA research study published in the June 2008 issue of the American Journal of
Geriatric Psychiatry found that people can improve cognitive function and brain
efficiency through simple lifestyle changes such as incorporating memory
exercises, healthy eating, physical fitness and stress reduction into their daily lives. This
study examined 17 subjects, (average age 53) with normal memory performance. Eight
subjects were asked to follow a "brain healthy" diet, relaxation, physical, and mental
exercise (brain teasers and verbal memory training techniques). After 14 days, they
showed greater word fluency (not memory) compared to their baseline performance. No
long-term follow-up was conducted; it is therefore unclear if this intervention has lasting
effects on memory.[75]
There are a loosely associated group of mnemonic principles and techniques that can be
used to vastly improve memory known as the art of memory.
The International Longevity Center released in 2001 a report[76] which includes in pages
14–16 recommendations for keeping the mind in good functionality until advanced age.
Some of the recommendations are to stay intellectually active through learning, training
or reading, to keep physically active so to promote blood circulation to the brain, to
socialize, to reduce stress, to keep sleep time regular, to avoid depression or emotional
instability and to observe good nutrition.
Memorization is a method of learning that allows an individual to recall information
verbatim. Rote learning is the method most often used. Methods of memorizing things
have been the subject of much discussion over the years with some writers, such
as Cosmos Rossellius using visual alphabets. The spacing effect shows that an individual
is more likely to remember a list of items when rehearsal is spaced over an extended
period of time. In contrast to this is cramming: an intensive memorization in a short
period of time. Also relevant is the Zeigarnik effect which states that people remember
uncompleted or interrupted tasks better than completed ones. The so-called Method of
loci uses spatial memory to memorize non-spatial information.[77]

In plants[edit]
Plants lack a specialized organ devoted to memory retention, and so plant memory has
been a controversial topic in recent years. New advances in the field have identified the
presence of neurotransmitters in plants, adding to the hypothesis that plants are capable of
remembering.[78] Action potentials, a physiological response characteristic of neurons,
have been shown to have an influence on plants as well, including in wound responses
and photosynthesis.[78] In addition to these homologous features of memory systems in
both plants and animals, plants have also been observed to encode, store and retrieve
basic short-term memories.
One of the most well-studied plants to show rudimentary memory is the Venus flytrap.
Native to the subtropical wetlands of the eastern United States, Venus Fly Traps have
evolved the ability to obtain meat for sustenance, likely due to the lack of nitrogen in the
soil.[79] This is done by two trap-forming leaf tips that snap shut once triggered by a
potential prey. On each lobe, three triggers hairs await stimulation. In order to maximize
the benefit to cost ratio, the plant enables a rudimentary form of memory in which two
trigger hairs must be stimulated within 30 seconds in order to result in trap closure.
[79] This system ensures that the trap only closes when potential prey is within grasp.
The time lapse between trigger hair stimulations suggests that the plant can remember an
initial stimulus long enough for a second stimulus to initiate trap closure. This memory
isn't encoded in a brain, as plants lack this specialized organ. Rather, information is stored
in the form of cytoplasmic calcium levels. The first trigger causes a subthreshold
cytoplasmic calcium influx.[79] This initial trigger isn't enough to activate trap closure,
and so a subsequent stimulus allows for a secondary influx of calcium. The latter calcium
rise superimposes on the initial one, creating an action potential that passes threshold,
resulting in trap closure.[79] Researchers, to prove that an electrical threshold must be
met to stimulate trap closure, excited a single trigger hair with a constant mechanical
stimulus using Ag/AgCl electrodes.[80] The trap closed after only a few seconds. This
experiment gave evidence to demonstrate that the electrical threshold, not necessarily the
number of trigger hair stimulations, was the contributing factor in Venus Fly Trap
memory. It has been shown that trap closure can be blocked using uncouplers and
inhibitors of voltage-gated channels.[80] After trap closure, these electrical signals
stimulate glandular production of jasmonic acid and hydrolases, allowing for digestion of
the prey.[81]
The field of plant neurobiology has gained a large amount of interest over the past
decade, leading to an influx of research regarding plant memory. Although the Venus
flytrap is one of the more highly studied, many other plants exhibit the capacity to
remember, including the Mimosa pudica through an experiment conducted by Monica
Gagliano and colleagues in 2013.[82] As the field expands, it is likely that we will learn
more about the capacity of a plant to remember.

Adaptive memory
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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An African grasslands scene,

similar to the environment
experienced by the
evolutionary ancestors of modern humans.

Adaptive memory is the study of memory systems that have evolved to help retain
survival- and fitness-related information, i.e., that are geared toward helping
an organism enhance its reproductive fitness and chances of surviving.[1] One key
element of adaptive memory research is the notion that memory evolved to help survival
by better retaining information that is fitness-relevant.[2] One of the foundations of this
method of studying memory is the relatively little adaptive valueof a memory system that
evolved merely to remember past events. Memory systems, it is argued, must use the past
in some service of the present or the planning of the future.[2] Another assumption under
this model is that the evolved memory mechanisms are likely to be domain-specific, or
sensitive to certain types of information.

Contents
 1History of adaptive memory research
 2Studying survival-based processing

 2.1Methodology
 2.2Findings
 2.2.1General findings
 2.2.2True and false memory
 2.2.3Planning future acts
 2.2.4Gathering-related navigation

 3Neurobiological basis
 4Proximate mechanisms responsible for survival processing
 5Evolutionary adaptations of memory in non-human species
 6Alternative viewpoints/explanations

 6.1Congruity effect
 6.2False memory illusions and net accuracy
 6.3Basic memory processes
 6.4Falsified assumptions

 7Future research
 8See also
 9References

History of adaptive memory research[edit]

A recent development in the field of evolutionary psychology, adaptive memory was first
proposed in 2007 by James S. Nairne, Sarah R. Thompson, and Josefa N.S. Pandeirada.
[1] Evolutionary psychologists often state that humans possess a "stone-age" brain.
[2] Therefore, optimal cognitive performance may be found in problems faced by
our ancestors, or related to the environments in which our evolutionary ancestors lived.
[3] Based on this finding, Nairne and his colleagues proposed that human memory
systems are 'tuned' to information relevant to survival.[2]
The first study on the subject of adaptive memory was published in 2007 and
its methodology has been replicated many times since. Participants were told to imagine
themselves in one of three randomly assigned scenarios. In the Survivalcondition, they
imagine being stranded in a grassland area of a foreign land, and need to find a steady
supply of food and water, and protect themselves from predators. The second condition
was the Moving condition. Participants were instructed to imagine themselves moving to
a foreign land, needing to locate a new home and transporting their possessions. Finally,
the Pleasantness condition asked participants to simply rate the pleasantness of a list of
words. In the Survival and Movingconditions, participants were asked to rate the
relevance of each word on a list to their imagined situation. Participants were then subject
to a surprise recall test.[1] Nairne et al. found what they called the survival advantage.[1]
The survival advantage means that information that is more salient, or relevant, to
survival in an ancestral environment has a higher rate of retention than control conditions.
This became clear following free recall experiments conducted by Nairne and colleagues.
[1][4] Processing information relevant to survival leads to more information being
remembered than most known encoding techniques.[4] One explanation for the survival
advantage's improved retention is that this kind of processing taps into a sort of memory
'module' specialized for remembering and processing information that is important for
survival.[1] Another proposed explanation is that it leads to more arousal and emotional
processing. Because many survival situations are emotionally arousing, retention is
enhanced.[1]

Studying survival-based processing[edit]

Methodology[edit]
An important first step toward a functional analysis of survival processing is thinking
about the kinds of problems memory would have evolved to solve. Figuring out selection
pressures can be difficult. Post-hoc accounts, also known as just-so stories, are an
important problem to avoid. Nairne et al.'s work stressed the importance of a
priori predictions, and designing empirical tests.[2] A very important element of studying
adaptive memory to consider, like other scientificresearch, is its basis on empirical
evidence and study methodology.
The methodology for testing adaptive memory and the survival advantage in human
participants has thus far mostly consisted of ranking lists of words by their relevance to a
survival setting (and along control dimensions as well), followed by a recall session.[1]
[3][4][5][6][7][8][9] The basic research methodology involves having participants rate a
series of words by their fitness relevance. In the control condition, the words were rated
for their relevance to moving for a foreign land, and their pleasantness. A surprise recall
test is administered, and recall of the listed words in all three conditions is recorded and
analyzed.[1]
Findings[edit]
General findings[edit]
One major finding is that survival processing has been shown to yield better retention
than imagery, self-reference and pleasantness, which are all considered to be among the
best conditions for remembering learned information.[2] Otgaar, Smeets and van Bergen
hypothesized that since visual processing developed earlier than language, there ought to
be a survival advantage for images as well as words, and they found such an advantage.
[7] Grasslands survival scenarios showed higher retention than near-identical scenarios in
which the word 'grasslands' was replaced with 'city' and the word 'predators' replaced
with 'attackers'. It is suspected that this result is due to the human mind being scenarios
relevant to our species' ancestral past, even though threats present in a modern urban
society are far more relevant today. There was a greater memory recall in both the
ancestral and modern survival conditions when compared to pleasantness control
conditions, but only the ancestral condition presented significantly greater word recall.
Both conditions are fitness-relevant, but there was no memory enhancement for survival
processing in the modern context.[3] Additionally, as females typically performed
gathering tasks over the span of human evolution, and males performed hunting tasks,
research into this gender dichotomy was conducted. No significant data were found.
[6] The implications of this research lie in helping to understand how the mind evolved
and how it works. The idea that we are able to retain information most relevant to our
own survival provides a foundation of research for empirical studying of memory through
an evolutionary lens.[1] Understanding the circumstances when memory is at its best can
help study the functions of memory as a whole, and help understand what memory is
capable of.
True and false memory[edit]
The survival processing advantage has been shown to increase both true and false
memory in adults and children. True memory refers to the correct retention of
information. False memory means remembering something that was never present. A
false memory is not necessarily maladaptive. Misremembering can have advantages in
certain situations (for example, misremembering an environment with predator tracks as
the actual presence of a predator may lead to avoidance of that area in the future). False
memory can be seen as a side-effect to an otherwise highly adaptive process.[8]
Planning future acts[edit]
One of the most important functions of memory is the ability to use learned information
to make predictions in future planning.[10] Adaptive memory states that memory was
created and developed by the process of natural selection, so many components of
memory systems were important for long-term planning, the importance of which is
central to ensuring survival and the passing of genes.[11]
Gathering-related navigation[edit]
There exists evidence that the human memory system has evolved to be equipped with a
gathering-related navigation system, helping remember the location of gatherable food
sources in spatial memory. This was suggested in a recent study that tested spatial
memory for various food items,[12] with additional predictions later extended and
validated.[13] In the first study, both males and females were shown to have better spatial
memory for more caloric foods at a farmer's market than foods with a lower calorie
content. It has been suggested that calorie-dense foods are an important resource to be
able to gather in an ancestral environment, and the inability to locate this kind of food
would put an organism at a disadvantage.[14]

Neurobiological basis[edit]
 Location of the hippocampus in the brain, an important structure in the function of
memory.

Although there has not been any research done on the direct neurological processes that
go on during an adaptive memory consolidation, there is a growing body of evidence that
the neurotransmitter dopamine modulates the hippocampus, a cortical structure (brain
structure) crucial to memory. The release of dopamine has been known to be associated
with events of a motivationally importantnature,[15] and has a role in the creation
of episodic memories and the consolidation thereof. Episodic memories are crucial in the
development and implementation of adaptive future behaviours,[16] for which adaptive
memory is a very central construct.[11] Functional imaging research conducted during an
adaptive memory experiment might be able to provide some insight into the exact brain
activity responsible for the phenomenon.

Proximate mechanisms responsible for survival

processing[edit]
It has been suggested that the recall advantage for survival processing can be attributed to
the use of both item-specific processing (the encoding of individual characteristics of
items) and relational processing (encoding the relationships between items). It was found
that the survival advantage was present when words were encoded using only item-
specific or only relational processing, but was eliminated in cases where both methods of
encoding were encouraged.[5] Employing both item-specific and relational processing
simultaneously makes survival processing unique; the only other phenomenon that also
activates both item-specific and relational is self-referential processing.[5] Self-referential
processing is one of the proposed explanations explaining the survival recall advantage.
Evidence suggests that it is possible that the survival task might generate self-referential
processing, which may be responsible for the reported recall improvements, since
considering one's own survival is very self-relevant.[5]

Evolutionary adaptations of memory in non-human

species[edit]

Black-capped
chickadees (Poecile
atricapilla) from Alaska
showed stronger recall of the
locations of cached food than did those from Colorado.
Adaptive memory behaviours have been observed in animal species, as well as
humans. Dr. John Garcia discovered that taste aversion conditioning in rats results in a
lasting association between sickness and an ingested substance, and that aversion can be
established after only one trial.[17] This rapid learning led others to the idea that rats
have biological dispositions for learning to associate sickness with a taste memory as a
result of its evolutionary history. The results of a study that compared rats and quail in the
acquisition of taste aversion suggested that rats rely on their memory of taste to
avoid nausea while quail relied on their visual memory.[18] Since the rat is a nocturnal
feeder and has poor vision, it was suggested that they rely on taste cues to learn to avoid
toxic substances, leading to a highly developed chemical sense system.
In a study of black-capped chickadees (Poecile atricapilla) from Alaska and Colorado,
those birds from Alaska cached more food, remembered the hiding places more quickly
and readily, and had significantly larger hippocampal volumes than black-capped
chickadees from Colorado. This supports what is known as the adaptive specialization
hypothesis. The adaptive specialization hypothesis states that animals that hide food
should have bigger hippocampi than animals that do not hide food. Additionally, those
animals that hide food performed better than non-hiding animals on spatial memory tests.
This finding suggests that since the climate tends to be harsh in Alaska, there may be an
increased need to remember where food is hidden, to help them survive through the
winter.[19]

Polygamous meadow
voles have shown to perform
better in route and place
learning tasks than
the monogamous pine vole, likely attributable to their nomadic nature.

Under the pressure of natural selection, sex differences in spatial memory skills can
develop under distinct mating systems. Comparing different vole species that are
either polygamous or monogamous, researchers found that sex differences in spatial skills
are only found in the polygamous mating meadow vole.[20] Further examination found
that unlike monogamous pine voles (who travel together on a permanent basis with their
partners), polygamous males have increased mobility (compared to the females) in order
to reap reproductive benefits. Male meadow voles with good spatial skills are more likely
to be able to survive and reproduce. It is suggested that such evolutionary pressure led to
greater spatial skills in comparison to female meadow voles and monogamous male pine
voles. This suggestion is based on better performance by male meadow voles on route
and place learning tasks in laboratory tests. Polygamous voles have a significantly larger
relative hippocampus than females of the same species, and no such difference was found
between the pine vole sexes.[21] These findings suggest that when better spatial memory
is more evolutionarily adaptive, as in polygamous species, these organisms may develop
a larger hippocampus, to allow greater spatial memory.

Alternative viewpoints/explanations[edit]
Congruity effect[edit]
In contrast to Nairne's findings of a survival advantage, it has been found that the
superiority of survival processing can be explained by a congruity effect. The congruity
effect means that people tend to be better at remembering items if they are congruent with
the way they are processed.[22] Congruence between the processing task and target
words leads to deeper and more elaborate encoding, which is thought to explain the
survival advantage. Butler and colleagues conducted three experiments to test this view;
the first replicated Nairne's work and confirmed a survival recall advantage. The second
and third experiments controlled for the congruity effect, which was thought to be an
underlying explanation for such a memory advantage. A survival scenario along with a
robbery scenario were used to rate words instead of the original survival, moving or
pleasantness categories. Butler found that, when the materials are controlled for with
respect to congruence between type of processing (survival vs robbery scenario) and
nature of materials (word lists), survival processing does not always produce superior
recall; survival processing did not produce a recall advantage within the congruent
conditions where congruity was controlled for.[22]
False memory illusions and net accuracy[edit]
It has been proposed that survival processing and recall of survival-relevant materials
increases both true and false memory recall. Howe and Derbish suggested that if human
memory does benefit from survival processing, this benefit must include both an increase
in true recollection of information actually present and also a reduced susceptibility to
false memory illusions. Further, Howe and Derbish state, if survival information is more
distinctive and processed at an item-specific contextual level, false memory rates should
be low.[23] To test this, Nairne's survival/pleasantness experiment was modified to
manipulate the type of processing along with the information being processed (eliminated
the possibility of recollection of survival-related material due to arousal or emotionality;
neutral, negative or survival related). It was concluded that participants in the survival
condition had higher rates of false recognition than participants in the pleasantness
condition.[23] Evidence for a survival recall advantage has been found to be
accompanied by higher false recall rates and results in lower rates of net accuracy (ratio
of true recall to recall as a whole).[8][23] The survival recall advantage appears to occur
when only true recall is considered. When total output is taken into account and net
accuracy is calculated, the survival recall advantage disappears.[8]
Basic memory processes[edit]
Basic memory processes have also been examined in terms of their relation to survival
processing, in hopes of explaining the survival recall advantage. Weinstein, Bugg and
Roediger contrasted two basic memory processes: schematicprocessing (the memory
performance is made easier and more efficient with the creation of schemas) and self-
referential processing (elaboration becomes easier when relating the concept to oneself).
Weinstein and colleagues conducted two experiments, the first duplicating Nairne's
findings, and the second comparing the survival advantage to schematic and self-
referential processing. Weinstein's findings verified Nairne's survival advantage and
found it unlikely that the survival advantage can be explained in terms of schematic
processing or self-reference.[9]
Falsified assumptions[edit]
Adaptive memory research depends on different auxiliary assumptions drawn
from evolutionary psychology. One assumption is that memory will be specially tuned to
remember information that is processed in a context similar to the environmental context
where the adaptation took place, i.e., the African savannah or "grasslands of a foreign
land".[1]However, information that was processed for its relevance to an environment
involving zombies was remembered better than information processed under the African
savannah context [24] and the African context condition did not differ from outer space
processing.[25] These experiments present a problem for the assumption of the
importance of the ancestral environment because retention was better for information
processed under a non-African savannah context, something not predicted by the theory
of adaptive memory. A second assumption of adaptive memory research is that memory
evolved because it was beneficial for survival, thus, based on a functional approach,
memory should be more sensitive and retention better for information that is processed
for its fitness-relevance.[4] The assumption of fitness-relevance has been experimentally
evaluated using a number of specific evolutionarily relevant scenarios designed to tap
different adaptive mechanisms (or psychological adaptations),[26] for example, a mating
mechanism, fear and phobia mechanism, cheater detection mechanism, etc. When words
were processed with respect to these different adaptive mechanisms, there was not a
processing benefit for these scenarios.[27] This finding suggests that fitness-relevance is
too amorphous of a construct to explain the mnemonic benefit found with survival
processing [28] and Sandry et al. suggest that research efforts should be directed at
identifying the underlying mechanisms and developing a taxonomy of adaptive memory,
[27] similar to evolutionary biology.

