Biological Factors Affecting One Cognitive Process: A Case Study

Memory is defined as “the mental capacity to encode, store, and retrieve information” (American Psychological Association, 2002). It is a part of the means by which humans function. The process of forming and recalling memories involves various complex neurological processes and disruptions to these processes can result in loss of memory or the inability to form new memories. Amnesia is a memory disorder, in which, due to trauma or a head injury, certain parts of the memory is inaccessible. The two main types of amnesia are anterograde amnesia and retrograde amnesia. Anterograde amnesia refers to the inability to create new memories (Mastin, 2010). “Retrograde

Additionally, to further support these theories, researchers tend to conduct studies on the famous patient case, HM, to propose the consolidation deficit theory, in which those with amnesia cannot turn short-term memories into long-term memories (Dewar et al., 2010). However, researchers Dewar, Della Sala, Beschin, and Cowan (2010), mentioned that HM’s case does not fully explain why a patient with anterograde amnesia has the ability to get better at cognitive tasks despite being unable to recall having performed those tasks at a previous time. On the same hand, Duff, Wszalek, Tranel, and Cohen (2008) mentioned that most individuals with anterograde amnesia experience heightened intelligence, attention, skill, and reasoning levels (procedural memory).

Amnesia is common recognized psychological problem in daily life and according to Talmi, Caplan, Richards, and Moscovitch (2015), amnesia is usually thought as abilities’ loss in long-term memory regardless of intact of short-term memory. In other words, some people suffer from the amnesia related with the impairment of short-term memory and the others suffer from the amnesia related with the impairment of long-term memory. Those amnesias can happen not only by physical wound, but also psychological trauma. For example, “A 34-year-old man without past history of any psychiatric or neurological disorder developed severe anterograde amnesia following a psychological trauma” (KUMAR, RAO, SUNNY, &GANGADHAR, 2007). When it comes to sorts of amnesias,

Learning is a very important aspect of humans and creatures alike. Not only is it essential to the survival and adaption into this world but it also defines who we are as individuals (Schiller et al, 2010; Tronson & Taylor, 2007). Memories from past experiences shape the people that we are today. A crucial element to learning is memory, without it we would not be able to retain information. The process of memory is very distinct and consists of several different stages: acquisition of memory, consolidation, retrieval and then either reconsolidation or extinction (Debiec & Ledoux, 2004; Diergaarde, Schoffelmeer & De Vries, 2008). As memory is such a critical aspect of learning, it is no wonder that its distinct process has become the topic of much research in the neurobiological universe (Hupbach et al, 2007; Nader & Hardt, 2009).

How is memory encoded and what methods can lead to greater recall? There have been many different models suggested for human memory and many different attempts at defining a specific method of encoding that will lead to greater recall. In this experiment subjects are asked to do a semantic task on a word related to them and an orthographic task in which they analyze the letter in the word. The results of the experiment indicate that the words which where encoded semantically and are related to the self have greater recall.

The concept that the memory is a constructive and dynamic system was originally introduced by Sir Frederic Bartlett, in the 1920’s. According to Bartlett, social factors influence one’s ability to remember, and in turn, can either change a person’s perception of a specific memory or distort the original memory. As opposed to the memory being a ‘passive mechanism’ which indicates that the brain can store data and facts which can later be recalled without distortion and remain as they were when they were first encoded.

Forgetting is the inability to retrieve information. Forgetting occurs constantly across the human population. Since the early times psychologists have tried to determine the causes of forgetting. It is very difficult to study memory since there is no physical exam of the brain that can map memory however; we now have some theories regarding what is remembered. All we can do is measure what we can remember. Memory plays a vital role in our lives. It can dictate our feelings, emotions, and response to environment. There can never be enough studies regarding this matter. This essay will discuss the four theories of forgetting and what we can to to counteract its effects.

