TRUE BIG SET

Learning

The process of acquiring new information through experience;

Memory

The outcome of learning resulting in stored information that can be retrieved later;

Encoding

The initial processing of incoming information that creates memory traces for storage;

Acquisition

The first stage of encoding - sensory information enters short-term memory;

Consolidation

The process by which memory traces are stabilized over time to form long-term memories;

Storage

The maintenance of encoded information over time;

Retrieval

The process of accessing stored information to create conscious recollection or guide behavior;

(Process: Access stored info to create- conscious recollection or guide behavior)

Sensory memory

A very brief form of memory (milliseconds to seconds) that holds incoming sensory information;

Short-term memory

A limited-capacity memory system lasting seconds to minutes that temporarily holds information;

Working memory

A limited-capacity system that maintains and manipulates information over short periods of time;

Long-term memory

A high-capacity memory system lasting days to years;

Medial temporal lobe (MTL) memory system

A network including the hippocampus entorhinal cortex perirhinal cortex and parahippocampal cortex involved in declarative memory formation

Parahippocampal cortex

MTL region involved in contextual and spatial aspects of memory;

Fornix

Major output pathway of the hippocampus connecting to subcortical structures;

Mammillary bodies

Subcortical structures involved in declarative memory and part of the diencephalic memory system;

Anterior thalamic nuclei

Thalamic structures involved in declarative memory processing;

Anterograde amnesia

Loss of the ability to form new long-term declarative memories after brain damage;

Retrograde amnesia

Loss of memories formed before brain damage;

Temporal gradient

A pattern in retrograde amnesia in which recent memories are more impaired than remote memories;

Ribot’s Law

Principle stating that older memories are more resistant to disruption than newer memories;

Bilateral medial temporal lobectomy

Surgical removal of both medial temporal lobes resulting in severe declarative memory impairment;

Unilateral temporal lobectomy

Surgical removal of one medial temporal lobe

Digit span

A measure of short-term memory capacity assessing how many digits can be retained and repeated;

Double dissociation

A pattern in which two cognitive functions can be independently impaired

Patient MS

right occipital lobe lesion- NO VISUAL PRIMING ABILITY

declarative memory intact

self sufficient (could live his life unlike Clive)

Declarative memory

Long-term memory for facts and events that can be consciously accessed and verbally reported;

Episodic memory

Declarative memory for personal experiences and their context

Semantic memory

Declarative memory for general world knowledge (and facts and language) independent of specific personal context; (specific learning episode)

Autobiographical memory

Memory for personally experienced life events;

Nondeclarative (implicit) memory

LTMemory expressed through performance rather than conscious recollection;

• influences behavior without conscious awareness

Procedural memory

A type of nondeclarative memory for motor and cognitive skills acquired through repetition; supported by striatum

Serial reaction time task

A procedural learning task in which participants implicitly learn repeating motor sequences;

Basal ganglia

Subcortical structures involved in procedural and motor skill learning;

Priming

Improved processing of a stimulus due to prior exposure without conscious awareness;

Perceptual representation system (PRS)

• Neocortical system supporting perceptual priming

• independent of the medial temporal lobe;

Perceptual priming

Facilitated identification of previously encountered stimuli based on perceptual features;

• improves after one exposure unlike learning

Conceptual priming

Facilitated processing based on prior exposure to related conceptual information;

Semantic priming

Facilitated processing of a word when preceded by a semantically related word;

Delay conditioning

Form of classical conditioning in which the conditioned stimulus overlaps with the unconditioned stimulus;

Trace conditioning

Form of classical conditioning in which a time gap separates conditioned and unconditioned stimuli and requires hippocampal involvement;

Habituation

A decrease in response to a repeated

Sensitization

An increased response to a repeated stimulus;

(NOTE: THIS IS NOT THE SAME AS DISHABITUATION)

• Dishabituation is recovery of a previously habituated response after a novel or different stimulus is introduced, or after a period of time without the original stimulus. It is the return to a heightened response level, as if the stimulus were new again.

Case study NA

Stabbed through the left thalamus (Impairing his verbal declarative memory, but his nonverbal was intact)

Highlights unilateral lesion effects on declarative memory (vs. bilateral)

(its different for him being stabbed only in one part

Multiple memory systems view

The theory that different types of memory rely on distinct neural systems;

Localization of function

The extent to which specific cognitive processes (memory) are carried out by specialized brain regions versus distributed networks working together

Procedural memory

A type of nondeclarative memory involving skills and habits supported primarily by the striatum

Priming

A form of implicit memory (long term memory acquired unconsciously) in which prior exposure to a stimulus facilitates later processing of the same or related stimulus

Classical conditioning

A type of associative learning in which a neutral stimulus becomes linked to a meaningful stimulus

(Bell becomes linked with food coming)

Nonassociative learning

A simple form of learning such as habituation or sensitization that does not require forming associations between stimuli

Medial temporal lobe (MTL)

Brain region including the hippocampus and surrounding cortex critical for declarative memory formation

Diencephalon

Brain structures (including thalamus and mammillary bodies) involved in declarative memory and implicated in some amnesic syndromes

Amnesia

Clinically significant impairment in memory (memory loss) that disrupts daily functioning while other cognitive abilities remain relatively intact

Single dissociation

A pattern in which damage to a specific brain region impairs one cognitive function while sparing others

Anterograde amnesia

Impairment in the ability to form new declarative memories after brain damage

Retrograde amnesia

Loss of declarative memories formed before brain damage

Ribot’s law

Principle stating that older memories are more resistant to disruption than newer memories

