Extending Reading: "It's Magical it's malleable, it's memory."

Extending Reading: "It's Magical it's malleable, it's memory."
What is the relationship between memory and selfhood?
Our memories are mostly reconstructed, and these constructed memories affect our selfhood. We tend to believe that our self hood (who I am) is based on our experiences, but Lotus state that our memory not a bedrock, it is a like shifting sands. We tend to create false memories, and it could affect our self hood. For example in this article, Lotus believed that she did not see her mother’s dead body. After hearing the false insist from her uncle, “The memories began to drift back” She became to remember images and scene of the night that his mother was drown. She started to remember her mother’s face and polices cars. Her self hood started to change because new memories are constructed. After a few days her brother called him and said it was a mistake, she finally knew that her memory was made up. Her selfhood changed back since she knew that her new memories were constructed.

What new discovery about memory do you find most interesting?
First I believe that our selfhood could be affected by past events, I was wrong. After reading this article on memory, I realized that our complex memories are mostly reconstructed, and they are not a 100% record of the past events. If memories are like “quick sand” and could be easily constructed, this means that our selfhood could also be easily constructed. I am also surprised what our brain can do, our brain can encode different false memories ranging from person to person and we would not even realize that memories are reconstructed. We would tend to believe that the reconstructed memory is what we have been through. If our memories could be easily reconstructed and they are false memories, then should we really believe in our own memories and who we really are?

What is the homunculus crisis?
We have understood where memories are stored and what happens when memory is recalled, but we don’t know what stimulate it. Not knowing what activates us to retrieve memories is called the “homunculus crisis”. Memory is like a network of neurons that “activated when an event occurs and each time that network is stimulated the memory is strengthened or consolidated.” “Even the simplest memory stimulates complex neural networks at several different sites in the brain. The content (what happened) and meaning (how it felt) of an event are laid down in separate parts of the brain.”

Which theory of dreams finds support in the experiments by Lynch?
“In Canada, students who slept after cramming for an exam retained more information than those who pulled an all-nighter.” The experiment conducted by Lynch is a cognitive theory. Winson’s cognitive theory states that our dreams are a replay of daily experiences and it helps us learn and consolidate information. Students who slept after cramming for an exam are able to organize information during their sleep but the students who did not sleep for the entire night could not consolidate their learn information.

How can some memories become indelible?
Indelible memories are described as “carve its canyons and basins of memory into the living brain.” Memories that become indelible are often involved with “emotional arousing experiences”, when we are involved with traumatic experiences two powerful stress hormones will be released called adrenaline and noradealine. These stress hormones are so powerful that they could regulate the strength of storing memories and stimulates the heart to beat faster and muscles to be tense. These hormones could also stimulate the amygdale and produce an unconscious fear response.

How can amnesia and repression be explained?
Repression is when lost memories are later retrieved. Amnesia is when we could not recall a “horrendous event” because it was not initially encoded in to our brain. Amnesia often occurs on victim after injury; repressed memories are believed to be involved in any traumatic experience. Both amnesia and repression may be caused by the malfunction of the hippocampus. The hippocampus processes the memories, depicting words and pictures in to our explicit memory. However “Siegel thinks that some individuals remove conscious attention during repeated trauma.” But there is no direct evidence to prove how memories are impaired.

Explain the following statement: "Memory is more reconstructive than reproductive."
As demonstrated by psychologist John Neisser and John Dean, Richard Nixon could only give a general sense of what was going on in the meeting but failed to provide valid details in the meeting. This shows that human’s memories are incredibly accurate in the overall sense and hugely inaccurate in detail parts. Our memory does not encode all the aspects of an event, it choose to remember the outstanding events and often tends to forget all the detail. We tend to reconstruct the memories of forgotten details according to our preference or our emotions. The strength of the reconstructed memory depends on how many times we convince ourselves that a memory is true.

What new paradigm of memory is now emerging?
"Where memories are understood as creative blending of fact and fiction, where images are alchemized by experience and emotion into memories." When we retrieve memories, we first encode them in to our short term memory then to our long term memory. During the process of encoding, some of the actual details have been lost when it reaches to our long term memory. These forgotten memories are reconstructed in to the way that it makes meaning to us, “and the meaning-making process is shaped by who we are as self.”

After reading this article, what conclusions can you make about memory?
After reading this article, I have concluded that our selfhood keeps on changing due to the influence of our experiences and the reconstruction of our memory. From reading this article I have noticed that our memory is reconstructed according to our selfhood, and our selfhood is also related to our memories. I have also concluded that our memory is really powerful but it could not be trusted to a certain extant. Memory could bring a huge effect on a person’s life, since it is described as the foundation of a person.