Future research[edit]
As the concept of adaptive memory is a relatively recent development in memory
research, there is still much research to be done in this field. One important consideration
for further research in this field is adopting of a functional perspective of memory,
leading to the important goal of further empirical findings and the refinement of those
results obtained thus far.[4][6]Another important research goal is identifying the precise
conditions under which the survival advantage is in effect and those under which it is not.
[8] A third critical research focus is determining the specific functional mechanism or
mechanisms responsible for this effect.[5] Future research should be conducted with a
wide variety of items such as pictures, categorized lists, and content specific materials
(for example, those related to food, reproduction, predators and other survival-relevant
domains).[22][27] Finally, neuroimaging research has yet to be done to address any
neurological activity that may be different in adaptive memory processing compared to
normal conditions. Further research into adaptive memory would be very helpful in
understanding more about how exactly the brain works in a survival situation.
Collective memory
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Collective memory is the shared pool of knowledge and information in the memories of
two or more members of a social group. The English phrase "collective memory" and the
equivalent French phrase "la mémoire collective" appeared in the second half of the
nineteenth century. The philosopher and sociologist Maurice Halbwachs analyzed and
advanced the concept of the collective memory in the book La mémoire collective (1950).
Collective memory can be shared, passed on, and constructed, by large and small social
groups. Examples of these groups could include a government or popular culture, among
others.[1] Collective memory parallels the memory of a person who is better at recalling
images than words; but also exhibits key differences and features, such as cross-cueing.

Contents
  1Performance

 1.1Memory
 1.2Information gathering

 2Features
 3Memorialization
 4Relationship to music and film
 5In mass media
 6See also
 7References
 8Further reading

 8.1General studies
 8.2Case studies
 8.3Handbooks
 8.4Computational approaches
 8.5Psychological approaches

 9External links

Performance[edit]
Memory[edit]
Groups remember more than individuals, as groups are able to draw on the knowledge
and experience (memories) of all individuals present. An example of this is an article
written by Norman Brown that incorporated a few experiments testing individual
inaccuracies. The first experiment had 15 subjects estimate the month and year of 36
random events some political and non-political. The events ranged from January 1976 to
May 1983. They were instructed to think out loud and would be prompted if they fell
silent for more than a couple of seconds. One prediction made during the experiment was
that participants would frequently justify their responses with reference to one or more
auxiliary facts. This experiment yielded that only accurate responses concerning the
correct month and year happened 8% of the time. Most of the participants (78%) used
auxiliary facts to date events.
The second experiment used 40 different events 20 being political and 20 being non-
political. The 24 four year undergraduates from the University of Chicago were asked to
tell if the event happened during the Carter or Reagan presidency. Then they were asked
if the event happened while they were in high school or college. As a side experiment
participants were given a reward for answering each question correctly in less than 10
seconds. This trial was done twice for each person. Obviously the second time answers
were more accurate and faster. Participants as a whole were able to answer political
events faster when deciding which president was in office and were able to answer non-
political events faster with high school or college.
The third experiment consisted of participants using free-association and a knowledge-
assessment phase. The 30 students were asked to write down the first current event they
could think of related to the shown high-knowledge political event, low-knowledge
political event, high-knowledge non-political event, and the low-knowledge non-political
event. High-knowledge events had higher same narrative responses (44%) from the
participants.[2] Another example would be members of a group planning a tactical strike
against another country are likely to come to a better decision when they work together,
rather than alone. One member may be knowledgeable about the terrain and morale of the
troops in the country where the strike is planned, while another may be knowledgeable
about the home country's weaponry, and another may be knowledgeable about the home
country's military morale.
Akin to this example, when students are permitted to take examinations as a group, they
usually outperform individuals, as each member of the group is knowledgeable in
different areas.[3]
Information gathering[edit]
Groups are also able to acquire more information than individuals. As individuals often
have widely differing experiences, backgrounds, personalities, etc., each can acquire a
unique set of information that can be contributed to a group discussion.[4]

Features[edit]
Free-riding and Social loafing. Group members do not remember as much as they have
the capacity to remember, as group members engage in free-riding and social loafing.
When group members realize – be it implicitly or explicitly – that others will aid in the
recall of information, they will put less effort into processing and storing the information.
In some situations, these inadequacies in collective memory may be so great that groups
are unable to recall previously-made decisions without the aid of a written record (group
minutes).
Collaborative Inhibition When groups collaborate to share information, they experience
collaborative inhibition, a decrease in performance compared to the memory performance
of individuals. Basden, Basden, Bryner, and Thomas (1997) provided evidence that
retrieval interference underlies collaborative inhibition, as hearing other members'
thoughts and discussion about the topic at hand interferes with one's own organization of
thoughts and impairs memory. Additionally, motivational mechanisms may also account
for this memory deficit in groups due to social loafing. Explanations for this include:

1. Personal accountability is diminished, as individual contributions are less

recognizable in a group.
2. There is a perceived dispensability of effort – individuals believe that their
contribution will not make a difference in the end.
3. Individuals may try to create an equity of effort, in that they will try to match the
effort exerted by other group members. By nature this output is low, however, as
each member must wait for everyone to take their turn.
4. Diffusion of responsibility: individuals think they are less accountable for group
behaviour versus their own behaviour.
However, it has been found that collective inhibition may be due to sources other than
social loafing, as offering a monetary incentive have been evidenced to fail to produce an
increase in memory for groups.[5] Further evidence from this study suggest something
other than social loafing is at work, as reducing evaluation apprehension – the focus on
one's performance amongst other people – assisted in individuals' memories but did not
produce a gain in memory for groups. Personal accountability – drawing attention to
one's own performance and contribution in a group – also did not reduce collaborative
inhibition. Therefore, group members' motivation to overcome the interference of group
recall cannot be achieved by several motivational factors.
Despite the problem of collaborative inhibition, working in groups may benefit an
individual's memory in the long run, as group discussion exposes one to many different
ideas over time. Working alone initially prior to collaboration seems to be the optimal
way to increase memory.
Cross-cueing Information exchange among group members often helps individuals to
remember things that they would not have remembered had they been working alone. In
other words, the information provided by Person A may 'cue' memories in Person B. This
phenomenon results in enhanced recall.
Synchronization of memories (from dyads to networks). Bottom-up approaches to the
formation of collective memories investigate how cognitive-level phenomena allow for
people to synchronize their memories following conversational remembering. Due to the
malleability of human memory, talking with one another about the past results in memory
changes that increase the similarity between the interactional partners'
memories [6] When these dyadic interactions occur in a social network, one can
understand how large communities converge on a similar memory of the past.[7]

Memorialization[edit]
The collective memory of a nation is represented in part by the memorials it chooses to
erect. Public memory is enshrined in memorials from the Holocaust memorial in Berlin to
the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington DC. Whatever a nation chooses to
memorialize in physical monument, or perhaps more significantly, what not to
memorialize, is an indicator of the collective memory.
Collective memory is also sustained through a continuous production of representational
forms. In the media age – and maybe particularly during the last decade of
increasing digitization – this generates a flow of, and production of, second hand
memories (see James E. Young below). Particular narratives and images are reproduced
and reframed, yet also questioned and contested through new images and so forth.
Collective memory today differs much from the collective memories of an oral culture,
where no printing technique or transportation contributed to the production of imagined
communities (see Imagined Communities) where we come to share a sense of heritage
and commonality with many human beings we have never met – as in the manner a
citizen may feel a sort of 'kinship' with people of his nation, region or city.
The concept of collective memory, initially developed by Halbwachs, has been explored
and expanded from various angles – a few of these are introduced below.
James E. Young has introduced the notion of 'collected memory' (opposed to collective
memory), marking memory's inherently fragmented, collected and individual character,
while Jan Assmann[8] develops the notion of 'communicative memory', a variety of
collective memory based on everyday communication. This form of memory is similar to
the exchanges in an oral culture or the memories collected (and made collective) through
oral history. As another subform of collective memories Assmann mentions forms
detached from the everyday, it can be particular materialized and fixed points as, e.g.
texts and monuments.
The theory of collective memory was also discussed by former Hiroshima resident and
atomic bomb survivor, Kiyoshi Tanimoto, in his tour of the United States as an attempt to
rally support and funding for the reconstruction of his Memorial Methodist Church in
Hiroshima. He theorized that the use of the atomic bomb had forever been added to the
world's collective memory and would serve in the future as a warning against such
devices. See John Hersey's Hiroshima novel.
The idea was also discussed more recently in The Celestine Prophecy and subsequent
novels written by James Redfieldas a continuing process leading to the eventual
transcendence of this plane of existence. The idea that a futuristic development of
the collective unconscious and collective memories of society allowing for a medium
with which one can transcend ones existence is an idea expressed in certain variations
of new age religions.

Relationship to music and film[edit]

This notion of collective memory overflows into the music and film world. Certain
references and songs have permeated through culture and invoke certain reactions in a
wide social group. This makes it easy to make references to these scenes and songs,
knowing that a large audience will recognize and understand them without further
explanation. Soundtrackshave been instrumental to cinema and television as a subtler
form of expression and identity.
Music, and more specifically soundtracks, can be utilized as an outlet for hope,
possibility and resistance for everyday people. In Time Passages, George Lipsitz
acknowledged that “dominant ideology triumphed on television in the 1950s, just as it did
in political and social life” (Lipsitz, 67). [9] However, recently movies and television
shows like Insecure, Super Fly, Waiting to Exhale, and more, have been able to
incorporate music to spread “other” culture and foster a community feel. The music not
only grounds itself in time but also helps personify the complex characters. The
combination of new and classic songs helps promote these ideals.
Sharing music and exchanging songs and in turn facilitating a collective memory also
connects a person to their larger community. In "Record and Hold," Jose Van Dijck
looked at how this “Shared listening, exchanging songs, and talking about music create a
sense of belonging, and connect a person’s sense of self to a larger community and
generation” (Van Dijck, 357).[10] The same song can elicit different memories and
emotions from different people – but they remain a sign of their time and location.
Collective memory highlights the power of television and popular culture to influence
politics and offer a glimpse into other people’s social realities. The music incorporated in
popular television and film culture can also play a role in young people’s development of
their identities. Van Dijck wrote, “Recorded music also has a formative function: young
people in particular construct their identities while figuring out their musical taste” (Van
Dijck 359). Television and movies can have just as big of an impact on cultural identities
as any history book.

In mass media[edit]
The examples and perspective in this section deal primarily with the
United States and do not represent a worldwide view of the
subject. You may improve this article, discuss the issue on the talk
page, or create a new article, as appropriate. (December 2010) (Learn
how and when to remove this template message)

The arrival of film created many images, film scenes, news scenes, photographs, quotes,
and songs, which became very familiar to regular moviegoers and remained in their
collective memory. Images of particular movie stars became part of collective memory.
During cinema visits, people could watch newsreels of news stories from around the
world. For the first time in history a mass audience was able to view certain stories,
events, and scenes, all at the same time. They could all view how for instance
the Hindenburg disaster was caught on camera and see and remember these scenes all at
once.
When television became a global mass entertainment medium in the 1950s and 1960s the
collective memory of former cinema visitors increased when various films could be
repeated endlessly and worldwide on television broadcasts.[citation needed] For example,
old films like The Wizard of Oz, King Kong and cartoons like the Looney Tunes and Tom
and Jerry have been shown internationally and remained on television,
through syndication. Hereby particular film scenes have become well-known, even to
people who had not seen these films on their original cinematic release. The same applies
for television shows like I Love Lucy which have been repeated so often over the decades
that certain episodes and scenes have become ingrained in the public's collective memory.
When newsreels in the cinema gradually made place for television news broadcasting, it
became a habit for mass audiences to watch the daily news on television. Worldwide this
led to a new kind of collective memory where various news events could be shown much
quicker than with the cinema News Reels. Therefore, certain filmed news stories could be
shown on the same day they happened and even live during the broadcast itself. Millions
of people have viewed the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963, the landing
of Apollo 11 in 1969, the Wedding of Prince Charles and Princess Diana (1981), the
death of Princess Diana, and the September 11 attacks on their television. In fact, certain
questions like "What were you doing when.... happened?", usually referring to a large,
heavily mediatized event, have become a very important question in the history of the
development of the collective memory.
Many people can remember what they were doing when certain internationally big media
events occurred and these type of questions are usually used as a sort of milestone in
individual people's life. For example, "What were you doing when you heard that John
Lennon was shot?". Due to television repeats, these moments could be relived even long
after the actual event happened. The introduction of video stores and video recorders in
the 1980s, the internet in the 1990s and the DVD player and YouTube in the 2000s even
increased the opportunity to view and check out famous and infamous movie and TV
scenes.
Thanks to all these innovations certain scenes have become part of audiences' collective
memory. This makes it easy for journalists, comedians, advertisers, politicians, etc. to
make references to these scenes, knowing that a large audience will recognise and
understand them without further explanation. For example, when president Ronald
Reagan concluded a speech on March 13, 1985 against the increase of taxes he
said "Make my day". Most people in the audience and TV viewers understood the
reference to the Clint Eastwood film Sudden Impact and laughed and cheered as a
consequence of that. The dance moves from Michael Jackson's music video for
"Thriller" have been repeatedly shown on TV so much that they are instantly
recognizable and therefore imitated frequently for comedic effect in films, TV shows,
commercials, etc.
Whenever a comedy show or film features a scene where someone is killed or threatened
in a shower, most people understand it as a parody of Psycho. Various cartoons
from Bugs Bunny to Shrek have spoofed famous fairy tales, knowing that everybody is
familiar with the original stories and will immediately laugh at every deviation. The roar
of movie monster Godzilla and Johnny Weissmuller's Tarzan yell have become instantly
recognizable and easy to put into a context, even without the images.
Numerous TV shows and films such as The Simpsons, Family Guy, Scary Movie,
the Shrek films, and the films of Mel Brooks, have referenced, parodied, imitated and
recreated these famous scenes, often to the point of overkill. Certain observers,
like Kenneth Tynan in a quote from his diaries from October 19, 1975 have noted that
due to the heavy rotation and repeats of all these famous film scenes, often even without
their original context, they have become part of the cultural consciousness. He
wrote: "Nobody took into account the tremendous impact that would be made by the fact
that films are permanent and easily accessible from childhood onward. As the sheer
number of films piles up, their influence will increase, until we have a civilization entirely
molded by cinematic values and behavior patterns." (Quoted from Tynan, Kenneth, The
Diaries of Kenneth Tynan, Bloomsbury, 2001, page 66).
The influence of television scenes on collective memory has been noticeable with
children who are able to quote lines and songs from commercials, films and television
shows they have watched regularly. Some young children who have watched a large
amount of television have been known to react in an unnatural way to certain situations,
comparable with overacting, because they recreate scenes they remember seeing in
similar situations on television. There have been cases reported of people who've
compared their own life too much with the romanticized, idealized life depicted in films
and television series. They try to recreate the happy families and perfect love
relationships they remember seeing on television or in movies.
Not all scenes that were once collective memory are remembered as well today. Certain
shows, commercials and films that were popular in one decade are shown less frequently
on television in the next. Thus, certain scenes do not rest in the collective memory of the
next generation. Many references in old Bugs Bunny cartoons to Hollywood stars and
radio shows who were famous in the 1940s, are almost obscure to modern viewers. On
the other hand, certain scenes have remained in the collective memory, due to being
constantly repeated in other media and are well known even for those unfamiliar with the
original. For example, even people who never saw the film King Kong know that there is
a scene in which the large ape climbs the Empire State Building with a human girl in his
hand. This could be a negative side effect of the multi-referential nature films and
television shows.
Younger audiences, unfamiliar with the original subject being referenced in a
contemporary film or TV series, do not recognize the reference and assume that, for
instance a Twilight Zone plot reference in The Simpsons has been thought up by the
creators of The Simpsons instead of the other way around. In some cases, references or
parodies of older movies in contemporary films and TV shows are almost comparable
to plagiarism since they just mimic or imitate a famous scene frame-by-frame instead of
adding a funny new element.
In a more general and global perspective, the work of Jeffrey Andrew Barash emphasizes
the ways in which the mass media select, articulate and transmit reported events and thus
endow them with public significance. Mass media representation of communicated events
configures them in accord with spatio-temporal patterns and a logic that are not simple
replicas of the order of everyday experience, since disseminated information is charged
with an autonomous symbolic sense through which public awareness is channeled and
sedimented in collective memory. This autonomous symbolic sense draws its potency
from an uncanny ability to simulate direct experience while dissimulating the gap which
separates it from the immediate life world in which it originates. The potency of the mass
media format appears in a particularly clear light in examples such as the televised
Romanian revolution, media representation of the Balkan wars, and the mediatized O. J.
Simpson trial in the United States[11

False memory
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to navigationJump to search
A false memory is a psychological phenomenon where a person recalls something that
did not happen. There is a growing body of evidence that false memories are created
whenever memories are recalled.[1][2][3][4]
False memory is often considered for trauma victims[5] including those of childhood
sexual abuse.[6][7][8][9] This phenomenon was initially investigated by psychological
pioneers Pierre Janet and Sigmund Freud. Freud wrote The Aetiology of Hysteria, where
he discussed repressed memories of childhood sexual trauma in their relation to hysteria.
[10]Elizabeth Loftus has, since her debuting research project in 1974,[11] been a lead
researcher in memory recovery and false memories.
False memory syndrome recognizes false memory as a prevalent part of one's life in
which it affects the person's mentality and day-to-day life. False memory syndrome
differs from false memory in that the syndrome is heavily influential in the orientation of
a person's life, while false memory can occur without this significant effect. The
syndrome takes effect because the person believes the influential memory to be true.
[12] However, its research is controversial and the syndrome is excluded from
identification as a mental disorder and, therefore, is also excluded from the Diagnostic
and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. False memory is an important part of
psychological research because of the ties it has to a large number of mental disorders,
such as PTSD.[13]

Contents
 1Manipulation of memory recall through language

 1.1Article adjustment on eyewitness report

 1.2Adjective implications on eyewitness report
 1.3Word lists
 1.4Staged naturalistic events
 1.5Response to meta-analysis

 2Reliability of memory recall

 2.1Presuppositions
 2.2Construction hypothesis
 2.3Skeleton theory
 2.4Relational processing

 3Therapy-induced memory recovery

 3.1Recovery strategies
 3.2Legal cases

 4In children
 5Commonly held false memories
 6See also
 7Notes
 8References
 9Further reading

Manipulation of memory recall through

language[edit]
In 1974, Elizabeth Loftus and John Palmer conducted a study to investigate the effects of
language on the development of false memory. The experiment involved two separate
studies.
In the first test, 45 participants were randomly assigned to watch different videos of a car
accident, in which separate videos had shown collisions at 20 miles per hour, 30 miles per
hour, and 40 miles per hour. Afterwards, participants filled out a survey. The survey asked
the question, "About how fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other?"
The question always asked the same thing, except the verb used to describe the collision
varied. Rather than "smashed", other verbs used included "bumped", "collided", "hit", or
"contacted". Participants estimated collisions of all speeds to average between 35 miles
per hour to just below 40 miles per hour. If actual speed were the main factor in estimate,
it could be assumed that participants would have lower estimates for lower speed
collisions. Instead, the word being used to describe the collision seemed to better predict
the estimate in speed rather than the speed itself.[11]
The second experiment also showed participants videos of a car accident, but the critical
thing was the verbiage of the follow-up questionnaire. 150 participants were randomly
assigned to three conditions. Those in the first condition were asked the same question as
the first study using the verb "smashed". The second group was asked the same question
as the first study, replacing "smashed" with "hit". The final group was not asked about the
speed of the crashed cars. The researchers then asked the participants if they had seen any
broken glass, knowing that there was no broken glass in the video. The responses to this
question had shown that the difference between whether broken glass was recalled or not
heavily depended on the verb used. A larger sum of participants in the "smashed" group
declared that there was broken glass.
In this study, the first point brought up in discussion is that the words used to phrase a
question can heavily influence the response given.[11] Second, the study indicates that
the phrasing of a question can give expectations to previously ignored details, and
therefore, a misconstruction of our memory recall. This indication supports false memory
as an existing phenomenon.
Article adjustment on eyewitness report[edit]
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ﾧ
Loftus' meta-analysis on language manipulation studies suggested the phenomenon
effects taking hold on the recall process and products of the human memory. Even the
smallest adjustment in a question, such as the article preceding the supposed memory,
could alter the responses. For example, having asked someone if they'd seen "the" stop
sign, rather than "a" stop sign, provided the respondent with a presupposition that there
was a stop sign in the scene. This presupposition increased the number of people
responding that they had indeed seen the stop sign.
Adjective implications on eyewitness report[edit]
Select adjectives can imply characteristics about an object. Including said adjectives in a
prompt can alter participant responses. Harris' 1973[citation needed] study looks at the
differences in answers on the height of a basketball player. Respondents were randomly
assigned to have either answered to, "How tall was the basketball player?" or "How short
was the basketball player?" Rather than asking participants simply for the height of the
basketball player, they used adjectives that had an implication for the numerical results.
The difference in height averages that were predicted was 10 inches (250 mm). The
adjective provided in a sentence can cause a respondent to exaggerate.
Word lists[edit]
One can trigger false memories by presenting subjects a continuous list of words. When
subjects were presented with a second type of the list and asked if the words had
appeared on the previous list, they find that the subjects did not recognize the list
correctly. When the words on the two lists were semantically related to each other (e.g.
sleep/bed), it was more likely that the subjects did not remember the first list correctly
and created false memories (Anisfeld & Knapp).[14]
Staged naturalistic events[edit]
Subjects were invited in an office and were told to wait there. After this they had to recall
the inventory of the visited office. Subjects recognized objects consistent with the “office
schema” although they did not appear in the office. (Brewer & Treyens, 1981)[14]
Response to meta-analysis[edit]
It has been argued[by whom?] that Loftus and Palmer did not control for outside factors
coming from individual participants, such as participants' emotions or alcohol intake,
along with many other factors. Despite criticisms such as this, this particular study is
extremely relevant to legal cases regarding false memory. The Loftus and Palmer
automobile study allowed for the Devlin Committee to create the Devlin Report, which
suggested that eyewitness testimony is not reliable standing on its own.

