Memory is the processes involved in retaining, retrieving, and using information aboutstimuli, images, events, ideas, and skills after the original information is no longer present.The fact that memory retains information that is no longer present means that wecan use our memory as a “time machine” to go back just a moment—to the words youread at the beginning of this sentence—or many years—to events as early as a childhoodbirthday party. This “mental time travel” afforded by memory can place you backin a situation, so you feel as though you are reliving it, even to the extent of experiencingfeelings that occurred long ago. But memory goes beyond reexperiencing events. Wealso use memory to remember what we need to do later in the day, to remember factswe have learned, and to use skills we have acquired.If you were asked to create a “Top 10” list of what you use memory for, whatwould you include? When I ask my students to do this, most of their items relate today-to-day activities. The top fi ve items on their list involved remembering the followingthings:1. Material for exams2. Their daily schedule3. Names4. Phone numbers5. Directions to placesRemembering material for exams is probably high on most students’ lists, but it islikely that other people, such as business executives, construction workers, homemakers,or politicians, would create lists that differ from the ones created by college students inways that refl ect the demands of their particular lives. A construction worker’s list would not be likely to include remembering the material thatwill be on the next cognitive psychology exam, but mightinclude remembering the procedure for framing a house.One reason I ask students to create a “memory list”is to get them to think about how important memory isin their day-to-day lives. But the main reason is to makethem aware of the things they don’t include on theirlists, because they take them for granted. A few of thesethings include labeling familiar objects (you know youare reading a “book” because of your past experiencewith books), having conversations (you need memory tokeep track of the fl ow of a conversation), knowing whatto do in a restaurant (you need to remember a sequenceof events, starting with being seated and ending withpaying the check), and fi nding your way to class (youneed to remember where your class is and the spatiallayout of part of the campus).The list of things that depend on memory is anextremely long one because just about everything we dodepends on remembering what we have experienced in the past. Perhaps the mostpower ful way to demonstrate the importance of memory is to consider what happensto people’s lives when they lose their memory. Consider, for example, the case of CliveWearing (Annenberg, 2000; D. Wearing, 2005).Wearing was a highly respected musician and choral director in England who, inhis 40s, contracted viral encephalitis, which destroyed parts of his temporal lobe thatare important for forming new memories. Because of his brain damage, Wearing livestotally within the most recent one or two minutes of his life. He remembers what justhappened and forgets everything else. When he meets someone, and the person leavesthe room and returns three minutes later, Wearing reacts as if he hadn’t met the personearlier. Because of his inability to form new memories, he constantly feels he has justbecome conscious for the fi rst time.This feeling is made poignantly clear by Wearing’s diary, which contains hundredsof entries like “I have woken up for the fi rst time” and “I am alive” (● Figure 5.1). ButWearing has no memory of ever writing anything except for the sentence he has justwritten. When questioned about previous entries, Wearing acknowledges that they arein his handwriting, but because he has no memory of writing them, he denies that theyare his. It is no wonder that he is confused, and not surprising that he describes his lifeas being “like death.” His loss of memory has robbed him of his ability to participate inlife in any meaningful way, and he needs to be constantly ca
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