Temporal gradient

A pattern in retrograde amnesia in which recent memories are more impaired than remote memories

Henry Molaison

Patient who underwent bilateral medial temporal lobe resection in 1953 resulting in severe anterograde amnesia and temporally graded retrograde amnesia

Bilateral temporal lobectomy

Surgical removal of both medial temporal lobes

Entorhinal cortex

MTL region serving as the major input and output gateway between the hippocampus and neocortex (involved in memory consolidation and navigation)

Perirhinal cortex

MTL cortical region involved in

• object recognition

• familiarity-based memory

Parahippocampal cortex

MTL cortical region involved in

• spatial and

• contextual aspects of memory

Hippocampal indexing theory

proposes the hippocampus initially stores an index or pointer that binds distributed cortical representations of a memory and later becomes unnecessary after systems consolidation

Cellular (synaptic) consolidation

Short-term stabilization process of memory formation occurring over minutes to hours

• involving synaptic plasticity

• early, time-limited phase of memory formation that stabilizes labile short-term memories into long-term memories

Systems consolidation

• Long-term reorganization process

• occurring over days to years

• memories gradually become independent of the hippocampus and rely on strengthened cortical connections

Standard systems consolidation theory (SCT)

proposes

• the hippocampus is required for the formation and early retrieval of declarative memories

• older memories become hippocampus-independent over time

Memory consolidation hypothesis

• hippocampus plays a time-limited role in binding distributed cortical elements of a memory

• eventually after cortical networks can support retrieval independently

Clive Wearing

Patient with severe amnesia due to viral encephalitis showing profound anterograde and retrograde amnesia but preserved procedural memory

• Lost declarative memory right and left temporal lobes, damaged his hippocampus

• damage to some of his frontal lobe

• Has familiarity

E.P.

Patient with severe amnesia caused by herpes simplex encephalitis with extensive medial temporal lobe damage and profound declarative memory impairment

he has anterograde and retrograde

he has preserved procedural

shows the importance of MTL not just hippocampus for declarative memory

Wechsler Memory Scale (WMS)

Standardized neuropsychological test used to assess declarative memory function in clinical settings

Rey Complex Figure

Neuropsychological test assessing visual declarative memory by requiring immediate copy and delayed recall of a complex figure

Neuroimaging studies of memory

Use of techniques such as fMRI to identify brain regions and networks involved in encoding storage and retrieval of memory

Medial temporal lobe memory system

Network including hippocampus perirhinal cortex parahippocampal cortex and entorhinal cortex supporting declarative memory

Hippocampus

Medial temporal lobe structure critical for

episodic memory (forming new dec mem)

spatial navigation

mental scene construction and

binding items with context (details of experiences)

Developmental amnesia

Condition in which hippocampal damage occurs early in life leading to severe episodic impairment but relatively preserved semantic knowledge

Anoxia

Lack of oxygen to the brain often causing bilateral hippocampal damage

Bilateral hippocampal volume loss

Approximately fifty percent reduction in hippocampal size associated with profound episodic deficits

Early onset hippocampal lesion

Hippocampal damage occurring in infancy or childhood that may allow cortical reorganization supporting semantic learning

Brain reorganization

Compensatory neural adaptation in which other cortical regions assume functions after early damage

Maguire taxi driver study

Neuroimaging study showing enlarged posterior hippocampus in London taxi drivers supporting role in spatial navigation

• highlights spatial nav function of hippocampus

Mental scene construction

Ability to imagine coherent spatially organized scenarios involving hippocampal activation

(imagine real events, fictional ones, future ones making sure its spatially coherent)

Future event simulation

Construction of imagined future experiences using elements of past episodic memories

Subsequent memory paradigm/Difference in memory paradigm

fMRI design comparing encoding activity for items later remembered versus later forgotten

uses backsorting

 asks: How do we determine what activity at ENCODING leads to successful RETRIEVAL?

Backsorting

Sorting encoding phase neural data based on later retrieval performance outcomes

Hit in recognition memory

Item correctly identified as previously studied

Miss in recognition memory

Previously studied item incorrectly judged as new

BOLD signal

Blood oxygen level dependent response measured in fMRI reflecting local neural activity

Successful encoding activity (In terms of BOLD)

Greater BOLD activation during encoding for items later remembered compared to forgotten

Encoding retrieval relationship

Principle that neural processes engaged during encoding influence later retrieval success

Binding items and contexts theory

Theory proposing hippocampus binds item information with spatial and temporal context to form episodic memories

Parahippocampal cortex

Medial temporal lobe region supporting contextual and spatial processing

Recollection

Retrieval process involving remembering specific contextual details of an event

Familiarity

Retrieval process involving sense of prior occurrence without contextual detail

Source memory

Ability to remember contextual details such as color location or time associated with an item

Ranganath 2003 study

fMRI study showing hippocampal and parahippocampal activation during encoding predicts later source recollection

subjects made source memory judgments related to

episodic memory (red or green colored word?) – a measure of recollection,

• They also had to rate their confidence about whether

they had seen the item before (1 sure it is new…6 sure it

was old)—a measure of familiarity. (Similar to sdt)

Supports Binding Items and Contexts

Confidence rating scale

Behavioral measure in recognition tasks assessing subjective certainty of memory judgment

Resting state fMRI

Neuroimaging method measuring intrinsic brain connectivity when participants are not performing explicit tasks

Functional connectivity

Correlation of activity fluctuations between brain regions indicating network level interaction

Memory network

Distributed set of interacting brain regions supporting encoding retrieval and consolidation

Default mode network

Network active during internally directed thought including autobiographical memory future planning and mental simulation