Reliability of memory recall[edit]

Presuppositions[edit]
Presuppositions are an implication through chosen language. If a person is asked, "What
shade of blue was the wallet?" The questioner is, in translation, saying, "The wallet was
blue. What shade was it?" The question's phrasing provides the respondent with a
supposed "fact". This presupposition provides two separate effects: true effect and false
effect.
True effect says that the object implied to have existed does exist. With that, the
respondent's recall is strengthened, more readily available, and easier to extrapolate from.
In true effect, presuppositions make a detail more readily recalled. For example, it would
be less likely that a respondent would remember a wallet was blue if the prompt did not
say that it was blue. False effect is that the object implied to have existed never was
present. Despite this, the respondent is convinced otherwise and allows it to manipulate
their memory. It can also alter responses to later questions to keep consistency.
Regardless of the effect being true or false, the respondent is attempting to conform to the
supplied information, because they assume it to be true.[citation needed]
Construction hypothesis[edit]
Construction hypothesis has major implications for explanations on the malleability of
memory. Upon asking a respondent a question that provides a presupposition, the
respondent will provide a recall in accordance with the presupposition (if accepted to
exist in the first place). The respondent will recall the object or detail. The construction
hypothesis says that if a true piece of information being provided can alter a respondent's
answer, then so can a false piece of information.[15]
Skeleton theory[edit]
Loftus developed the skeleton theory after having run an experiment involving 150
subjects from the University of Washington.[citation needed][16] The skeleton theory
explains the idea of how a memory is recalled, which is split into two categories: the
acquisition processes and the retrieval processes.
The acquisition processes are in three separate steps. First, upon the original encounter,
the observer selects a stimulus to focus on. The information that the observer can focus
on compared to the information in the situation is very small. In other words, a lot is
going on around us and we only pick up on a small portion. Therefore, the observer must
make a selection on the focal point. Second, our visual perception must be translated into
statements and descriptions. The statements represent a collection of concepts and
objects; they are the link between the event occurrence and the recall. Third, the
perceptions are subject to any "external" information being provided before or after the
interpretation. This subsequent set of information can alter recall.
The retrieval processes come in two steps. First, the memory and imagery is regenerated.
This perception is subject to what foci the observer has selected, along with the
information provided before or after the observation. Second, the linking is initiated by a
statement response, "painting a picture" to make sense of what was observed. This
retrieval process results in either an accurate memory or a false memory.
Relational processing[edit]
Memory retrieval has been associated with the brain's relational processing. In
associating two events (in reference to false memory, say tying a testimony to a prior
event), there are verbatim and gist representations. Verbatim matches to the individual
occurrences (i.e. I do not like dogs because when I was five a chihuahua bit me) and gist
matches to general inferences (i.e. I do not like dogs because they are mean). Keeping in
line with the fuzzy-trace theory, which suggests false memories are stored in gist
representations (which retrieves both true and false recall), Storbeck & Clore (2005)
wanted to see how change in mood affected the retrieval of false memories. After using
the measure of a word association tool called the Deese–Roediger–McDermott paradigm,
the subjects' moods were manipulated. Moods were either oriented towards being more
positive, more negative, or were left unmanipulated. Findings suggested that a more
negative mood made critical details, stored in gist representation, less accessible.
[17] This would imply that false memories are less likely to occur when a subject was in
a worse mood.
Therapy-induced memory recovery[edit]
Recovery strategies[edit]
Memories recovered through therapy have become more difficult to distinguish between
simply being repressed or having existed in the first place. Therapists have used strategies
such as hypnotherapy, repeated questioning, and bibliotherapy. These strategies may
provoke the recovery of nonexistent events or inaccurate memories.[8][18][19][20] A
recent report indicates that similar strategies may have produced false memories in
several therapies in the century before the modern controversy on the topic which took
place in the 1980s and 1990s.[21] In The Myth of Repressed Memory: False memories
and allegations of Sexual Abuse, Elizabeth Loftus writes about how easy it is for her as a
therapist to mold people's memories, or prompt them to recall a nonexistent broken glass.
[22]
For her there are different possibilities to create false therapy-induced memory. One is the
unintentional suggestions of therapists. For example, a therapist might tell their client
that, on the basis of their symptoms, it is quite likely that they had been abused as a child.
Once this "diagnosis" is made, the therapist sometimes urges the patient to pursue the
recalcitrant memories. It is a problem resulting from the fact that people create their own
social reality with external information.[23]
Laurence and Perry conducted a study testing the ability to induce memory recall through
hypnosis. Subjects were put into a hypnotic state and later woken up. Observers
suggested that the subjects were woken up by a loud noise. Nearly half of the subjects
being tested concluded that this was true, despite it being false. Although, by
therapeutically altering the subject's state, they may have been led to believe that what
they were being told was true.[24] Because of this, the respondent has a false recall.
A 1989 study focusing on hypnotizability and false memory separated accurate and
inaccurate memories recalled. In open-ended question formation, 11.5% of subjects
recalled the false event suggested by observers. In a multiple-choice format, no
participants claimed the false event had happened. This result led to the conclusion that
hypnotic suggestions produce shifts in focus, awareness, and attention. Despite this,
subjects do not mix fantasy up with reality.[10]
Therapy-induced memory recovery is a prevalent subcategory of memory recall
prompting discussion of false memory syndrome. This phenomenon is loosely defined,
and not a part of the DSM. However, the syndrome suggests that false memory can be
declared a syndrome when recall of a false or inaccurate memory takes great effect on
your life. This false memory can completely alter the orientation of your personality and
lifestyle.[10]
The "lost-in-the-mall" technique is another recovery strategy. This is essentially a
repeated suggestion pattern. The person whose memory is to be recovered is persistently
said to have gone through an experience even if it may have not happened. This strategy
can cause the person to recall the event as having occurred, despite its falsehood.[25]
Legal cases[edit]
Therapy-induced memory recovery has made frequent appearances in legal cases,
particularly those regarding sexual abuse.[citation needed] Therapists can often aid in
creating a false memory in a victim's mind, intentionally or unintentionally. They will
associate a patient's behavior with the fact that they have been a victim of sexual abuse,
thus helping the memory occur. They use memory enhancement techniques such as
hypnosis dream analysis to extract memories of sexual abuse from victims. According to
the FMSF (False Memory Syndrome Foundation), these memories are false and are
produced in the very act of searching for and employing them in a life narrative.
In Ramona v. Isabella,[citation needed] two therapists wrongly prompted a recall that
their patient, Holly Ramona, had been sexually abused by her father. It was suggested that
the therapist, Isabella, had implanted the memory in Ramona after use of the hypnotic
drug sodium amytal. After a nearly unanimous decision, Isabella had been
declared negligent towards Holly Ramona. This 1994 legal issue played a massive role in
shedding light on the possibility of false memories' occurrences.
In another legal case where false memories were used, they helped a man to be acquitted
of his charges. Joseph Pacely had been accused of breaking into a woman's home with the
intent to sexually assault her. The woman had given her description of the assailant to
police shortly after the crime had happened. During the trial, memory researcher
Elizabeth Loftus testified that memory is fallible and there were many emotions that
played a part in the woman's description given to police. Loftus has published many
studies consistent with her testimony.[15][26][27] These studies suggest that memories
can easily be changed around and sometimes eyewitness testimonies are not as reliable as
many believe.
Another notable case of Maxine Berry, Maxine grew up in the custody of her mother,
who opposed the father having contact with her (Berry & Berry, 2001). When the father
expressed his desire to attend his daughter's high school graduation, the mother enrolled
Maxine in therapy, ostensibly to deal with the stress of seeing her father. The therapist
pressed Maxine to recover memories of sex abuse by her father. Maxine broke down
under the pressure and had to be psychiatrically hospitalized. She had her tubes tied, so
she would not have children and repeat the cycle of abuse. With the support of her
husband and primary care physician, Maxine eventually realized that her memories were
false and filed a suit for malpractice. The suit brought to light the mother's manipulation
of mental health professionals to convince Maxine that she had been sexually abused by
her father. In February 1997 Jennifer Gerrietts, Argus Leader, South Dakota Maxine
Berry, sued her therapists and clinic that treated her from 1992-1995 and, she says, made
her falsely believe she had been sexually and physically abused as a child when no such
abuse ever occurred. The lawsuit, filed in February 1997 in Minnehaha Co. Circuit Court
South Dakota, states that therapist Lynda O'Connor-Davis had an improper relationship
with Berry, both during and after her treatment. The suit also names psychologist Vail
Williams, psychiatrist Dr. William Fuller and Charter Hospital and Charter Counseling
Center as defendants. Berry and her husband settled out of court for an undisclosed
amount of money.[citation needed]
Although there have been many legal cases in which false memory appears to have been
a factor, this does not ease the process of distinguishing between false memory and real
recall. Sound therapeutic strategy can help this differentiation, by either avoiding known
controversial strategies or to disclosing controversy to a subject.[8][10][28] In each case,
the recovered memory therapy was declared inadmissible and not scientifically sound.
The fact that recovered memories cannot necessarily distinguish between true and false
meant the quality of evidence was weakened and the cases concluded against the
therapists. The objection to therapeutic recovery techniques has been argued by
comparing the ethics of memory elimination techniques such as electroconvulsive
therapy.[20]
Harold Merskey published a paper on the ethical issues of recovered-memory therapy.
[28] He suggests that if a patient had pre-existing severe issues in their life, it is likely
that "deterioration" will occur to a relatively severe extent upon memory recall. This
deterioration is a physical parallel to the emotional trauma being surfaced. There may be
tears, writhing, or many other forms of physical disturbance. The occurrence of physical
deterioration in memory recall coming from a patient with relatively minor issues prior to
therapy could be an indication of the recalled memory's potential falsehood.[28]

In children[edit]
If a child experienced abuse, it is not typical for them to disclose the details of the event
when confronted in an open-ended manner.[29] Trying to indirectly prompt a memory
recall can lead to the conflict of source attribution, as if repeatedly questioned the child
might try to recall a memory to satisfy a question. The stress being put on the child can
make recovering an accurate memory more difficult.[6] Some people hypothesise that as
the child continuously attempts to remember a memory, they are building a larger file of
sources that the memory could be derived from, potentially including sources other than
genuine memories. Children that have never been abused but undergo similar response-
eliciting techniques can disclose events that never occurred.[29] If one concludes that the
child's recalled memory is false, it is a type I error. Assuming the child did not recall an
existing memory, it is a type II error.
One of children's most notable setbacks in memory recall is source misattribution. Source
misattribution is the flaw in deciphering between potential origins of a memory. The
source could come from an actual occurring perception, or it can come from an induced
and imagined event. Younger children, preschoolers in particular, find it more difficult to
discriminate between the two.[30] Lindsay & Johnson (1987) concluded that even
children approaching adolescence struggle with this, as well as recalling an existent
memory as a witness. Children are significantly more likely to confuse a source between
being invented or existent.[31]

Commonly held false memories[edit]

 The Bologna station clock, subject of a collective false memory

Similar false memories are sometimes shared by multiple people.[32][33] One such false
memory is that the name of the Berenstain Bears was once spelled Berenstein.[34]
[35] Another example consists of false memories of a 1990s movie
titled Shazaam starring comedian Sinbad as a genie, which may be a conflation of
memories of the comedian wearing a genie costume during a TV presentation of Sinbad
the Sailor movies in 1994,[32][36] and a similarly named 1996 film Kazaamfeaturing a
genie played by Shaquille O'Neal.[32]
A 2010 study examined people who were familiar with the clock at Bologna Centrale
railway station, which had been damaged in the Bologna massacrebombing in August
1980. In the study, 92% falsely remembered that the clock had remained stopped since
the bombing; in fact, the clock was repaired shortly after the attack but was again stopped
16 years later as a symbolic commemoration of it.[33]
In 2010 the phenomenon of collective false memory was dubbed the "Mandela effect" by
self-described "paranormal consultant" Fiona Broome, in reference to a false memory she
reports of the death of South African leader Nelson Mandelain the 1980s (when he was in
fact still alive), which she claims is shared by "perhaps thousands" of other people.[37]
[38][39][40] Broome has speculated about alternate realities as an explanation, but most
commentators suggest that these are instead examples of false memories shaped by
similar factors affecting multiple people,[41][42][32][43][35][44][45]such as social
reinforcement of incorrect memories,[46][47] or false news reports and misleading
photographs influencing the formation of memories based on them.[48][47]

See also[edit]
 False memory syndrome, a condition in which a person's identity and
relationships are affected by strongly believed but false memories of traumatic
experiences.
 Source-monitoring error, an effect in which memories are incorrectly attributed to
different experiences than the ones that caused them.
 Misinformation effect, false memories caused by exposure to misleading
information presented between the encoding of an event and its subsequent recall.
 Confabulation, the production of fabricated, distorted, or misinterpreted memories
without the conscious intention to deceive.
 Repressed memory, the idea that traumatic memories can be repressed and also
potentially brought back through therapy.
 Jamais vu, the feeling of unfamiliarity with recognised memories.
 Cryptomnesia, a memory that is not recognised as such.

Intermediate-term memory
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Intermediate-term memory (ITM) is a stage of memory distinct from sensory
memory, working memory/short-term memory, and long-term memory.[1][2] While
sensory memory persists for several milliseconds, working memory persists for up to
thirty seconds, and long-term memory persists from thirty minutes to the end of an
individual's life, intermediate-term memory persists for about two to three hours.[3] This
overlap in the durations of these memory processes indicates that they occur
simultaneously, rather than sequentially. Indeed, intermediate-term facilitation can be
produced in the absence of long-term facilitation.[4] However, the boundaries between
these forms of memory are not clear-cut, and they can vary depending on the task.
[5] Intermediate-term memory is thought to be supported by the parahippocampal cortex.
[6]
In 1993, Rosenzweig and colleagues demonstrated that, in rats conditioned with an
aversive stimulus, percent avoidance of the stimulus (and, by implication, memory of the
aversive nature of the stimulus) reached relative minima at one minute, fifteen minutes,
and sixty minutes.[7] These dips were theorized to correspond to the time points in which
the rats switched from working memory to intermediate-term memory, from
intermediate-term memory to the early phase of long-term memory, and from the early
phase of long-term memory to the late phase of long-term memory, respectively—thus
demonstrating the presence of a form of memory that exists between working memory
and long-term memory, which they referred to as "intermediate-term memory".
Though the idea of intermediate-term memory has existed since the 1990s, Sutton et
al. introduced a novel theory for the neural correlates underlying intermediate-term
memory in Aplysia in 2001, where they described it as the primary behavioral
manifestation of intermediate-term facilitation.[8]

Contents
 1Characteristics
 2Mechanism

 2.1Induction

 3Comparison with short-term/working memory

 4Comparison with long-term memory
 5References

Characteristics[edit]
In 2001, Sutton and colleagues proposed that intermediate-term memory possesses the
following three characteristics:

 Its induction requires translation, but not transcription[8][9]

 Its expression requires the persistent activation of protein kinase A[8] and protein
kinase C[10]
 It declines completely before the onset of long-term memory[8]
Mechanism[edit]
Induction[edit]
Because intermediate-term memory does not involve transcription, it likely involves the
translation of mRNA transcripts already present in neurons.[3][11][12][13][14][15][16]
[17][18][19][20][21]

Comparison with short-term/working memory[edit]

Main article: Working memory
Unlike short-term memory and working memory, intermediate-term memory requires
changes in translation to occur in order to function.

Comparison with long-term memory[edit]

Main article: Long-term memory
While ITM requires only changes in translation, induction of long-term memory requires
changes in transcription as well.[22]The change from short-term memory to long-term
memory is thought to dependent on CREB, which regulates transcription, but because
ITM does not involve a change in transcription, it is thought to be independent of CREB
activity.[3] According to the definition of ITM proposed by Sutton et al. in 2001, it
disappears completely before long-term memory is induced.[

Method of loci
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This article is about the memorization technique. For other uses, see Locus.
"Memory palace" redirects here. For the podcast, see The Memory Palace.

Cicero discussed the method

of loci in his De Oratore.

