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Memento : The Development Of Memory And Short-Term Memory

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Memories are priceless facets of the human mind. They make humans who they are, molding them into unique beings. The development of memories over time is critical to the growth and assembly of personality; as memories dictate, both directly and indirectly, how humans view the world around them as well as how they behave within it. What if one could not create or retain new memories? What if one could not access past memories? This is the case with people who suffer from anterograde amnesia and retrograde amnesia respectively. Cognitive Science professor, Dr. Jim Davies imparted an understanding of these disorders through his screening of Christopher Nolan’s film Memento. Neurologist Oliver Sacks, author of the book The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales aids in further establishing the nature of these disorders through detailed accounts of numerous patients who suffered from them.

In order to truly understand anterograde and retrograde amnesia, one must first understand the concepts of short-term memory and long-term memory, the former being mainly affected and as a result transferring the effects onto the latter. Cognition was defined by Davies in class as being the manipulation, storage, and processing of representations. These representations are stored in memory which is divided into different types. Short-term memory has little capacity. It stores information (representations) for a temporary period of time, although some but not all

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