Amnesia is a critical health issue that happens to all us in our lifetimes. Whether it is from sports, a health condition that turn for the worst, or our body just slowly deteriorate and break apart. Scientists and doctors collaborate to find a way to prevent amnesia or put it to a standstill. The sole reason why Amnesia struck me is because I personally experience some small form of amnesia. When I was younger, I got hit near my right eyebrow by a hockey puck. I lost consciousness for a minute and woke up on the ground, not remembering what happened and to discovered my head is bleeding. I often find myself forgetting a lot of things such as things that was recently spoken or discussed. However, it is not just me that prompted me to learn and research about Amnesia. My father often forget things as well. He is only in his 50’s and had multiple surgeries that made me wonder if his surgeries has to do anything with it.

The Study of human memory started about two thousand years ago by Aristotle’s first attempt to understand how memory works. Aristotle “compared the human mind to a blank slate and theorized that all humans are born free of any knowledge and are merely the sum of their experiences”. David Hartley was the first philosopher to hypothesize that memories were encoded through motions in the nervous system. In the 1870s and 1880s, William James and William Wundt were the first psychologists to do research into how the human memory works. A German philosopher Herman Ebbinghaus developed the first scientific approach to studying memory. During Ebbinghaus’s experiments, he used lists of non-syllables, and then associated them with meaningful words. As he was doing his experiments, Ebbinghaus developed concepts of the learning

The second study is the case of English musician Clive Wearing. In his mid-forties (1985), he was diagnosed with a brain infection (herpes encephalitis) – attacking his central nervous system and affecting parts of his brain linked with memory. One of the affected locations was the hippocampus, which is the crucial area where the transition of memories from short-term to long-term memory takes place. This resulted in leaving him with a memory span of a few seconds (between 7 and 30 seconds, worst amnesia ever recorded). Any new information was erased from his memory almost instantly. He therefore suffers from both anterograde and retrograde amnesia. He spends every single day ‘waking up’ every 20 seconds, every time regaining full consciousness. He can’t remember much of his life before the infection. He can remember he has children from an earlier marriage, but can’t recall their names. Every time he sees his second wife, he greets her lovingly, not remembering

for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory at UC Irvine, California. They conducted a study where a

Not everything a person experiences in life can be fully remembered. Conversations and technology have helped preserve moments, but an increase in age, genetics, and unfortunate events can cause memory loss. I wish to study the body and specifically the study of the brain. As a result of my cousin's long term memory loss from an ice skating incident, my desire to study the complexities of the brain has increased. How the brain develops, works, alters, and malfunctions is still not known fully to researchers. The study of memory impairment will help me and others understand. Further knowledge and technology will drive the progress in my future research of the structure and organization of memory. My research, investigations and understanding

The human brain is a very complex organ that is considered the processing center for all information that is received in from outside sources to sending information out to other organs. One function of the brain that is very important to human’s way of life is memory. Memories are a recollection of events, persons, sounds, or fact from the past. It is the mental capacity of retaining or reviving previous experiences (Duff, Wszalek, Tranel, & Cohen, 2008). Short-term memories are recollections from recent events and long-term memories are recollections of events past (McCaffrey, 2015). There are four different regions of the cerebral cortex each responsible for certain aspects of memory. The prefrontal cortex plays a part in processing short-term memories and retaining long-term memories. The parietal lobe integrates sensory information from various senses such as smell from the nose or sounds from the ears (McCaffrey, 2015). The occipital lobe processes what we see with our eyes and the temporal lobe is involved in processing smell, sound, semantics in speech and vision. The temporal lobe is the key part of the brain that converts short-term memories to long-term ones (McCaffrey, 2015). A person has explicit memories that are consciously recalled knowledge such as how to eat and tie ones shoes for instance and implicit memories that are nonverbal memories embedded in behaviors and actions such as breathing (Brennels,

Memory is a complicated topic to describe, as its role, theory and application differs from person to person. A popularised explanation of memory involves a tiered or levelled approach, ranging from a holistic to a reductionist description (Bilkey, 2016). The Social and cultural level of memory refers to information stored in museums, libraries and oral history. Individual memory is another level of description, and is specific to the person; what they did that day, or ate for example. At the reductionist spectrum of memory is the biological level, describing the fundamental process in the body that lead to memory formation, such as synaptic modulation and information encoding in DNA (Bilkey, 2016). Whichever level is adopted, three processes

Central idea: Memory is a process of the brain which is prone to certain failures, although specific steps can be taken to guard against these failures.