The method of loci (loci being

Latin for "places") is a method of memory enhancement which uses visualizations with
the use of spatial memory, familiar information about one's environment, to quickly and
efficiently recall information. The method of loci is also known as the memory
journey, memory palace, or mind palace technique. This method is a mnemonic device
adopted in ancient Roman and Greek rhetorical treatises (in the anonymous Rhetorica ad
Herennium, Cicero's De Oratore, and Quintilian's Institutio Oratoria). Many memory
contestchampions claim to use this technique to recall faces, digits, and lists of words.
The term is most often found in specialised works on psychology, neurobiology,
and memory, though it was used in the same general way at least as early as the first half
of the nineteenth century in works on rhetoric, logic, and philosophy.[1]John
O'Keefe and Lynn Nadel refer to:
'the method of loci', an imaginal technique known to the ancient Greeks and Romans and
described by Yates (1966) in her book The Art of Memory as well as by Luria (1969). In
this technique the subject memorizes the layout of some building, or the arrangement of
shops on a street, or any geographical entity which is composed of a number of discrete
loci. When desiring to remember a set of items the subject 'walks' through these loci in
their imagination and commits an item to each one by forming an image between the item
and any feature of that locus. Retrieval of items is achieved by 'walking' through the loci,
allowing the latter to activate the desired items. The efficacy of this technique has been
well established (Ross and Lawrence 1968, Crovitz 1969, 1971, Briggs, Hawkins and
Crovitz 1970, Lea 1975), as is the minimal interference seen with its use.[2]
The items to be remembered in this mnemonic system are mentally associated with
specific physical locations.[3] The method relies on memorized spatial relationships to
establish order and recollect memorial content. It is also known as the "Journey Method",
used for storing lists of related items, or the "Roman Room" technique, which is most
effective for storing unrelated information.[4]

Contents
 1Contemporary usage
 2Method
 3Applicability of the term
 4Spatial mnemonics and specific brain activation
 5Fictional portrayals
 6Notes
 7References

Contemporary usage[edit]
Many effective memorisers today use the "method of loci" to some degree. Contemporary
memory competition, in particular the World Memory Championship, was initiated in
1991 and the first United States championship was held in 1997.[5] Part of the
competition requires committing to memory and recalling a sequence of digits, two-digit
numbers, alphabetic letters, or playing cards. In a simple method of doing this,
contestants, using various strategies well before competing, commit to long-term
memory a unique vivid image associated with each item. They have also committed to
long-term memory a familiar route with firmly established stop-points or loci. Then in the
competition they need only deposit the image that they have associated with each item at
the loci. To recall, they retrace the route, "stop" at each locus, and "observe" the image.
They then translate this back to the associated item. For example, Ed Cooke, a World
Memory Champion Competitor, describes to Josh Foer in his book Moonwalking with
Einstein how he uses the method of loci. First, he describes a very familiar location where
he can clearly remember many different smaller locations like his sink in his childhood
home or his dog's bed. Cooke also advises that the more outlandish and vulgar the symbol
used to memorize the material, the more likely it will stick.
Memory champions elaborate on this by combining images. Eight-time World Memory
Champion Dominic O'Brien uses this technique.[6][7] The 2006 World Memory
Champion, Clemens Mayer, used a 300-point-long journey through his house for his
world record in "number half marathon", memorising 1040 random digits in a half-hour.
Gary Shang has used the method of loci to memorise pi to over 65,536 (216) digits.[8]
Using this technique a person with ordinary memorisation capabilities, after establishing
the route stop-points and committing the associated images to long-term memory, with
less than an hour of practice, can remember the sequence of a shuffled deck of cards.
[citation needed] The world record for this is held by Simon Reinhard at 21.19 seconds.
[9]
The technique is taught as a metacognitive technique in learning-to-learn courses.[10] It
is generally applied to encoding the key ideas of a subject. Two approaches are:

1. Link the key ideas of a subject and then deep-learn those key ideas in relation to
each other, and
2. Think through the key ideas of a subject in depth, re-arrange the ideas in relation
to an argument, then link the ideas to loci in good order.

The method of loci has also been shown to help sufferers of depression remember
positive, self-affirming memories.[11]
A study at the University of Maryland evaluated participants ability to accurately recall
two sets of familiar faces, using a traditional desktop, and with a head-mounted display.
The study was designed to leverage the method of loci technique, with virtual
environments resembling memory palaces. The study found an 8.8% recall improvement
in favor of the head-mounted display, in part due to participants being able to leverage
their vestibular and proprioceptive sensations.[12]

Method[edit]
The Rhetorica ad Herennium and most other sources recommend that the method of loci
should be integrated with elaborative encoding (i.e., adding visual, auditory, or other
details) to strengthen memory.[13][14] However, due to the strength of spatial memory,
simply mentally placing objects in real or imagined locations without further elaboration
can be effective for simple associations.
A variation of the "method of loci" involves creating imaginary locations (houses,
palaces, roads, and cities) to which the same procedure is applied. It is accepted that there
is a greater cost involved in the initial setup, but thereafter the performance is in line with
the standard loci method. The purported advantage is to create towns and cities that each
represent a topic or an area of study, thus offering an efficient filing of the information
and an easy path for the regular review necessary for long term memory storage.[15][16]
Something that is likely a reference to the "method of loci" techniques survives to this
day in the common English phrases "in the first place", "in the second place", and so
forth.[17][18]
The technique is also used for second language vocabulary learning, as polyglot Timothy
Doner described in his 2014 TEDtalk.[19] The method is further described in Anthony
Metiver's book "How to learn and memorise German vocabulary". What the author
suggests is creating a memory palace for each letter of the German alphabet. Each
memory palace then shall include a number of loci where an entry (a word or a phrase)
can be stored and recalled whenever you need it.

Applicability of the term[edit]

The designation is not used with strict consistency. In some cases it refers broadly to what
is otherwise known as the art of memory, the origins of which are related, according to
tradition, in the story of Simonides of Ceos and the collapsing banquet hall.[20] For
example, after relating the story of how Simonides relied on remembered seating
arrangements to call to mind the faces of recently deceased guests, Stephen M. Kosslyn
remarks "[t]his insight led to the development of a technique the Greeks called the
method of loci, which is a systematic way of improving one's memory by using
imagery."[21]Skoyles and Sagan indicate that "an ancient technique of memorization
called Method of Loci, by which memories are referenced directly onto spatial maps"
originated with the story of Simonides.[22] Referring to mnemonic methods, Verlee
Williams mentions, "One such strategy is the 'loci' method, which was developed by
Simonides, a Greek poet of the fifth and sixth centuries BC."[23] Loftus cites
the foundation story of Simonides (more or less taken from Frances Yates) and describes
some of the most basic aspects of the use of space in the art of memory. She states, "This
particular mnemonic technique has come to be called the "method of loci".[24] While
place or position certainly figured prominently in ancient mnemonic techniques, no
designation equivalent to "method of loci" was used exclusively to refer to mnemonic
schemes relying upon space for organization.[25]
In other cases the designation is generally consistent, but more specific: "The Method of
Loci is a Mnemonic Device involving the creation of a Visual Map of one's house."[26]
This term can be misleading: the ancient principles and techniques of the art of memory,
hastily glossed in some of the works, cited above, depended equally upon
images and places. The designator "method of loci" does not convey the equal weight
placed on both elements. Training in the art or arts of memory as a whole, as attested in
classical antiquity, was far more inclusive and comprehensive in the treatment of this
subject.

Spatial mnemonics and specific brain

activation[edit]
Brain scans of "superior memorizers", 90% of whom use the method of loci technique,
have shown that it involves activation of regions of the brain involved in spatial
awareness, such as the medial parietal cortex, retrosplenial cortex, and the right posterior
hippocampus.[27][28] The medial parietal cortex is most associated with encoding and
retrieving of information. Patients who have medial parietal cortex damage have trouble
linking landmarks with certain locations; many of these patients are unable to give or
follow directions and often get lost. The retrosplenial cortex is also linked to memory and
navigation. In one study on the effects of selective granular retrosplenial cortex lesions in
rats, the researcher found that damage to the retrosplenial cortex led to impaired spatial
learning abilities. Rats with damage to this area failed to recall which areas of the maze
they had already visited, rarely explored different arms of the maze, almost never recalled
the maze in future trials, and took longer to reach the end of the maze, as compared to
rats with a fully working retrosplenial cortex.
In a classic study in cognitive neuroscience, O'Keefe and Nadel proposed "that the
hippocampus is the core of a neural memory system providing an objective spatial
framework within which the items and events of an organism's experience are located and
interrelated."[29]
In a more recent study, memory champions during resting periods did not exhibit specific
regional brain differences, but distributed functional brain network connectivity changes
compared to control subjects. When volunteers trained use of the method of loci for six
weeks, the training-induced changes in brain connectivity were similar to the brain
network organization that distinguished memory champions from controls.[30]

Fictional portrayals[edit]
Fictional portrayals of the method of loci extend as far back as ancient Greek myths. The
method of loci also features prominently in the BBC series Sherlock, in which the titular
main character uses a "mind palace" to store information. In the original Arthur Conan
Doyle stories, Sherlock Holmes referred to his brain as an attic.[31] In Hannibal
Rising by Thomas Harris, a detailed description of Hannibal Lecter's memory palace is
provided.

Mnemonic major system

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The major system (also called the phonetic number system, phonetic mnemonic
system, or Herigone's mnemonic system) is a mnemonic technique used to aid in
memorizing numbers.
The system works by converting numbers into consonant sounds, then into words by
adding vowels. The system works on the principle that images can be remembered more
easily than numbers.
One notable explanation of this system was given in Martin Gardner's book The First
Scientific American Book of Mathematical Puzzles and Diversions (just Mathematical
Puzzles and Diversions in the UK edition), which has since been republished in The New
Martin Gardner Mathematical Library as Hexaflexagons, Probability Paradoxes, and the
Tower of Hanoi). In this, Gardner incorrectly attributes the system to Lewis
Carroll (Carroll's system had the same basis but different associations).[citation needed]
 Contents
 1The system

 1.1Example words

 2History
 3Practice
 4Indexing sequences
 5See also
 6References
 7External links

 7.1Software
 7.2Other

The system[edit]
Each numeral is associated with one or more consonants. Vowels and the
consonants w, h, and y are ignored. These can be used as "fillers" to make sensible words
from the resulting consonant sequences. A standard mapping[1] is:
S
o
u
n
Nu Mnemonic
d
me Commonly associated letters and
s(
ral remarks
I
P
A
)
0 / s, soft c, z, x (in xylophone) Zero begin
s/ s
, with z (an
/z d /z/).
/ Upper
case S and
Z, as well
as lower
case s and
z,
have zero
vertical
strokes
each, as
with the
 numeral 0.
The
alveolar
fricatives /
s/ and /z/
form
a voiceless
and voiced
pair.
Upper
case T and
D, as well
as lower
case t and
d have one
vertical
stroke
each, as
with the
/ numeral 1.
t/ The
, alveolar
/ stops /t/
d and /d/
/, form a
1 t, d, th (in thing and this)
(/ voiceless
θ/ and voiced
, pair, as do
/ the
ð similar-
/) sounding
dental
fricatives /
θ/ and /ð/,
though
some
variant
systems
may omit
the latter
pair.
2 / n Upper
n case N an
/ d lower
case n eac
 h
have two
vertical
strokes
and two p
oints on
the baselin
e.
Lower
case m has
three verti
cal
strokes.
Both
upper
case Mand
/ lower
3 m m case m eac
/ h
have three
points on
the
baseline
and look
like the
numeral 3
on its side.
Four ends
with r (an
/
4 r, l (in colonel) d /r/ in
r/
rhotic
accents).
5 / l L is
l/ the Roman
numeral fo
r 50.
Among
the five di
gits of
one's left
hand, the
thumb and
index
fingers
also form
 an L.
6 / ch (in cheese and chef), j, Upper
tʃ soft g, sh, c (in cello and special), cz (in Czech), s (in tissue and visi case G an
/, on), sc (in fascist), sch (in schwa and eschew), t (in ration and equati d lower
/ on), tsch (in putsch), z (in seizure) case g loo
d k like the
ʒ/ numeral 6
, flipped
/ʃ horizontall
/, y and
/ʒ rotated
/ 180°
respectivel
y. Lower
case script
jtends to
have a
lower
loop, like
the
numeral 6.
In
some serif
fonts,
upper
case CH,
SH and Z
H each
have six s
erifs. The
postalveol
ar
affricates /
tʃ/ and /dʒ/
form a
voiceless
and voiced
pair, as do
the
similar-
sounding
postalveol
ar
fricatives /
ʃ/ and
/ʒ/. CHurc
 h has six
letters.
Both
upper
case K an
d lower
case k loo
k like two
small 7s
on their
sides. In
some
fonts, the
lower-
/
right part
k
of the
/,
7 k, hard c, q, ch (in loch), hard g upper
/
case G loo
ɡ
ks like
/
a 7. G is
also the
7th letter
of the
alphabet.
The velar
stops /k/
and /g/
form a
voiceless
and voiced
pair.
8 / f, ph (in phone), v, gh (in laugh) Lower
f/ case
, script f,
/ which
v tends to
/ have an
upper and
lower
loop,
looks like
a figure-8.
The
labiodenta
l fricatives
 /f/ and /v/
form a
voiceless
and voiced
pair.
Upper
case P and
lower
case p loo
k like the
numeral 9
flipped
horizontall
/
y. Lower
p
case b loo
/,
9 p, b, gh (in hiccough) ks like the
/
numeral 9
b
turned
/
180°. The
labial
stops /p/
and /b/
form a
voiceless
and voiced
pair.
/
Vowel sou
h
nds, semiv
/,
owels (/j/
/j
and /w/)
/,
and /h/ do
/
not
w
Un correspon
/, h, y, w, a, e, i, o, u, silent
ass d to any
v letters, c (in packet and chutzpah), d (in judge), j (in Hallelujah and j
ig number.
o alapeno), ll (in tortilla), the first p in sapphire, t(in match), one of
ne They can
w doubled letters in most contexts
d appear
el
anywhere
s
in a word
o
without
u
changing
n
its number
d
value.
s
(2, / ng, n before k, hard c, q, hard g or x Variant
 systems
differ
about
whether
/ŋ/ should
encode 2 a
nd
classified
together
with
/n/, 7 and
classified
together
with /k/
and /g/ or
even 27 (e
.g. ring co
uld
be 42, 47
or 427).
When a
/k/ and /g/
27
ŋ is
or
/ pronounce
7)
d
separately
after the
/ŋ/, variant
systems
that
chose /ŋ/
to
be 27 also
disagree if
an
extra 7 sh
ould be
written
(e.g. finge
r could
be 8274 or
82774, or
if /ŋ/ is
chosen to
be 7, 8774
).
The groups of similar sounds and the rules for applying the mappings are almost always
fixed, but other hooks and mappings can be used as long as the person using the system
can remember them and apply them consistently.
Each numeral maps to a set of similar sounds with similar mouth and tongue positions.
The link is phonetic, that is to say, it is the consonant sounds that matter, not the spelling.
Therefore, a word like action would encode the number 762 (/k/-/ʃ/-/n/), not 712 (k-t-n).
Double letters are disregarded when not pronounced separately,
e.g. muddy encodes 31 (/m/-/d/), not 311, but midday encodes 311 (/m/-/d/-/d/)
while accept encodes 7091 (/k/-/s/-/p/-/t/) since the ds and cs are pronounced
separately. x encodes 70 when pronounced as /ks/ or /gz/ (e.g. in fax and exam)
and 76 when pronounced /kʃ/ or /gʒ/ (e.g. in action or luxury); z encodes 10 when
pronounced /ts/ (e.g. in pizza). In ghost (701, /g/-/s/-/t/) and enough (28, /n/-/f/), ghis
being encoded by different numerals. Usually, a rhotic accent is assumed, e.g. fear would
encode 84 (/f/-/r/) rather than 8(/f/).
Often the mapping is compact. Hindquarters, for example, translates unambiguously
to 2174140 (/n/-/d/-/k/-/r/-/t/-/r/-/z/), which amounts to seven digits encoded by eight
letters, and can be easily visualized.
Each numeral maps to a set of similar sounds with similar mouth and tongue positions.
For most people it would be easier to remember 3.1415927 (an approximation of the
mathematical constant pi) as:
meteor (314, /m/-/t/-/r/)
tail (15, /t/-/l/)
pink (927, /p/-/ŋ/-/k/, and taking /ŋ/ to be 2)
Short term visual memory of imagined scenes allows large numbers of digits to be
memorized with ease, though usually only for a short time.
Whilst this is unwieldy at first, with practice it can become a very effective technique.
[citation needed] Longer-term memory may require the formulation of more object-
related mnemonics with greater logical connection, perhaps forming grammatical
sentences that apply to the matter rather than just strings of images.
The system can be employed with phone numbers. One would typically make up multiple
words, preferably a sentence, or an ordered sequence of images featuring the owner of the
number.
The Major System can be combined with a peg system for remembering lists, and is
sometimes used also as a method of generating the pegs. It can also be combined with
other memory techniques such as rhyming, substitute words, or the method of loci.
Repetition and concentration using the ordinary memory is still required.
An advantage of the major system is that it is possible to use a computer to automatically
translate the number into a set of words. One can then pick the best of several
alternatives. Such programs include "Numzi"[2] "Rememberg"[3] "Fonbee",
[4]the freeware "2Know",[5] and the website "pinfruit".[6]
Example words[edit]
Some of these example words may belong to more than one word category.
 1-digit pegs
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
hos hom arro whal
noun hat hen shoe cow hoof pie
e e w e
kno hoo
verb sew hate aim row heal chew view buy
w k
eas yum heav happ
adjective hot new hairy oily itchy gay
y my y y
2-digit pegs
00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09
sewag
noun sauce seed sun sumo sierra soil sky sofa soap
e
asses assig assum sorro
verb swat sell switch soak save sob
s n e w
adjectiv snow aweso swish
sissy sad sorry slow sick savvy sappy
e y me y
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19
noun daisy tattoo tuna dome diary tail dish dog dove tuba
wide
verb tease edit time draw tell teach take defy type
n
adjectiv wood whitis thic
dizzy tight tame dry tall deaf deep
e en h k
20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29
onio enem wine honeyb
noun nose net nail nacho neck knife
n y ry ee
ioniz nann hono kno
verb unite name inhale enjoy envy nab
e y[b] ur[a] ck
adjectiv narro annua nag wanna
noisy neat neon numb nudgy naïve
e w l gy be
30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39
mous mead moo mum emer
noun mole match mug movie map
e ow n my y
amus marr moc
verb meet mine mime mail mash move mop
e y k
adjectiv mess mum[ merr mush muc mauv
mute mean male wimpy
e y c] y y ky e
40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49
noun rice road urine rum auror railwa roach rag roof rope
 a y
rear[
verb erase read ruin ram rule reach rake arrive wrap
a]
adjectiv runn rare[ rock
rosy ready haram royal rich rough ripe
e y a] y
50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59
noun louse lady lion lime lorry lily leech leg lava lip
lure[
verb lose let align loom lull latch lick love help
a]
adjectiv luck
lazy elite alien lame leery loyal lush leafy loopy
e y
60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69
chees cheeta shre cha- chic
noun chin gem chilli chef jeep
e h w cha k
chec achiev
verb chase cheat chain jam jury chill judge chop
k e
adjectiv choo cherr Jewis shak
chatty shiny sham jolly chief cheap
e sy y h y
70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79
goos
noun cat coin game crow clay cage cake cave cube
e
weak coo
verb kiss quote comb carry kill coach give copy
en k
adjectiv gumm quic agape[
cosy good keen grey cool catchy goofy
e y k d]
80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89
veggi fife [e
noun vase video fan ovum fairy fool fig vibe
e ]
viva [f
verb fuse fight fine fume fry fly fetch fake fob[g]
]
adjectiv funn fogg
fussy fat foamy furry foul fishy fave fab
e y y
90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99
noun boss bead pony puma berry bell pouch bike beef pipe
oppo pok
verb bite ban bomb bury peel patch pave pop
se e
adjectiv
busy bad bony balmy pro blue bushy back puffy baby
e
  ^a Assumes a rhotic accent
 ^b nanny (verb): to be overprotective towards[7]
 ^c mum (adjective): silent; not saying a word[8]
 ^d agape (adjective): with the mouth wide open, as in wonder, surprise, or
eagerness[9]
 ^e fife (noun): a high-pitched transverse flute used commonly in military and
marching musical groups[10]
 ^f viva (verb): to examine orally[11]
 ^g fob (verb), archaic: to cheat; deceive[12]

History[edit]
A different memory system, the method of loci, was taught to schoolchildren for
centuries, at least until 1584, "when Puritanreformers declared it unholy for encouraging
bizarre and irreverent images."[13] The same objection can be made over the major
system, with or without the method of loci. Mental images may be easier to remember if
they are insulting, violent, or obscene (see Von Restorff effect).
Pierre Hérigone (1580–1643) was a French mathematician and astronomer and devised
the earliest version of the major system. The major system was further developed
by Stanislaus Mink von Wennsshein 300 years ago. It was later elaborated upon by other
users. In 1730, Richard Grey set forth a complicated system that used both consonants
and vowels to represent the digits. In 1808 Gregor von Feinaigle introduced the
improvement of representing the digits by consonant sounds (but reversed the values of 8
and 9 compared to those listed above).
In 1825 Aimé Paris published the first known version of the major system in its modern
form.[14]
In 1844 Francis Fauvel Gouraud (1808-1847) delivered a series of lectures introducing
his mnemonic system which was based on Aimé Paris' version. The lectures drew some
of the largest crowds ever assembled to hear lectures of a "scientific" nature up to that
time. This series of lectures was later published as Phreno-Mnemotechny or The Art of
Memoryin 1845 and his system received wide acclaim. According to Gouraud, Richard
Grey indicated that a discussion on Hebrew linguistics in William
Beveridge's Institutionum chronotogicarum libri duo, una cum totidem arithmetices
chronologicæ libellis(London, 1669) inspired him to create his system of
mnemotechniques which later evolved in to the major system.[15]
The system described in this article would again be popularized by Harry Lorayne, a best
selling contemporary author on memory.
The name "major system" refers to Major Beniowski, who published a version of the
system in his book, The Anti-Absurd or Phrenotypic English Pronouncing and
Orthographical Dictionary.[16]
There is a reasonable historical possibility that the roots of the Major System are
entangled with older systems of Shorthand. It is certainly the case that the underlying
structure of the Major System has a direct overlap with Gregg shorthand, which was a
popular shorthand system in the late 1800s and early 1900s.[17]
Phonetic number memorization systems also occur in other parts of the world, such as
the Katapayadi system going back to at least the 7th Century in India.