Memory is often a reconstruction

In this experiment, we were presented 8 different pictures, one at a time for a second each. Then we drew what we remembered in our short term memory (while giving hints beside). The results turn out astonishing:
1: We create our own memory and these memories are an accurate reflection of past experience.
2: Some parts of the picture appeared to be similar but some parts are drawn differently due to our past experiences toward the verbal stimuli (hints given on the paper).

TheRumor Chain activity

Dr. Antony randomly picked four volunteers to demonstrate this experiment. He told them a story and instructed them to pass on the story to the next person. The result became that there is a bit of a memory lost in each retelling:

1. Levelling: there was a simplification of material, some details were cut off
-The Hijacker was from “People revolution army”
-Angry passengers force the gun out of the hijacker.
-Radioing Bangkok on the event
-Hijacker was cut off
-From cockpit to pilot cabin

2. Sharpening: Only some high lights were pass on through out the story,
-Throwing the microphone,
-The Magnum gun
-Forcing the pilot to go to Cuba

3. Assimilation-> There has been a change of detail for better subjects by using their own background and knowledge.
-Two pilots,
- Hijackers to terrorist

Meaning enhances recall

Meaning enhances recall
Today, we conducted an experiment on associating short term memory to emotions and other long term memory.

We were instructed to identify two list of letters, when list A words was shown we count their syllable, when list B words were shown we categorize them in to good or bad.

We later plot our results in a diagram and conclude three points.
- The graph was evenly distributed.
- The graph contained 2 modes in the grade and there was a wide range of data. (One person got a full score and 4 other people only remembered half of the words. The person who got a full score uses mnemonic devices to remember the story, he connect them in to a story line to remember)
- More people remember B list words then A list words because we associate the B list words with emotions.

Remembering and Forgetting

Remembering and Forgetting
In class today, we watched a video on the topic “remembering and forgetting”. This movie provided us with detailed information about memory storage. Human have the capacity of obtaining about 100 trillion bits of information, but to remember it depends on the amount of concentration, rehearsal, and emotional effects ( such as wishes, motivations, fear, desire, etc) We could better remember the facts through relating the given information, giving it a meaning, linking it to our old memories or even organize it in a way we could recognize it. Memory storage is separated into three parts, which includes encoding short term memory and long term memory. We encode memories in to our short term memory, and then if we give it enough reinforcement we could process it in our long term memory. The limit of short term memories are only up to 7 characters, we would easily forget the old short term memory if there is new information coming in our short term memory. Long term memory is said to be limitless, it is like a storehouse where we could store as many information as we want, but the problem is calling it out ( in the movie, it is described as a library). Lastly we tend to forget memories because of our neurons dying, if neuron that carries our memory dies, that particular memory fades away.

demostartion 2 sleeping words

In this experiment we were to remember words instead of numbers. The teacher instructed us to remember a list of words and we were to write down what words we remembered. We conducted a graph using the result of the class and the result demonstrated the “serial position effect”. Most of the people in the class tend to remember the beginning and the end of the list best. This is because in the beginning they are alert and at the end they have some short term memory to keep those memories. The average number of words that the average of the class could remember is around 7, which somehow relates to short term memory in demo 1. The result of the graph demonstrated the fact that we could construct our own memory. Some of the classmates created their own memories on the word “sleep” because it is associated with all other words (snore, night, silent, clock, bed, etc). This demonstration also show us the effect of rehearsal, we tend to remember the words that was repeated many times. Lastly most of the classmates remembered Pineapple because the word is so unique in the listed words.

demenstration short term memory

Today we demonstrated the ability to remember things such as numbers using short term memories. We later were told to record the numbers that the teacher said. The capacity of human's average short term memory is around 7 characters (plus minus 2). We concluded that there are many ways to improve our memories such as putting the numbers in to chunks (chunking) or relate the facts to our self (self reference effect). We also learnt that we could use some mnemonic devices to help us remember.

conginition my first memory

A: memories: when I was 3, there was an "old" cockroach that fell from the ceiling and hit my face. I was frightened, I ran to my mother crying for help. I could still remember my mother is still watching an entertainment t.v program. (I could even remember the name of that t.v program and, it was around 10 pm). I could clearly remember that my mother told me, "don't be afraid of old cockroach, it won’t harm you, come sit beside me and let's watch t.v together. I will sleep beside you to night to ensure you that there will be no more cockroaches" my memory stopped from there, the scene of my memory was really vivid and I could recall every detail even until now.

B: during class, we shared our first memory of childhood, and we concluded that most of our memories are constructed by our parents, photos, and our own emotions. We could not really remember any memories at the age of 5, but I think this does not apply to me because my parents did not remember this event at all and there was no photos. I think I remember this incident is because it is a very strong negative emotional stimulus which will cause me to have a vivid memory of this event.