Practice[edit]
Memory feats centred around numbers can be performed by experts who have learned a
'vocabulary' of at least 1 image for every 1 and 2 digit number which can be combined to
form narratives. To learn a vocabulary of 3 digit numbers is harder because for each extra
digit 10 times more images need to be learned, but many mnemonists use a set of 1000
images. Combination of images into a narrative is easier to do rapidly than is forming a
coherent, grammatical sentence. This pre-memorisation and practice at forming images
reduces the time required to think up a good imaginary object and create a strong
memorable impression of it. The best words for this purpose are usually nouns, especially
those for distinctive objects which make a strong impression on a variety of senses (e.g. a
"Lime" for 53, its taste, its smell, its colour and even its texture are distinctive) or which
move (like an "arrow" for 4). For basic proficiency a large vocabulary of image words
isn't really necessary since, when the table above is reliably learned, it is easy to form
your own words ad hoc.

Indexing sequences[edit]
Mnemonics often centre around learning a complete sequence where all objects in that
sequence that come before the one you are trying to recall must be recalled first. For
instance, if you were using the mnemonic "Richard of York gave battle in vain" for the
colours of the rainbow; (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet) to remember
what colour comes after indigo you would have to recall the whole sequence. For a short
sequence this may be trivial; for longer lists, it can become complicated and error-prone.
A good example would be in recalling what is the 53rd element of the periodic table. It
might be possible for some people to construct and then learn a string of 53 or more items
which you have substituted for the elements and then to recall them one by one, counting
them off as you go, but it would be a great deal easier and less laborious/tedious
to directly associate element 53 with, for example, a lime (a suitable mnemonic for 53)
recalling some prior imagining of yours regarding a mishap where lime juice gets into
one's eye - "eye" sounding like "I", the symbol for Iodine. This allows for random
accessdirectly to the item, without the need for recalling any previous items.
If you were remembering element 54 in the process of recalling the periodic table you
could then recall an image for 54, for instance thinking of a friend called "Laura" (54) in
the lotus position looking very Zen-like in order to remind yourself that element 54
is Xenon.
This is an example of combining the Major System with the peg system.

Eidetic memory
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Photographic memory)
Jump to navigationJump to search
This article is about the precise recall of memories. For the TV show, see Wogan's Perfect
Recall. For the video game developer, see Eidetic, Inc. For the 2011 documentary,
see Photographic Memory (film).
Eidetic memory (/aɪˈdɛtɪk/; sometimes called photographic memory) is an ability to
vividly recall images from memoryafter only a few instances of exposure, with high
precision for a brief time after exposure,[1] without using a mnemonic device.
[2] Although the terms eidetic memory and photographic memory are popularly used
interchangeably,[1] they are also distinguished, with eidetic memory referring to the
ability to view memories like photographs for a few minutes,[3] and photographic
memory referring to the ability to recall pages of text or numbers, or similar, in great
detail.[4][5] When the concepts are distinguished, eidetic memory is reported to occur in
a small number of children and as something generally not found in adults,[2][6] while
true photographic memory has never been demonstrated to exist.[5][7]
The word eidetic comes from the Greek word εἶδος (pronounced [êːdos], eidos).[8]

Contents
 1Eidetic or photographic memory
 2Prevalence
 3Skepticism
 4Trained mnemonists
 5Notable claims
 6See also
 7References
 8External links

Eidetic or photographic memory[edit]

The terms eidetic memory and photographic memory are commonly used
interchangeably,[1] but they are also distinguished.[4][5] Scholar Annette Kujawski
Taylor stated, "In eidetic memory, a person has an almost faithful mental image snapshot
or photograph of an event in their memory. However, eidetic memory is not limited to
visual aspects of memory and includes auditory memories as well as various sensory
aspects across a range of stimuli associated with a visual image."[9] Author Andrew
Hudmon commented: "Examples of people with a photographic-like memory are rare.
Eidetic imagery is the ability to remember an image in so much detail, clarity, and
accuracy that it is as though the image were still being perceived. It is not perfect, as it is
subject to distortions and additions (like episodic memory), and vocalization interferes
with the memory."[6]
"Eidetikers", as those who possess this ability are called, report a vivid afterimage that
lingers in the visual field with their eyes appearing to scan across the image as it is
described.[10][11] Contrary to ordinary mental imagery, eidetic images are externally
projected, experienced as "out there" rather than in the mind. Vividness and stability of
the image begins to fade within minutes after the removal of the visual stimulus.
[3] Lilienfeld et al. stated, "People with eidetic memory can supposedly hold a visual
image in their mind with such clarity that they can describe it perfectly or almost
perfectly [...], just as we can describe the details of a painting immediately in front of us
with near perfect accuracy."[12]
By contrast, photographic memory may be defined as the ability to recall pages of text,
numbers, or similar, in great detail, without the visualization that comes with eidetic
memory.[4] It may be described as the ability to briefly look at a page of information and
then recite it perfectly from memory. This type of ability has never been proven to exist
and is considered popular myth.[5][7]

Prevalence[edit]
Eidetic memory is typically found only in young children, as it is virtually nonexistent in
adults.[5][6] Hudmon stated, "Children possess far more capacity for eidetic imagery
than adults, suggesting that a developmental change (such as acquiring language skills)
may disrupt the potential for eidetic imagery."[6] Eidetic memory has been found in 2 to
10 percent of children aged 6 to 12. It has been hypothesized that language acquisition
and verbal skills allow older children to think more abstractly and thus rely less on visual
memory systems. Extensive research has failed to demonstrate consistent correlations
between the presence of eidetic imagery and any cognitive, intellectual, neurological or
emotional measure.[13]
A few adults have had phenomenal memories (not necessarily of images), but their
abilities are also unconnected with their intelligence levels and tend to be highly
specialized. In extreme cases, like those of Solomon Shereshevsky and Kim Peek,
memory skills can reportedly hinder social skills.[14][medical citation
needed] Shereshevsky was a trained mnemonist, not an eidetic memoriser, and there are
no studies that confirm whether Kim Peek had true eidetic memory.
According to Herman Goldstine, the mathematician John von Neumann was able to recall
from memory every book he had ever read.[15]

Skepticism[edit]
Scientific skepticism about the existence of eidetic memory was fueled around 1970 by
Charles Stromeyer, who studied his future wife, Elizabeth, who claimed that she could
recall poetry written in a foreign language that she did not understand years after she had
first seen the poem. She also could, apparently, recall random dot patterns with such
fidelity as to combine two patterns into a stereoscopic image.[16][17] She remains the
only person documented to have passed such a test. However, the methods used in the
testing procedures could be considered questionable (especially given the extraordinary
nature of the claims being made),[18] as is the fact that the researcher married his subject.
Additionally, that the tests have never been repeated (Elizabeth has consistently refused
to repeat them)[19] raises further concerns.
Lilienfeld et al. stated: "Some psychologists believe that eidetic memory reflects an
unusually long persistence of the iconic image in some lucky people". They added: "More
recent evidence raises questions about whether any memories are truly photographic
(Rothen, Meier & Ward, 2012). Eidetikers' memories are clearly remarkable, but they are
rarely perfect. Their memories often contain minor errors, including information that was
not present in the original visual stimulus. So even eidetic memory often appears to be
reconstructive".[12]
The American cognitive scientist Marvin Minsky, in his book The Society of
Mind (1988), considered reports of photographic memory to be an "unfounded
myth."[20] Furthermore, there is no scientific consensus regarding the nature, the proper
definition, or even the very existence of eidetic imagery, even in children.[3]
Scientific skeptic author Brian Dunning reviewed the literature on the subject of both
eidetic and photographic memory in 2016 and concluded that there is "a lack of
compelling evidence that eidetic memory exists at all among healthy adults, and no
evidence that photographic memory exists. But there's a common theme running through
many of these research papers, and that's that the difference between ordinary memory
and exceptional memory appears to be one of degree."[21]

Trained mnemonists[edit]
To constitute photographic or eidetic memory, the visual recall must persist without the
use of mnemonics, expert talent, or other cognitive strategies. Various cases have been
reported that rely on such skills and are erroneously attributed to photographic memory.
An example of extraordinary memory abilities being ascribed to eidetic memory comes
from the popular interpretations of Adriaan de Groot's classic experiments into the ability
of chess grandmasters to memorize complex positions of chess pieces on a chess board.
Initially, it was found that these experts could recall surprising amounts of information,
far more than nonexperts, suggesting eidetic skills. However, when the experts were
presented with arrangements of chess pieces that could never occur in a game, their recall
was no better than the nonexperts, suggesting that they had developed an ability to
organize certain types of information, rather than possessing innate eidetic ability.
Individuals identified as having a condition known as hyperthymesia are able to
remember very intricate details of their own personal lives, but the ability seems not to
extend to other, non-autobiographical information.[22][medical citation needed] They
may have vivid recollections such as who they were with, what they were wearing, and
how they were feeling on a specific date many years in the past. Patients under study,
such as Jill Price, show brain scans that resemble those with obsessive–compulsive
disorder. In fact, Price's unusual autobiographical memory has been attributed as a
byproduct of compulsively making journal and diary entries. Hyperthymestic patients
may additionally have depression stemming from the inability to forget unpleasant
memories and experiences from the past.[23] It is a misconception that hyperthymesia
suggests any eidetic ability.
Each year at the World Memory Championships, the world's best memorizers compete
for prizes. None of the world's best competitive memorizers has a photographic memory,
and no one with claimed eidetic or photographic memory has ever won the
championship.[citation needed]

Notable claims[edit]
Main article: List of people claimed to possess an eidetic memory
With the questionable exception of Elizabeth Stromeyer, a 2006 article in Slate magazine
claimed that, of the people rigorously scientifically tested, no one claiming to have long-
term eidetic memory had this ability proven.[19] There are a number of individuals
whose extraordinary memory has been labeled "eidetic", but many use mnemonics and
other, non-eidetic memory-enhancing exercises. Others have not been thoroughly tested.

List of people claimed to possess an

eidetic memory
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to navigationJump to search
A number of people claim to have eidetic memory, but science has never found a single
verifiable case of photographic memory.[1][2] Eidetic imagery is virtually nonexistent in
adults.[3] Most people showing amazing memory abilities use mnemonic strategies,
mostly the method of loci. This includes all winners of the annual World Memory
Championships and most of the known scientific cases of excellent memories,
like Solomon Shereshevsky. Regardless, the following list contains people who have
claimed photographic memory.[4]

People claimed to possess an eidetic

memory[edit]
 Charles Nalder Baeyertz, a publisher and music critic in New Zealand. His
capacity to memorize a page at a glance enabled him to display an apparently
inexhaustible supply of knowledge and to acquire several languages. He claimed
to have learnt Maori by memorizing a dictionary. His favourite party trick was to
read a newspaper column then recite it backward.[5]
 David Boies, an American litigator, is frequently described as having a
photographic memory that enables him to recite exact text, page numbers, and
legal exhibits. Colleagues attribute his courtroom success in part to this ability.[6]
[7]
 Elizabeth, a Harvard student, claimed and disputed.[8][9][10]
 The mathematician Leonhard Euler has been characterized as having an eidetic
memory.[11] He was able to, for example, repeat the Aeneid of Virgil from
beginning to end without hesitation, and for every page in the edition he could
indicate which line was the first and which was the last even decades after having
read it.[11]
 Robert Evans can identify new objects that appear in starfields of 1500 galaxies.
[12]
 Akira Haraguchi holds the Guinness World Record for the most decimal places of
pi recited by memory. His ability is self-attributed to a strong eidetic memory,
though he uses a mnemonic device.[13][14]
  The astronomer Johannes Kepler had a photographic memory according to Rolf
Keppler, a descendant of Kepler's brother Christoph.[15]
 Klaus Kinski, a German actor, was described by Will Tremper as having a
photographic memory, which allowed him to memorize a book page within
minutes.[16]
 Ferdinand Marcos, the former Filipino dictator. He claimed to have memorized
complicated texts in one glance. He could recite the Philippine 1935 constitution
forward and backward. He also passed the bar examination in 1939 with an
almost perfect score at 98.01%. Several people contested his score and a retake
was taken, albeit an oral bar examination witnessed by several people. His second
bar examination resulted in a perfect score.[17]
 Said Nursî, an Ottoman Islamic scholar who was able to recite many books from
memory. For instance "... So then he [Molla Fethullah] decided to test his memory
and handed him a copy of the work by Al-Hariri of Basra (1054–1122) — also
famous for his intelligence and power of memory — called Maqamat al-Hariri.
Said read one page once, memorized it, then repeated it by heart. Molla Fethullah
expressed his amazement."[18]
 Kim Peek, prodigious savant and inspiration for the character Raymond Babbit,
played by Dustin Hoffman in the film Rain Man.[19]
 Shas Pollaks, Jewish mnemonists who memorized the exact layout of words in
more than 5,422 pages of the 12 books of the standard edition of the Babylonian
Talmud. However, the claim to eidetic memory was later disputed.[10]
 Abubakar Shekau, the leader of the Nigerian Islamist militant group Boko Haram,
has been described as possessing a photographic memory.[20]
 Sukarno, the father of Indonesian independence and the first president of the
Republic of Indonesia, is said to have had a photographic memory, which helped
him in his language learning.[21]
 Nikola Tesla also is claimed to have possessed photographic memory.[22]
 Arturo Toscanini, an Italian conductor. It was estimated that by the end of his
career he had memorized over 200 symphonies and up to 100 operas.[23] "One of
his second grade school teachers, Signora Vernoni, noticed that Toscanini could
memorize poems after a single reading and could pick out on the piano the songs
and arias he had heard people singing."[24]
 Leonardo da Vinci is said to have possessed photographic memory.[25]
 Swami Vivekananda is believed to have eidetic memory as he could memorize a
book just by going through it for a single time.[26]
 The mathematician John von Neumann was able to memorize a column of the
phone book at a single glance.[27]Herman Goldstine wrote about him: "One of
his remarkable abilities was his power of absolute recall. As far as I could tell, von
Neumann was able on once reading a book or article to quote it back verbatim;
moreover, he could do it years later without hesitation."[28]
 Stephen Wiltshire is a prodigious savant,[29] capable of drawing the entire
skyline of a city after a helicopter ride.[30]

See also
Exceptional memory
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to navigationJump to search
The capacity for exceptional memory can take several forms.

Contents
 1Hyperthymesia

 1.1Neuroscience
 1.2Cases
 1.3Drawbacks

 2Eidetic memory

 2.1Criticism
 2.2Cases
 2.3Drawbacks

 3Mnemonists

 3.1Neuroscience
 3.2Cases
 3.3Drawbacks

 4Savants

 4.1Neuroscience
 4.2Cases
 4.3Drawbacks

 5Emotional memory

 5.1Neuroscience
 5.2Drawbacks

 6See also
 7References
 8External links

Hyperthymesia[edit]
Hyperthymesia or hyperthymesitic syndrome is superior autobiographical memory, the
type of memory that forms people's life stories. The term thymesia is derived from the
Greek word thymesis, meaning "memory".[1]
The capabilities of the affected individuals are not limited to recalling specific events
from their personal experience. Hyperthymesia has both enhanced autobiographical
and episodic memory[1] There are two important characteristics of hyperthymesia:

1. People with the syndrome spend much of their time thinking about their pasts.
2. People with the syndrome have an unusual form of eidetic memory to remember
as well as recall any specific personal events or trivial details, including a date,
the weather, what people wore on that day, from their past, almost in an organized
manner.

Unlike other people with advanced memory abilities, such as savant syndrome (who tend
to use calendrical calculation), individuals with hyperthymestic syndrome rely heavily on
their personal "mental calendar",[1] which is an automatic and obsessive process.
Moreover, individuals with hyperthymesia do not focus on
practiced mnemonic strategies.[1] For example, "AJ", who has the first documented case
of hyperthymesia, has difficulty consciously applying her memory strategies to help her
memorize new knowledge, making her rote memorization abilities below average.
Neuroscience[edit]
Because it is a recently discovered memory capability, neuroscientific explanations of
hyperthymesia are scarce. McGaugh, who coined the term, provides mostly speculation
in "A Case of Unusual Autobiographical Remembering". He suggests that "AJ"'s superior
autobiographical memory is largely the result of specific impairments rather than
enhancements. Her sensitivity to cues that trigger her memories suggest that "AJ" has
trouble inhibiting episodic-retrieval mode, which is the neurocognitive state required for
present stimuli to be interpreted as memory cues. Because she is unable to "turn off" her
retrieval mode, the smallest associations may bring on detailed recollections of "AJ"'s
past.[1]
Inhibition in itself is a type of executive functioning, thought to be associated with the
right inferior frontal cortex.[1] Although "AJ" is not autistic, McGaugh and colleagues
note that she shares some of the executive-functioning deficits that occur with autism.
These deficits, along with anomalous lateralization and "AJ"'s obsessive–compulsive
tendencies, point to a neurodevelopmental frontostriatal disorder common in autism,
OCD, ADHD, Tourette's syndrome, and schizophrenia. The frontostriatal system is made
up of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, lateral orbitofrontal cortex, cingulate,
supplementary motor area, and associated basal ganglia structures.[1]
Cases[edit]
There are six true cases of hyperthymesia that have been confirmed worldwide. Cases of
hyperthymesia differ from related cases of savant memory in that savants have an
extraordinary memory for specific hobbies, and events of a narrow basis, whereas cases
of confirmed hyperthymesia show surprisingly detailed memory for specific and general
events. One example is the case of AJ (revealed, since May 2008, to be the school
administrator Jill Price) who, given any date in history, can recall what the weather was
like on said date, personal details of her life at the time, and other news events that
occurred at that time. Details of what AJ recalls may be significant to her in some way,
but they may not be. Personal meaning does not seem to affect AJ's memory—she simply
recalls everything.[2] Brad Williams, another confirmed case of hyperthymesia, displays
similar remarkable memory abilities. For example, when shown a photograph from his
past Brad can recall the date it was taken, where it was taken, what he had done that day,
and even more detailed information such as the temperature on said day.[3] Rick Barron
has also been diagnosed with hyperthymesia and shares the same superior abilities of AJ
and Brad. Individuals with hyperthymesia clearly have a superior degree of recall ability.
Drawbacks[edit]
AJ, one of the most famous cases of hyperthymesia, describes her memory as a "running
movie that never stops".[1] She views the world in "split screen", with the past constantly
playing at the same time as the present. She explains that although "most have called it a
gift", she calls it a "burden". AJ's superior memory does not seem to be due to a desire to
apply memorizing techniques; her memorization of autobiographical information is non-
conscious. It is possible that AJ's memory could stem from the traumatic experience of
having her family move when she was 8, at which point she began to "organize her
memories" and think about the life she had left behind a great deal.

Eidetic memory[edit]
Eidetic memory ( a.k.a. total recall memory) refers to the ability of an individual who can
accurately recall a large number of images, sounds and objects in a seemingly unlimited
volume. Eidetic has a meaning of "related extraordinarily detailed and vivid recall of
visual images" in Greek.[2] The term eidetic memory can become more clinical when the
memory experts use the picture elicitation method to detect the ability.[3] In the picture
elicitation method, children are asked to study an image for approximately twenty to
thirty minutes, and then the researchers remove the picture, it has been found that
children with such ability are able to recall the image with perfect accuracy after the
picture has been removed. It has been suggested that children with eidetic memory can
maintain the image in their memory as vividly as if it were still there.[2]
There are reports of different forms of eidetic memory as well as new case studies that
suggest a difference between photographic and eidetic memory, although not enough
scientific data exist currently from the medical community. Public documents from the
APA, Yale, and Harvard suggest otherwise and that more studies are being done in order
to properly stimulate the differences; all current noted forms of memory are open to the
public but not meant to discriminate against the hypothesis of new types.
Criticism[edit]
Marvin Minsky has argued in his book, The Society of Mind, that the reported cases of
eidetic memory should be considered as "unfounded myth[s]".[3] This view was
supported by an experimental study conducted by psychologist Adriaan de Groot. The
experiment was intended to investigate chess grandmasters' ability to memorize positions
of chess pieces on a chessboard.[4] When those chess experts were provided with
arrangements that were inconsistent with a real chess game, their performance was about
the same as non-experts. These results indicate that the eidetic ability of those chess
grandmasters were not innate, but a learned strategy with certain types of information.
[4] Also Wilding and Valentine held a search for people claiming to have an eidetic or
otherwise superior memory via public media. Out of the 31 people who called in only
three actually had a significantly above-average memory—and none of those three had an
eidetic memory.[5]
Further cause for skepticism is given by a non-scientific event: The World Memory
Championships. Held since 1991, this is an annual competition in different memory
disciplines and is nearly totally based on visual tasks (9 out of 10 events are displayed
visually, the tenth event is presented by audio). Since the champions can win interesting
prizes, it should attract people who can beat those tests easily by reproducing visual
images of the presented material during the recall. But indeed not a single memory
champion ever reported to have an eidetic memory. Instead without a single exception all
winners consider themselves mnemonists (see below) and rely on
using mnemonic strategies, mostly the method of loci.
Cases[edit]

John von Neumann

Cases of eidetic memory have

been reported for generations, with a 1970 study on a woman named Elizabeth being
called the most convincing documentation yet. Elizabeth's memory was extraordinary in
that she could see an image once and retain it in memory for years to come. The classic
study of Elizabeth's memory documents her writing out poetry in a foreign language, of
which she had no prior knowledge, years after seeing the original text. This suggests that
Elizabeth's memory retained the image of the foreign words vividly enough to recall
years later. Reports also suggest that Elizabeth's memory was so vivid that she could
obscure other parts of the present visual field with these past memories.[6] However,
Elizabeth remains the only person to have passed such a test, and the credibility of the
findings about Elizabeth are highly questionable given that the researcher married his
subject, and the tests have never been repeated. Elizabeth refused to repeat them.[7] The
study fueled strong skepticism about studies of eidetic memory for several decades
thereafter. Recently there has been a renewal of interest in the area, with more careful
controls, and far less spectacular results.
Hungarian mathematician John von Neumann could recite exactly word for word any
books he had read, including page numbers and footnotes—even those of books he had
read decades earlier.[8]
Unusual cases of eidetic memory include: Sergei Rachmaninov, a composer and pianist
who could recall a musical score after sight reading twice; and savant Stephen Wiltshire,
[9] who is able to draw a skyline in detail after a single helicopter ride.[10]
Drawbacks[edit]
Older studies have claimed to have observed a variety of drawbacks among those who
have an apparent eidetic memory. Eidetic imagery can be so vivid as to mimic actual
perception of stimuli, which can be much like a hallucination.[11] Some researchers of
eidetic imagery have proposed a link between this ability and psychosis, such as
in schizophrenicpopulations.[12]

Mnemonists[edit]
Mnemonist is derived from the term mnemonic, it refers to the individuals with the
unusual ability to recall long lists of information including names, numbers, etc.
A mnemonic device is said to be a memory aid that is used to help an individual
remember and recall information. Mnemonic devices are usually verbal, such as a special
phrase, word or a short poem that individuals are familiar with.
Each individual has two types of memory, one is "natural memory" and the other one is
"artificial memory".[1] Mnemonic strategy is said to help develop artificial memory
through learning and practicing memory techniques.[1]
Common mnemonics for memorizing lists of words is through the use of acronym, which
is the abbreviation that consists of the initial letter in a phrase or word. For example,
HOMES is often used to help remember the names of the Great Lakes of North America.
Most techniques for memorizing numbers involve turning the numbers into visual images
that are then placed along points of an imaginary memory journey. The mind has
difficulty remembering abstract concepts like numbers, but can easily remember visual
images. The imaginary memory journey orders the images in the correct sequence. Two
common techniques for converting numbers and playing cards into visual images are
the Mnemonic major system and the Mnemonic dominic system.
Neuroscience[edit]
No structural differences have been found in the brains of accomplished memorists, who
have achieved superior memory with the practiced use of mnemonic devices. One study
that sought to locate the neural differences between these and people with typical
memory abilities using fMRI, was unable to find any differences. For memorists, the
right cingulate cortex, ventral fusiform cortex, and left posterior inferior frontal
sulcus were more active for digit span memorization (a feat memorists are often very
good at).[13] However, all superior memory participants reported the use of mnemonics.
[13]
Cases[edit]
One well known case of superior recall ability is the case of Solomon Shereshevskii also
known as "S". "S" had synaesthesia, a condition in which the stimulation of one sense
prompts a reaction in another sense. Alexander Luriareported that "S" had the unique
ability to recall almost everything he heard or saw though did not provide detailed
evidence or clearly distinguish between "natural" abilities and his use of the method of
loci. There are several anecdotal reports of "S" recalling a speech word for word without
taking notes along with his peers.
Another interesting case of recall is of the subject S.F., who began testing with an average
intelligence and average memory capabilities. With the use of mnemonic strategies
(practice sessions in the laboratory) he was able to increase his digit span from 7 to 79.
[14] Using mnemonics for memory recall may also have played a part in Akira
Haraguchi's world record citation of mathematical pi. Cases such as these suggest that
superior memory can be achieved with the proper mnemonic techniques.
Also all competitors of the annual World Memory Championships name mnemonic
strategies the source for their performances (including performances like memorizing a
list of more than 2000 digits in an hour, 280 words in 15 minutes or the order of a deck of
cards in under 25 seconds).
Drawbacks[edit]
Solomon Shereshevskii, or 'S', was viewed by peers as disorganized and unintelligent.
His extreme case of synesthesia, causing highly detailed and recallable memory traces,
made understanding abstract concepts not based on sensory and perceptual qualities very
difficult for him.[15] His personal life is described as being lived in a "haze," and
eventually he was confined to a mental institution because of the burden of his
exceptional abilities. But S is a rare exception and drawbacks are not normally associated
with the acquisition of an exceptional memory by using mnemonics.[16]

Savants[edit]
Savant syndrome, also known as savantism, is a condition in which individuals with
a developmental disorder are exceptional in one or more areas.
Neuroscience[edit]
Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are characterized by difficulties in reciprocal social
behaviour and communication, stereotyped patterns of behaviour, and restricted interests.
They are also associated with typical and atypical functioning in memory.[17] Structural
abnormalities have been found to affect the hippocampus, with the perirhinal, entorhinal,
and parahippocampus less affected (these are areas in the medial temporal lobe outside of
the hippocampus). The hippocampus is thought to be involved in domain-general
relational processes, with surrounding areas mediating more domain and item-specific
and contextual processing. This is consistent with observed memory effects of ASD
which shows superior low-level and item-specific processing, at a cost of having
impairments in higher level relational processes.[17]
One example found in the literature is J.S., with high functioning autism. J.S. has
no episodic memory (which is highly associative or relational in nature) and must rely on
memorizing facts. He will memorize entire conversations, so as to remember even
general content later. He also remembers events by memorizing A-B-C predicates—item-
specific memory with a memorized (specific) association connecting them.[18]
Cases[edit]
 Kim Peek, diagnosed with Savant syndrome

Savant syndrome is elaborate abilities (including memory) in specialized areas such as a

hobby or event, or a certain type of information. One of the most well known cases of
savant memory is Kim Peek, the man on which the movie Rain Man was based.[19] Peek
had a reported savant memory for most information, not just specialized pieces, and was
able to memorize large pieces of information from the age of 16 months. Tony
DeBlois and Derek Paravicini also show superior memory for music. Deblois can play
8000 songs from memory on 20 different instruments,[20] and Paravicini can play a piece
of music after only hearing it once.[21][22] Another case of savant memory is that
of Richard Wawro. Wawro is known for his paintings of landscapes and seascapes, all
done in elaborate detail.[19] What is interesting about Wawro's art is that he paints from
seeing a scene only once and does not use a model. His memory for the scene is so
elaborate that he can also report where he drew the picture and when. Similarities across
cases indicate that savant memory may be similar to eidetic memory.[19]
Drawbacks[edit]
Individuals with autism are more likely to have savant skills so, for them, the most
obvious drawback could be the drawbacks they link to autism itself. Most cases
of calendrical calculation involve individuals with IQs that are below average. Autism
spectrum disorders contain criteria for diagnosis based on difficulties with social
behaviour and communicating with others, amongst other debilitating criteria.
[17] Researchers have proposed two hypotheses to explain how autistic individuals may
develop advanced skills;[23] the first is the obsession with constricted areas of interest (a
common symptom of autism) and central coherence. Central coherence is a style
of cognitive processing indicative of an autistic individual, which involves a focus on
local features during processing. Researchers feel that this style of processing may aid in
the increase of savant skills, but this style also sacrifices global processing in the process.

Emotional memory[edit]
Main article: Flashbulb memory
An emotional or flashbulb memory refers to the memory of a personal significant event
with distinctly vivid and long-lasting detailed information. These events are usually
shocking and with photographic quality. Brown and Kulik, who coined the term found
that many highly emotional memories can be recalled with very accurate details, even
when there is a delay after the event.[24]
A Flashbulb memory is said to be less accurate and less permanent than photographic
memories, but its forgetting curve is less affected by time in comparing to other types of
memories.[25] One important aspect of flashbulb memory is that it involves emotional
arousal when the event is being remembered. Therefore, this kind of memory does not
have to be accurate, and the accuracy usually decreases during the first 3 months and
goes up again at about 12 months.[25]
A study conducted by Sharot et al. (2006) showed that the rating of vividness of terrorist
attack on September 11, 2001, by the participants is related to the physical location of the
person when the event happened.[26]
Finkenhauer et al. (1998) provided an outline of important criteria that can help form
flashbulb memories:[27]

1. The event needs to be novel.

2. The event has to be important to the person experiencing or witnessing or hearing
about it, and it has to have a significant effect on the person.
3. The surprising event needs to be intense enough in order to significantly trigger
the person's emotional reaction.
4. A person needs to have an effective attitude to help understand and elaborate the
event, in other words, the more background information the person has learned
before the event, the more elaborate the person's memory of that event would be.
5. When people engage in overt rehearsal of the event by talking about it with
others.
6. When the information of the public event is heard frequently from the media, this
process can lead to overlearning of the information.

Neuroscience[edit]
The focus of the research on emotional memory is on the role of the amygdala. In one
study participants watched either an emotionally arousing film or a neutral film. Results
of a PET scan showed correlation between right Amygdaloid Complex(AC) activity and
recall for emotional elements of the film when participants were asked to remember the
film a few weeks later.[28] Although this study demonstrates the involvement of the AC,
it offers no insight as to the specific role of the amygdala. McGaugh and colleagues posit
that although electrical and pharmaceutical stimulation directly to the amygdala can
enhance or decrease memory, the amygdala is not the main site for any long-term
memory storage. Rather, the amygdala acts as a modulator for storage processes
occurring in other areas of the brain. Long-term memories are not created automatically,
they must be consolidated over time. Research indicates that it is this consolidation
process in which the AC plays an assisting role (there is no evidence that it aids in
retrieval). Specifically, McGaugh suggests that emotional arousal activates the amygdala,
which regulates the strength of a memory, lending to enhanced memory for emotionally
charged events.[29]
The amygdala itself is a collection of nuclei with distinct functions, the basolateral AC
the most involved with memory.[28]The BL projects into the hippocampus and entorhinal
cortex and stimulation of the AC functioning activates both of these areas.[28] Further
indication that the amygdala works to modulate other areas of the brain is supported by
the fact that AC stimulation is mediated by the stria terminalis (ST), a major AC pathway.
Lesions of the ST block AC stimulation effects.[28]
AC and ST lesions also appear to block hormonal and adrenaline enhancements. Stress
hormones produced by emotional situations influence memory storage. Memory can also
be selectively enhanced by post-training administration of drugs and hormones. It is also
well known that emotional situations produce an "adrenaline rush". This adrenaline, as
well as cortisol(adrenocortical hormone) serve to influence an organism's response to
stress, but also may aid future responding by enhancing declarative memory of them.[28]
Negative emotional experiences may be remembered better than positive
experiences. Goddard found that retention was disrupted with electrical stimulation of AC
after aversive learning, but not with appetitively motivated learning.
Drawbacks[edit]
An experience must be very arousing to an individual for it to be consolidated as
an emotional memory, and this arousal can be negative, thus causing a negative memory
to be strongly retained.[28] Having a long-lasting extremely vivid and detailed memory
for negative events can cause a great deal of anxiety, as seen in post traumatic stress
disorders. Individuals with PTSD endure flashbacks to traumatic events, with much
clarity.[30] Many forms of psychopathology show a tendency to maintain emotional
experiences, especially negative emotional experiences, such
as depression and generalized anxiety disorder.[31] Patients with phobias are unable to
cognitively control their emotional response to the feared stimuli.[30]
Although, not having the ability to use emotional memories for guiding future behaviours
can be detrimental, as has been hypothesized as a potential cause to the lack of goal
oriented behaviours in schizophrenic individuals.

Politics of memory
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to navigationJump to search
Politics of memory is the organisation of collective memory by political agents; the
political means by which events are remembered and recorded, or discarded. Eventually,
politics of memory may determine the way history is written and passed on. Memories
are also influenced by cultural forces, e.g. popular culture, as well as social norms. It has
also been connected with the construction of identity.[1]

Contents
 1Cyprus
 2Croatia
 3Germany
 4Soviet bloc: politics of history
 5Memorials
 6Efficacy and moral relativity
 7In literature
 8See also
 9References

Cyprus[edit]
The two sides in the conflict in Cyprus maintain widely divergent and
contrasting memories of the events that split the island. The term selective memory is
applied by psychologists to people suffering from head injuries who retain some
memories, but have amnesia about others. Societal trauma, such as war, seems to have a
similar effect. Recollections that are shaped out of a phenomenon common to many
countries traumatized by war and repression, may be remembered in radically different
ways by people who experienced similar events.
The selectivity may also serve a political purpose, for example to justify the claims of one
group over a competing group. Cyprus is a poignant case for this phenomenon. The
longstanding conflict on the island reflects deep roots in the "motherlands" of the Greek
Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot peoples.[2]

Croatia[edit]
Lauren A. Rivera (Harvard University) studies how states "manage reputation-damaging"
events "on a global stage". Rivera decided to conduct a study on the state of Croatia in
order to determine how the government represented its country to international audiences
following the wars of Yugoslavian secession. She hypothesized that the main catalyst for
this change in international opinion was due to cultural reframing. This empirical study
included textual analyses of travel brochures printed by the Croatian government (study
1), interviews with 34 tourism professionals from the Croatian government (study 2), and
observations of popular attractions during the peak of Croatia's tourism season (study 3).
Study 1 and study 3 came to the conclusion that the nation's new cultural identity draws
parallels with western societies while creating "strong symbolic boundaries between
Croatia and its Eastern neighbors" (Rivera). Tourism professionals explain this shift in
culture as an attempt to make the country of Croatia seem like a more stable place for
Western investment and travel (study 2).[3]

Germany[edit]
In Germany, Politics of memory (Geschichtspolitik) is most often associated with how to
memorise the national socialist eraand World War II. Often different events of this era
have been measured against one another and, in this way, evaluated, e.g. the Holocaust,
the war against Eastern Europe with its ethnic cleansing programs, but also the bombings
of city's by German and Allied forces alike or the expulsion of Germans from Eastern
Europe.
Speeches by politicians often deal with issues of how to memorise the past. Richard von
Weizsäcker as Bundespräsidentidentified two modes of memorising the
unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany in 1945 in his famous 1985 speech: this date
can be seen as defeat or liberation. Weizsäcker backed the latter Interpretation. In this
regard, such moments as the first official "Day of Commemoration for Victims of
National Socialism", on January 20, 1996, led to BundespräsidentRoman
Herzog remarking in his address to the German Parliament that "Remembrance gives us
strength, since it helps to keep us from going astray."[4] In similar, but somewhat
opposing measure, Gerhard Schröder sought to move beyond this in saying the generation
that committed such deeds has passed, and a new generation does not have the same fault
because they simply weren't there to be responsible.[citation needed]
Good examples for politics of memory could be seen in national monuments and the
discourses surrounding their construction. The construction of a holocaust memorial in
memory of the murdered Jews of Europe at a central location in Berlin was met with
protests but also with strong support. Likewise the National Memorial to the Victims of
War and Tyrannywas deemed inappropriate by some onlookers and a discussion revolved
around the question whether the lack of a differentiation between victims and perpetrators
is adequate or not.[5]
The question if and how to memorise Germans expelled from Poland in the aftermath of
World War II has been constantly debated in both West Germany and Poland. Such
questions are so difficult because it requires a moral judgement of these events. These
judgements differ remarkably. For instance, the Federation of German Expellees called
on Poland to pay compensation for lost property to Germans from what after 1945
became Polish territory, a claim that is consistently declined by Poland.[6]
Similarly there have been debates in Germany whether the legacy of World War II
implies that Germany's military should be confined to purely defensive measure like
peacekeeping or, contrary to this, this legacy can be a justification of an active
enforcement of human rights which also might involve preemptive strikes.[7]

Soviet bloc: politics of history[edit]

Although this has not received considerably coverage, there have been studies to saying
that the Soviet Bloc's repressions and the consequent "traumatic repercussions" deserve
the same mention as that of post-World War II, which has been insititutionalized.[8]

Memorials[edit]
This section needs
expansion. You can help
by adding to it. (April
2012)

Memorials keep alive the memories of conflict, as with the removals of memorials, often
for political purposes, such as in Lithuania's removal of Soviet era statue from the city
centre of the capital to a cemetery that evoked an adverse reaction from Russia.[citation
needed]
Similarly, the commemorations of wars are held in places like Bosnia, which hosted a
concert on the 20th anniversary of the Bosnian war.[9]

Efficacy and moral relativity[edit]

While the German example's moral relativism has led to a lesser political fascism, others
have questioned whether politics of memory is a good thing. Is it that "Those who cannot
remember the past, are doomed to repeat it?" A large body of Literature has been written
with the view that it is so.
Looking at truth commissions and at efforts by ravaged societies to "come to terms" with
the past has caused various writers, human rights activists, lawyers, political theorists,
psychoanalysts, journalists, historians, and philosophers to argue that "forgetfulness
equals impunity, [while] impunity is both morally outrageous and politically dangerous."
It was also argued that forgetfulness is bad, however, it is still different from proving that
memory is good. It was said that memory, like everything else, could be clumsily or
unintelligently used, or even used for false purposes or in bad faith.[10]
W. G. Sebald sees the opposite end of the conventional determination in showing that
German amnesia surrounding the Allied carpet bombings of 131 German cities and towns
turned many German cities into vast necropolises, and resulted in an estimated 600,000
primarily civilian deaths, with millions of internal refugees. It was also said,[by
whom?] however, that the politics of memory could contribute to the formation of
strategies for achieving reconciliation in post-conflict situations. It can be used by
activists, equity workers, policy analysts and academics to address existing paradigms in
order to achieve some semblance of justice and reconciliation in the aftermath of deep
internal conflict.[citation needed]

In literature[edit]
Milan Kundera's opening story in the Book of Laughter and Forgetting is about a Czech
official posing with other officials for a photograph in winter. The man gives his fur hat to
cover his superior's bald head and the photo is taken. Later, when he falls out of favour
and is denounced and removed from official records and documents, he is even air-
brushed out of photographs; all that remains of him is his fur hat.[11]
Winston Churchill is purported to have said that "history is written by the victors." The
accuracy and significance of this statement is still debated.[12]
Raul Hilberg's autobiography is titled The politics of memory.

Omniscience
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to navigationJump to search
For the album by Swans, see Omniscience (album).
 This article may be unbalanced towards certain
viewpoints. Please improve the article by adding information on
neglected viewpoints, or discuss the issue on the talk page. (August
2017)

Part of a series on the

Paranormal
Main articles[show]
Skepticism[show]
Related[show]
Parapsychology[show]

 V
 T

 E

Omniscience (/ɒmˈnɪʃəns/)[1] is the capacity to know everything including the future.

In monotheistic religions, such as Sikhism and the Abrahamic religions, this is
an attribute of God. In some other religions that do not include a supreme deity, such
as Buddhism and Jainism, omniscience is an attribute that any individual can eventually
attain.

Contents
 1Buddhism
 2Christianity
 3Jainism
 4Omniscience and free will
 5See also
 6References
 7Sources
 8External links

Buddhism[edit]
The topic of omniscience has been much debated in various Indian traditions, but no
more so than by the Buddhists. After Dharmakirti's excursions into the subject of what
constitutes a valid cognition, Śāntarakṣita and his student Kamalaśīlathoroughly
investigated the subject in the Tattvasamgraha and its commentary the Panjika. The
arguments in the text can be broadly grouped into four sections:

 The refutation that cognitions, either perceived, inferred, or otherwise, can be

used to refute omniscience.
 A demonstration of the possibility of omniscience through apprehending the
selfless universal nature of all knowables, by examining what it means to be
ignorant and the nature of mind and awareness.
 A demonstration of the total omniscience where all individual characteristics
(svalaksana) are available to the omniscient being.
 The specific demonstration of Shakyamuni Buddha's non-exclusive omniscience.
[2]

Christianity[edit]
Part of a series on the
Attributes of God

Aseity ﾧ
Eternity ﾧ
Graciousness ﾧ
Holiness ﾧ
Immanence ﾧ
Immutability ﾧ
Impassibility ﾧ
Impeccability ﾧ
Incorporeality ﾧ
Love ﾧ
Mission ﾧ
Omnibenevolence ﾧ
Omnipotence ﾧ
Omnipresence ﾧ
Omniscience
Oneness ﾧ
Providence ﾧ
Righteousness ﾧ
Simplicity ﾧ
Transcendence ﾧ
Trinity ﾧ
Veracity ﾧ
Wrath ﾧ
 V
  T

 E
See also: Attributes of God in Christianity
Some modern Christian theologians argue that God's omniscience is inherent rather than
total, and that God chooses to limit his omniscience in order to preserve the freewill and
dignity of his creatures.[3] John Calvin, among other theologians of the 16th century,
comfortable with the definition of God as being omniscient in the total sense, in order for
worthy beings' abilities to choose freely, embraced the doctrine of predestination.[citation
needed]

Jainism[edit]
Main article: Kevala Jnana
In Jainism, omniscience is considered the highest type of perception. In the words of a
Jain scholar, "The perfect manifestation of the innate nature of the self, arising on the
complete annihilation of the obstructive veils, is called omniscience."[4]
Jainism views infinite knowledge as an inherent capability of every soul. Arihanta is the
word used by Jains to refer to those human beings who have conquered all inner passions
(like attachment, greed, pride, anger) and possess Kevala Jnana (infinite knowledge).
They are said to be of two kinds:[5]

1. Sāmānya kevali – omniscient beings (Kevalins) who are concerned with their own
liberation.
2. Tirthankara kevali – human beings who attain omniscience and then help others
to achieve the same.[5]

Omniscience and free will[edit]

Omniciencia, mural by José

Clemente Orozco

See also: Determinism, Free

will, and Argument from free will
Whether omniscience, particularly regarding the choices that a human will make, is
compatible with free will has been debated by theologians and philosophers. The
argument that divine foreknowledge is not compatible with free will is known
as theological fatalism. It is argued that if humans are free to choose between alternatives,
God could not know what this choice will be.[6]
A question arises: if an omniscient entity knows everything, even about its own decisions
in the future, does it therefore forbid any free will to that entity? William Lane
Craig states that the question subdivides into two:

1. If God foreknows the occurrence of some event E, does E happen necessarily?[7]

2. If some event E is contingent, how can God foreknow E’s occurrence?[8]

However, this kind of argument fails to recognize its use of the modal fallacy. It is
possible to show that the first premise of arguments like these is fallacious. [9][10]

Art of memory
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to navigationJump to search
This article is about the general topic known as "Ars memoriae" or "the Art of Memory".
For the book by Francis A. Yates, see The Art of Memory. For the album by John Zorn
and Fred Frith, see The Art of Memory (album).

Graphical memory devices

from the works of Giordano
Bruno

The art of memory (Latin: ars memoriae) is any of a number of loosely

associated mnemonic principles and techniques used to organize memory impressions,
improve recall, and assist in the combination and 'invention' of ideas. An alternative and
frequently used term is "Ars Memorativa" which is also often translated as "art of
memory" although its more literal meaning is "Memorative Art". It is sometimes referred
to as mnemotechnics.[1] It is an 'art' in the Aristotelian sense, which is to say a method or
set of prescriptions that adds order and discipline to the pragmatic, natural activities of
human beings.[2] It has existed as a recognized group of principles and techniques since
at least as early as the middle of the first millennium BCE,[3] and was usually associated
with training in rhetoric or logic, but variants of the art were employed in other contexts,
particularly the religious and the magical.
Techniques commonly employed in the art include the association of emotionally striking
memory images within visualized locations, the chaining or association of groups of
images, the association of images with schematic graphics or notae("signs, markings,
figures" in Latin), and the association of text with images. Any or all of these techniques
were often used in combination with the contemplation or study of architecture, books,
sculpture and painting, which were seen by practitioners of the art of memory as
externalizations of internal memory images and/or organization.
Because of the variety of principles and techniques, and their various applications, some
researchers refer to "the arts of memory", rather than to a single art.[2]

Contents
 1Origins and history
 2Principles

 2.1Visual sense and spatial orientation

 2.2Order
 2.3Limited sets
 2.4Association
 2.5Affect
 2.6Repetition

 3Techniques

 3.1Architectural mnemonic
 3.2Graphical mnemonic
 3.3Textual mnemonic

 4Method of loci
 5See also

 5.1Practitioners & exponents

 6Notes
 7References
 8External links

Origins and history[edit]

It has been suggested that the art of memory originated among the Pythagoreans or
perhaps even earlier among the ancient Egyptians, but no conclusive evidence has been
presented to support these claims.[4]
The primary classical sources for the art of memory which deal with the subject at length
include the Rhetorica ad Herennium (Bk III), Cicero's De oratore (Bk II 350-360),
and Quintilian's Institutio Oratoria (Bk XI). Additionally, the art is mentioned in
fragments from earlier Greek works including the Dialexis, dated to approximately 400
BCE.[5] Aristotle wrote extensively on the subject of memory, and mentions the
technique of the placement of images to lend order to memory. Passages in his works On
The Soul and On Memory and Reminiscence proved to be influential in the later revival of
the art among medieval Scholastics.[6]
The most common account of the creation of the art of memory centers around the story
of Simonides of Ceos, a famous Greek poet, who was invited to chant a lyric poem in
honor of his host, a nobleman of Thessaly. While praising his host, Simonides also
mentioned the twin gods Castor and Pollux. When the recital was complete, the nobleman
selfishly told Simonides that he would only pay him half of the agreed upon payment for
the panegyric, and that he would have to get the balance of the payment from the two
gods he had mentioned. A short time later, Simonides was told that two men were waiting
for him outside. He left to meet the visitors but could find no one. Then, while he was
outside the banquet hall, it collapsed, crushing everyone within. The bodies were so
disfigured that they could not be identified for proper burial. But, Simonides was able to
remember where each of the guests had been sitting at the table, and so was able to
identify them for burial. This experience suggested to Simonides the principles which
were to become central to the later development of the art he reputedly invented.[7]
He inferred that persons desiring to train this faculty (of memory) must select places and
form mental images of the things they wish to remember and store those images in the
places, so that the order of the places will preserve the order of the things, and the images
of the things will denote the things themselves, and we shall employ the places and the
images respectively as a wax writing-tablet and the letters written upon it.[8]

Ars Memoriæ, by Robert

Fludd

The early Christian

monks adapted techniques common in the art of memory as an art of composition
and meditation, which was in keeping with the rhetorical and dialectical context in which
it was originally taught. It became the basic method for reading and meditating upon the
Bible after making the text secure within one's memory. Within this tradition, the art of
memory was passed along to the later Middle Ages and the Renaissance (or Early
Modern period). When Cicero and Quintilian were revived after the 13th century,
humanist scholars understood the language of these ancient writers within the context of
the medieval traditions they knew best, which were profoundly altered by monastic
practices of meditative reading and composition.[9]
Saint Thomas Aquinas was an important influence in promoting the art when he defined
it as a part of Prudence and recommended its use to meditate on the virtues and to
improve one's piety. In scholasticism artificial memory[10] came to be used as a method
for recollecting the whole universe and the roads to Heaven and Hell.
[11] The Dominicans were particularly important in promoting its uses,[12] see for
example Cosmos Rossellius.
The Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci - who from 1582 until his death in 1610, worked to
introduce Christianity to China - described the system of places and images in his
work, A Treatise On Mnemonics. However, he advanced it only as an aid to passing
examinations (a kind of rote memorization) rather than as a means of new composition,
though it had traditionally been taught, both in dialectics and in rhetoric, as a tool for
such composition or 'invention'. Ricci was apparently trying to gain favour with the
Chinese imperial service, which required a notoriously difficult entry examination.[13]

One of Giordano Bruno's

simpler pieces

Perhaps following the example

of Metrodorus of Scepsis, vaguely described in Quintilian's Institutio oratoria, Giordano
Bruno, a defrocked Dominican, used a variation of the art in which the trained memory
was based in some fashion upon the zodiac. Apparently, his elaborate method was also
based in part on the combinatoric concentric circles of Ramon Llull, in part upon
schematic diagrams in keeping with medieval Ars Notoria traditions, in part upon groups
of words and images associated with late antique Hermeticism,[14] and in part upon the
classical architectural mnemonic. According to one influential interpretation, his memory
system was intended to fill the mind of the practitioner with images representing all
knowledge of the world, and was to be used, in a magical sense, as an avenue to reach the
intelligible world beyond appearances, and thus enable one to powerfully influence
events in the real world.[15] Such enthusiastic claims for the encyclopedic reach of the
art of memory are a feature of the early Renaissance,[16] but the art also gave rise to
better-known developments in logic and scientific method during the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries.[17]
However, this transition was not without its difficulties, and during this period the belief
in the effectiveness of the older methods of memory training (to say nothing of the
esteem in which its practitioners were held) steadily became occluded. In 1584, a huge
controversy over the method broke out in England when the Puritans attacked the art as
impious because it was thought to excite absurd and obscene thoughts; this was a
sensational, but ultimately not a fatal skirmish.[18] Erasmus of Rotterdam and other
humanists, Protestant and Catholic, had also chastised practitioners of the art of memory
for making extravagant claims for its efficacy, although they themselves believed firmly
in a well-disposed, orderly memory as an essential tool of productive thought.[19]
One explanation for the steady decline in the importance of the art of memory from the
16th to the 20th century is offered by the late Ioan P. Culianu, who argued that it was
suppressed during the Reformation and Counter-Reformation when Protestants and
reactionary Catholics alike worked to eradicate pagan influence and the lush visual
imagery of the Renaissance.[20]
Whatever the causes, in keeping with general developments, the art of memory
eventually came to be defined primarily as a part of Dialectics, and was assimilated in the
17th century by Francis Bacon and René Descartes into the curriculum of Logic, where it
survives to this day as a necessary foundation for the teaching of Argument.
[21] Simplified variants of the art of memory were also taught through the 19th century
as useful to public orators, including preachers and after-dinner speakers.
Principles[edit]
Visual sense and spatial orientation[edit]
Perhaps the most important principle of the art is the dominance of the visual sense in
combination with the orientation of 'seen' objects within space. This principle is reflected
in the early Dialexis fragment on memory, and is found throughout later texts on the
art. Mary Carruthers, in a review of Hugh of St. Victor's Didascalion, emphasizes the
importance of the visual sense as follows:
Even what we hear must be attached to a visual image. To help recall something we have
heard rather than seen, we should attach to their words the appearance, facial expression,
and gestures of the person speaking as well as the appearance of the room. The speaker
should therefore create strong visual images, through expression and gesture, which will
fix the impression of his words. All the rhetorical textbooks contain detailed advice on
declamatory gesture and expression; this underscores the insistence of Aristotle,
Avicenna, and other philosophers, on the primacy and security for memory of the visual
over all other sensory modes, auditory, tactile, and the rest.[22]
This passage emphasizes the association of the visual sense with spatial orientation. The
image of the speaker is placed in a room. The importance of the visual sense in the art of
memory would seem to lead naturally to the importance of a spatial context, given that
our sight and depth-perception naturally position images seen within space.
Order[edit]
The positioning of images in virtual space leads naturally to an order, furthermore, an
order to which we are naturally accustomed as biological organisms, deriving as it does
from the sense perceptions we use to orient ourselves in the world. This fact perhaps
sheds light on the relationship between the artificial and the natural memory, which were
clearly distinguished in antiquity.
It is possible for one with a well-trained memory to compose clearly in an organized
fashion on several different subjects. Once one has the all-important starting-place of the
ordering scheme and the contents firmly in their places within it, it is quite possible to
move back and forth from one distinct composition to another without losing one's place
or becoming confused.[23]
Again discussing Hugh of St. Victor's works on memory, Carruthers clearly notes the
critical importance of order in memory:
One must have a rigid, easily retained order, with a definite beginning. Into this order one
places the components of what one wishes to memorize and recall. As a money-
changer ("nummularium") separates and classifies his coins by type in his money
bag ("sacculum," "marsupium"), so the contents of wisdom's storehouse ("thesaurus,"
"archa"), which is the memory, must be classified according to a definite, orderly scheme.
[24]
Limited sets[edit]
Many works discussing the art of memory emphasize the importance
of brevitas and divisio, or the breaking up of a long series into more manageable sets.
This is reflected in advice on forming images or groups of images which can be taken in
at a single glance, as well as in discussions of memorizing lengthy passages, "A long text
must always be broken up into short segments, numbered, then memorized a few pieces
at a time."[25] This is known in modern terminology as chunking.
Association[edit]

Congestorium artificiose
memoriae, by Johann
Romberch

Association was considered to be of critical importance for the practice of the art.
However, it was clearly recognized that associations in memory are idiosyncratic, hence,
what works for one will not automatically work for all. For this reason, the associative
values given for images in memory texts are usually intended as examples and are not
intended to be "universally normative". Yates offers a passage from Aristotle that briefly
outlines the principle of association. In it, he mentions the importance of a starting point
to initiate a chain of recollection, and the way in which it serves as a stimulating cause.
For this reason some use places for the purposes of recollecting. The reason for this is
that men pass rapidly from one step to the next; for instance from milk to white, from
white to air, from air to damp; after which one recollects autumn, supposing that one is
trying to recollect the season.[26]
Affect[edit]
The importance of affect or emotion in the art of memory is frequently discussed. The
role of emotion in the art can be divided into two major groupings: the first is the role of
emotion in the process of seating or fixing images in the memory, the second is the way
in which the recollection of a memory image can evoke an emotional response.
One of the earliest sources discussing the art, the Ad Herennium emphasizes the
importance of using emotionally striking imagery to ensure that the images will be
retained in memory:
We ought, then, to set up images of a kind that can adhere longest in memory. And we
shall do so if we establish similitudes as striking as possible; if we set up images that are
not many or vague but active; if we assign to them exceptional beauty or singular
ugliness; if we ornament some of them, as with crowns or purple cloaks, so that the
similitude may be more distinct to us; or if we somehow disfigure them, as by
introducing one stained with blood or soiled with mud and smeared with red paint, so that
its form is more striking, or by assigning certain comic effects to our images, for that, too,
will ensure our remembering them more readily.[27]
On the other hand, the image associated with an emotion will call up the emotion when
recollected. Carruthers discusses this in the context of the way in which the trained
medieval memory was thought to be intimately related with the development of prudence
or moral judgement.
Since each phantasm is a combination not only of the neutral form of the perception, but
of our response to it (intentio) concerning whether it is helpful or hurtful, the phantasm
by its very nature evokes emotion. This is how the phantasm and the memory which
stores it helps to cause or bring into being moral excellence and ethical judgement.[28]
In modern terminology, the concept that salient, bizarre, shocking, or simply unusual
information will be more easily remembered can be referred to as the Von Restorff effect.
Repetition[edit]
The well-known role of repetition in the common process of memorization of course
plays a role in the more complex techniques of the art of memory. The earliest of the
references to the art of memory, the Dialexis, mentioned above, makes this clear: "repeat
again what you hear; for by often hearing and saying the same things, what you have
learned comes complete into your memory."[29] Similar advice is a commonplace in later
works on the art of memory.

Techniques[edit]
The art of memory employed a number of techniques which can be grouped as follows
for purposes of discussion, however they were usually used in some combination:
Architectural mnemonic[edit]
Main article: Method of loci
The architectural mnemonic was a key group of techniques employed in the art of
memory. It is based on the use of places (Latin loci), which were memorized by
practitioners as the framework or ordering structure that would 'contain' the images or
signs 'placed' within it to record experience or knowledge. To use this method one might
walk through a building several times, viewing distinct places within it, in the same order
each time. After the necessary repetitions of this process, one should be able to remember
and visualize each of the places reliably and in order. If one wished to remember, for
example, a speech, one could break up the content of the speech into images or signs used
to memorize its parts, which would then be 'placed' in the locations previously
memorized. The components of the speech could then be recalled in order by imagining
that one is walking through the building again, visiting each of the loci in order, viewing
the images there, and thereby recalling the elements of the speech in order. A reference to
these techniques survives to this day in the common English phrases "in the first place",
"in the second place", and so forth[citation needed]. These techniques, or variants, are
sometimes referred to as "the method of loci", which is discussed in a separate section
below.
The primary source for the architectural mnemonic is the anonymous Rhetorica ad
Herennium, a Latin work on rhetoric from the first century BCE. It is unlikely that the
technique originated with the author of the Ad Herennium. The technique is also
mentioned by Cicero and Quintilian. According to the account in the Ad
Herennium (Book III) backgrounds or 'places' are like wax tablets, and the images that
are 'placed' on or within them are like writing. Real physical locations were apparently
commonly used as the basis of memory places, as the author of the Ad
Herennium suggests
it will be more advantageous to obtain backgrounds in a deserted than in a populous
region, because the crowding and passing to and fro of people confuse and weaken the
impress of the images, while solitude keeps their outlines sharp.[30]
However, real physical locations were not the only source of places. The author goes on
to suggest
if we are not content with our ready-made supply of backgrounds, we may in our
imagination create a region for ourselves and obtain a most serviceable distribution of
appropriate backgrounds.[31]
Places or backgrounds hence require, and reciprocally impose, order (often deriving from
the spatial characteristics of the physical location memorized, in cases where an actual
physical structure provided the basis for the 'places'). This order itself organizes the
images, preventing confusion during recall. The anonymous author also advises that
places should be well lit, with orderly intervals, and distinct from one another. He
recommends a virtual 'viewing distance' sufficient to allow the viewer to encompass the
space and the images it contains with a single glance.
Turning to images, the anonymous author asserts that they are of two kinds: those
establishing a likeness based upon subject, and those establishing a likeness based upon a
word. This was the basis for the subsequent distinction, commonly found in works on the
art of memory, between 'memory for words' and 'memory for things'. He provides the
following famous example of a likeness based upon subject:
Often we encompass the record of an entire matter by one notation, a single image. For
example, the prosecutor has said that the defendant killed a man by poison, has charged
that the motive for the crime was an inheritance, and declared that there are many
witnesses and accessories to this act. If in order to facilitate our defense we wish to
remember this first point, we shall in our first background form an image of the whole
matter. We shall picture the man in question as lying ill in bed, if we know his person. If
we do not know him, we shall yet take some one to be our invalid, but not a man of the
lowest class, so that he may come to mind at once. And we shall place the defendant at
the bedside, holding in his right hand a cup, and in his left hand tablets, and on the fourth
finger a ram's testicles (Latin testiculi suggests testes or witnesses). In this way we can
record the man who was poisoned, the inheritance, and the witnesses.[32]
In order to memorize likenesses based on words he provides an example of a verse and
describes how images may be placed, each of which corresponds to words in the verse.
He notes however that the technique will not work without combination with rote
memorization of the verse, so that the images call to mind the previously memorized
words.
The architectural mnemonic was also related to the broader concept of learning and
thinking. Aristotle considered the technique in relation to topica, or conceptual areas or
issues. In his Topics he suggested
For just as in a person with a trained memory, a memory of things themselves is
immediately caused by the mere mention of their places, so these habits too will make a
man readier in reasoning, because he has his premisses classified before his mind's eye,
each under its number.[33]
Graphical mnemonic[edit]
Because of the influence of the pioneering work of Frances Yates, the architectural
mnemonic is often characterized as the art of memory itself. However, primary sources
show that from very early in the development of the art, non-physical or abstract
locations and/or spatial graphics were employed as memory 'places'. Perhaps the most
famous example of such an abstract system of 'places' is the memory system of
Metrodorus of Scepsis, who was said by Quintilian to have organized his memory using a
system of backgrounds in which he "found three hundred and sixty places in the twelve
signs of the zodiac through which the sun moves". Some researchers (L.A. Post and
Yates) believe it likely that Metorodorus organized his memory using places based in
some way upon the signs of the zodiac.[34] In any case Quintilian makes it clear that
non-alphabetic signs can be employed as memory images, and even goes on to mention
how 'shorthand' signs (notae) can be used to signify things that would otherwise be
impossible to capture in the form of a definite image (he gives "conjunctions" as an
example).[35]
This makes it clear that though the architectural mnemonic with its buildings, niches and
three-dimensional images was a major theme of the art as practiced in classical times, it
often employed signs or notae and sometimes even non-physical imagined spaces. During
the period of migration of barbarian tribes and the transformation of the Roman empire
the architectural mnemonic fell into disuse. However the use of tables, charts and signs
appears to have continued and developed independently. Mary Carruthers has made it
clear that a trained memory occupied a central place in late antique and medieval
pedagogy, and has documented some of the ways in which the development of medieval
memorial arts was intimately intertwined with the emergence of the book as we
understand it today. Examples of the development of the potential inherent in the
graphical mnemonic include the lists and combinatory wheels of the Majorcan Ramon
Llull. The Art of Signs (Latin Ars Notoria) is also very likely a development of the
graphical mnemonic. Yates mentions Apollonius of Tyana and his reputation for memory,
as well as the association between trained memory, astrology and divination.[36] She
goes on to suggest
It may have been out of this atmosphere that there was formed a tradition which, going
underground for centuries and suffering transformations in the process, appeared in the
Middle Ages as the Ars Notoria, a magical art of memory attributed to Apollonius or
sometimes to Solomon. The practitioner of the Ars Notoriagazed at figures or diagrams
curiously marked and called 'notae' whilst reciting magical prayers. He hoped to gain in
this way knowledge, or memory, of all the arts and sciences, a different 'nota' being
provided for each discipline. The Ars Notoria is perhaps a descendant of the classical art
of memory, or of that difficult branch of it which used the shorthand notae. It was
regarded as a particularly black kind of magic and was severely condemned by Thomas
Aquinas.[37]
Textual mnemonic[edit]
Carruthers's studies of memory suggest that the images and pictures employed in the
medieval arts of memory were not representational in the sense we today understand that
term. Rather, images were understood to function "textually", as a type of 'writing', and
not as something different from it in kind.[38]
If such an assessment is correct, it suggests that the use of text to recollect memories was,
for medieval practitioners, merely a variant of techniques employing notae, images and
other non-textual devices. Carruthers quotes Pope Gregory I, in support of the idea that
'reading' pictures was considered to be a variation of reading itself.
It is one thing to worship a picture, it is another by means of pictures to learn thoroughly
the story that should be venerated. For what writing makes present to those reading, the
same picturing makes present to the uneducated, to those perceiving visually, because in
it the ignorant see what they ought to follow, in it they read who do not know letters.
Wherefore, and especially for the common people, picturing is the equivalent of reading.
[38]
Her work makes clear that for medieval readers the act of reading itself had an oral phase
in which the text was read aloud or sub-vocalized (silent reading was a less common
variant, and appears to have been the exception rather than the rule), then meditated upon
and 'digested' hence making it one's own. She asserts that both 'textual' activities
(picturing and reading) have as their goal the internalization of knowledge and experience
in memory.
The use of manuscript illuminations to reinforce the memory of a particular textual
passage, the use of visual alphabets such as those in which birds or tools represent letters,
the use of illuminated capital letters at the openings of passages, and even the structure of
the modern book (itself deriving from scholastic developments) with its index, table of
contents and chapters reflect the fact that reading was a memorial practice, and the use of
text was simply another technique in the arsenal of practitioners of the arts of memory.

Method of loci[edit]
Main article: Method of loci
The 'method of loci' (plural of Latin locus for place or location) is a general designation
for mnemonic techniques that rely upon memorized spatial relationships to establish,
order and recollect memorial content. The term is most often found in specialized works
on psychology, neurobiology and memory, though it was used in the same general way at
least as early as the first half of the nineteenth century in works on Rhetoric, Logic
and Philosophy.[39]
O'Keefe and Nadel refer to "'the method of loci', an imaginal technique known to the
ancient Greeks and Romans and described by Yates (1966) in her book The Art of
Memory as well as by Luria (1969). In this technique the subject memorizes the layout of
some building, or the arrangement of shops on a street, or a video game,[40][41] or any
geographical entity which is composed of a number of discrete loci.[42] When desiring to
remember a set of items the subject 'walks' through these loci and commits an item to
each one by forming an image between the item and any distinguishing feature of that
locus. Retrieval of items is achieved by 'walking' through the loci, allowing the latter to
activate the desired items. The efficacy of this technique has been well established (Ross
and Lawrence 1968, Crovitz 1969, 1971, Briggs, Hawkins and Crovitz 1970, Lea 1975),
as is the minimal interference seen with its use."[43]
The designation is not used with strict consistency. In some cases it refers broadly to what
is otherwise known as the art of memory, the origins of which are related, according to
tradition, in the story of Simonides of Ceos: and the collapsing banquet hall discussed
above.[44] For example, after relating the story of how Simonides relied on remembered
seating arrangements to call to mind the faces of recently deceased guests, Steven M.
Kosslyn remarks "[t]his insight led to the development of a technique the Greeks called
the method of loci, which is a systematic way of improving one's memory by using
imagery."[45] Skoyles and Sagan indicate that "an ancient technique of memorization
called Method of Loci, by which memories are referenced directly onto spatial maps"
originated with the story of Simonides.[46] Referring to mnemonic methods, Verlee
Williams mentions, "One such strategy is the 'loci' method, which was developed by
Simonides, a Greek poet of the fifth and sixth centuries BC"[47] Loftus cites
the foundation story of Simonides (more or less taken from Frances Yates) and describes
some of the most basic aspects of the use of space in the art of memory. She states, "This
particular mnemonic technique has come to be called the "method of loci".[48] While
place or position certainly figured prominently in ancient mnemonic techniques, no
designation equivalent to "method of loci" was used exclusively to refer to mnemonic
schemes relying upon space for organization.[49]
In other cases the designation is generally consistent, but more specific: "The Method of
Loci is a Mnemonic Device involving the creation of a Visual Map of one's house."[50]
This term can be misleading: the ancient principles and techniques of the art of memory,
hastily glossed in some of the works just cited, depended equally upon
images and places. The designator "method of loci" does not convey the equal weight
placed on both elements. Training in the art or arts of memory as a whole, as attested in
classical antiquity, was far more inclusive and comprehensive in the treatment of this
subject

Method of loci
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to navigationJump to search
This article is about the memorization technique. For other uses, see Locus.
"Memory palace" redirects here. For the podcast, see The Memory Palace.

Cicero discussed the method

of loci in his De Oratore.

The method of loci (loci being

Latin for "places") is a method of memory enhancement which uses visualizations with
the use of spatial memory, familiar information about one's environment, to quickly and
efficiently recall information. The method of loci is also known as the memory
journey, memory palace, or mind palace technique. This method is a mnemonic device
adopted in ancient Roman and Greek rhetorical treatises (in the anonymous Rhetorica ad
Herennium, Cicero's De Oratore, and Quintilian's Institutio Oratoria). Many memory
contestchampions claim to use this technique to recall faces, digits, and lists of words.
The term is most often found in specialised works on psychology, neurobiology,
and memory, though it was used in the same general way at least as early as the first half
of the nineteenth century in works on rhetoric, logic, and philosophy.[1]John
O'Keefe and Lynn Nadel refer to:
'the method of loci', an imaginal technique known to the ancient Greeks and Romans and
described by Yates (1966) in her book The Art of Memory as well as by Luria (1969). In
this technique the subject memorizes the layout of some building, or the arrangement of
shops on a street, or any geographical entity which is composed of a number of discrete
loci. When desiring to remember a set of items the subject 'walks' through these loci in
their imagination and commits an item to each one by forming an image between the item
and any feature of that locus. Retrieval of items is achieved by 'walking' through the loci,
allowing the latter to activate the desired items. The efficacy of this technique has been
well established (Ross and Lawrence 1968, Crovitz 1969, 1971, Briggs, Hawkins and
Crovitz 1970, Lea 1975), as is the minimal interference seen with its use.[2]
The items to be remembered in this mnemonic system are mentally associated with
specific physical locations.[3] The method relies on memorized spatial relationships to
establish order and recollect memorial content. It is also known as the "Journey Method",
used for storing lists of related items, or the "Roman Room" technique, which is most
effective for storing unrelated information.[4]

Contents
 1Contemporary usage
 2Method
 3Applicability of the term
 4Spatial mnemonics and specific brain activation
 5Fictional portrayals
 6Notes
 7References

Contemporary usage[edit]
Many effective memorisers today use the "method of loci" to some degree. Contemporary
memory competition, in particular the World Memory Championship, was initiated in
1991 and the first United States championship was held in 1997.[5] Part of the
competition requires committing to memory and recalling a sequence of digits, two-digit
numbers, alphabetic letters, or playing cards. In a simple method of doing this,
contestants, using various strategies well before competing, commit to long-term
memory a unique vivid image associated with each item. They have also committed to
long-term memory a familiar route with firmly established stop-points or loci. Then in the
competition they need only deposit the image that they have associated with each item at
the loci. To recall, they retrace the route, "stop" at each locus, and "observe" the image.
They then translate this back to the associated item. For example, Ed Cooke, a World
Memory Champion Competitor, describes to Josh Foer in his book Moonwalking with
Einstein how he uses the method of loci. First, he describes a very familiar location where
he can clearly remember many different smaller locations like his sink in his childhood
home or his dog's bed. Cooke also advises that the more outlandish and vulgar the symbol
used to memorize the material, the more likely it will stick.
Memory champions elaborate on this by combining images. Eight-time World Memory
Champion Dominic O'Brien uses this technique.[6][7] The 2006 World Memory
Champion, Clemens Mayer, used a 300-point-long journey through his house for his
world record in "number half marathon", memorising 1040 random digits in a half-hour.
Gary Shang has used the method of loci to memorise pi to over 65,536 (216) digits.[8]
Using this technique a person with ordinary memorisation capabilities, after establishing
the route stop-points and committing the associated images to long-term memory, with
less than an hour of practice, can remember the sequence of a shuffled deck of cards.
[citation needed] The world record for this is held by Simon Reinhard at 21.19 seconds.
[9]
The technique is taught as a metacognitive technique in learning-to-learn courses.[10] It
is generally applied to encoding the key ideas of a subject. Two approaches are:

1. Link the key ideas of a subject and then deep-learn those key ideas in relation to
each other, and
2. Think through the key ideas of a subject in depth, re-arrange the ideas in relation
to an argument, then link the ideas to loci in good order.

The method of loci has also been shown to help sufferers of depression remember
positive, self-affirming memories.[11]
A study at the University of Maryland evaluated participants ability to accurately recall
two sets of familiar faces, using a traditional desktop, and with a head-mounted display.
The study was designed to leverage the method of loci technique, with virtual
environments resembling memory palaces. The study found an 8.8% recall improvement
in favor of the head-mounted display, in part due to participants being able to leverage
their vestibular and proprioceptive sensations.[12]

Method[edit]
The Rhetorica ad Herennium and most other sources recommend that the method of loci
should be integrated with elaborative encoding (i.e., adding visual, auditory, or other
details) to strengthen memory.[13][14] However, due to the strength of spatial memory,
simply mentally placing objects in real or imagined locations without further elaboration
can be effective for simple associations.
A variation of the "method of loci" involves creating imaginary locations (houses,
palaces, roads, and cities) to which the same procedure is applied. It is accepted that there
is a greater cost involved in the initial setup, but thereafter the performance is in line with
the standard loci method. The purported advantage is to create towns and cities that each
represent a topic or an area of study, thus offering an efficient filing of the information
and an easy path for the regular review necessary for long term memory storage.[15][16]
Something that is likely a reference to the "method of loci" techniques survives to this
day in the common English phrases "in the first place", "in the second place", and so
forth.[17][18]
The technique is also used for second language vocabulary learning, as polyglot Timothy
Doner described in his 2014 TEDtalk.[19] The method is further described in Anthony
Metiver's book "How to learn and memorise German vocabulary". What the author
suggests is creating a memory palace for each letter of the German alphabet. Each
memory palace then shall include a number of loci where an entry (a word or a phrase)
can be stored and recalled whenever you need it.

Applicability of the term[edit]

The designation is not used with strict consistency. In some cases it refers broadly to what
is otherwise known as the art of memory, the origins of which are related, according to
tradition, in the story of Simonides of Ceos and the collapsing banquet hall.[20] For
example, after relating the story of how Simonides relied on remembered seating
arrangements to call to mind the faces of recently deceased guests, Stephen M. Kosslyn
remarks "[t]his insight led to the development of a technique the Greeks called the
method of loci, which is a systematic way of improving one's memory by using
imagery."[21]Skoyles and Sagan indicate that "an ancient technique of memorization
called Method of Loci, by which memories are referenced directly onto spatial maps"
originated with the story of Simonides.[22] Referring to mnemonic methods, Verlee
Williams mentions, "One such strategy is the 'loci' method, which was developed by
Simonides, a Greek poet of the fifth and sixth centuries BC."[23] Loftus cites
the foundation story of Simonides (more or less taken from Frances Yates) and describes
some of the most basic aspects of the use of space in the art of memory. She states, "This
particular mnemonic technique has come to be called the "method of loci".[24] While
place or position certainly figured prominently in ancient mnemonic techniques, no
designation equivalent to "method of loci" was used exclusively to refer to mnemonic
schemes relying upon space for organization.[25]
In other cases the designation is generally consistent, but more specific: "The Method of
Loci is a Mnemonic Device involving the creation of a Visual Map of one's house."[26]
This term can be misleading: the ancient principles and techniques of the art of memory,
hastily glossed in some of the works, cited above, depended equally upon
images and places. The designator "method of loci" does not convey the equal weight
placed on both elements. Training in the art or arts of memory as a whole, as attested in
classical antiquity, was far more inclusive and comprehensive in the treatment of this
subject.

Spatial mnemonics and specific brain

activation[edit]
Brain scans of "superior memorizers", 90% of whom use the method of loci technique,
have shown that it involves activation of regions of the brain involved in spatial
awareness, such as the medial parietal cortex, retrosplenial cortex, and the right posterior
hippocampus.[27][28] The medial parietal cortex is most associated with encoding and
retrieving of information. Patients who have medial parietal cortex damage have trouble
linking landmarks with certain locations; many of these patients are unable to give or
follow directions and often get lost. The retrosplenial cortex is also linked to memory and
navigation. In one study on the effects of selective granular retrosplenial cortex lesions in
rats, the researcher found that damage to the retrosplenial cortex led to impaired spatial
learning abilities. Rats with damage to this area failed to recall which areas of the maze
they had already visited, rarely explored different arms of the maze, almost never recalled
the maze in future trials, and took longer to reach the end of the maze, as compared to
rats with a fully working retrosplenial cortex.
In a classic study in cognitive neuroscience, O'Keefe and Nadel proposed "that the
hippocampus is the core of a neural memory system providing an objective spatial
framework within which the items and events of an organism's experience are located and
interrelated."[29]
In a more recent study, memory champions during resting periods did not exhibit specific
regional brain differences, but distributed functional brain network connectivity changes
compared to control subjects. When volunteers trained use of the method of loci for six
weeks, the training-induced changes in brain connectivity were similar to the brain
network organization that distinguished memory champions from controls.[30]

Fictional portrayals[edit]
Fictional portrayals of the method of loci extend as far back as ancient Greek myths. The
method of loci also features prominently in the BBC series Sherlock, in which the titular
main character uses a "mind palace" to store information. In the original Arthur Conan
Doyle stories, Sherlock Holmes referred to his brain as an attic.[31] In Hannibal
Rising by Thomas Harris, a detailed description of Hannibal Lecter's memory palace is
provided.[