Amy Fleischer
Blog: Emotional Memory
March 2, 2008
It seems like an important rule for this week’s readings is that change is the only constant. While emphasizing the integrative functions of different types of memory, we’ve learned about how we reconstruct our memories of the past by recalling them in the present. By use of our imaginations, we are constantly making our worlds through a complex interplay of memory and emotion. Since there are so many ways in which we re-make or create via memory, a thorough investigation the variety of processes is in order.
Part of our readings reviewed material we discussed in class last week. I found the repetition to be helpful, so what follows is another attempt to summarize:
In Memory and Emotion, McGaugh distinguishes between short-term (working) memory and long-term (lasting) memory. The former contains our most recent experiences, while the latter involves explicit recall of specific events (episodic) or factual knowledge (semantic) (10). He goes on to explain that there are, in fact, many different forms of memory as a result of integrated functioning between the hippocampus, caudate nucleus, and amygdala (28 fig3).
One of McGaugh’s softer points on the function of emotion regards how we use it to make meaning (2). Continuing last week’s discussion of narrative, the study of memory is important to scientists as well as historians for obvious reasons. A major debate existing in the field of oral history, in particular, is how much “honesty” counts when an altered memory could speak more for the truth. That is, with greater attention to context, narrated events may tell more about the meaning of historical events (be they individual/autobiographical or public) than would dry recollections of facts. The creative components of memory lend artistic impulses to research methods in history and science, as well as many other disciplines.
Of course, McGaugh and LeDoux and many others still insist on the value of objective analysis in the study of memory (McGaugh 7); but if researchers are too adamant about achieving objectivity, they may miss out on some important points. McGaugh’s critique of Pavlov’s experiments as being flat-out wrong was surprising to me… although his study was extremely important to behavioral studies, his inferences about conditioning as mere habit formation is misleading. In reading LeDoux as well, I was interested to learn about the historical abhorrence to psychological explanations of animal behavior (147). Hopefully, this denial of subjective emotional states in animals is now being checked. (Do you think that it is in the studies we have reviewed?)
I got kind of lost, in Chapter 7 of The Emotional Brain, where LeDoux describes the relationship between the hippocampus and the amygdala. I understand that explicit memories of emotional experiences (which are declarative or conscious) occur via the hippocampus and implicit emotional memories (which are procedural or skill-based) occur via the amygdala- but there still must be connections among them (181). Could it be that memories are all made of the same “stuff” but that this “stuff” functions differently in different regions of the brain? Depending also on various experiences?
By trying to remember an event with respect to time, it might be easier to compare how the two additional studies that we read examine the role of emotional memory. The Sharot, et al. article refers to earlier stages of memory formation in order to learn how memories are made, while Dolcos et al. looks more to the current situation in order to examine how memories are re-constituted over time. In both studies, mapping the consolidation of memory can provide valuable insights into the learning process.
Meanwhile, several of our readings referred to the experience of “memory without remembering” (McGaugh 46). The most classic example is in the case of H.M., but who among us can attest to a type of deja-vu experience, wherein something triggers the sense that we are re-experiencing a past event? Perhaps this is an exaggerated example of the way emotion affects the experience of “remembering”, as opposed to “knowing”, which is the topic of the study by Sharot, Delago and Phelps. (If this connection only makes sense to me, it is likely that I’ve misunderstood the study. Therefore, please help!)
The work of Dolcos, LeBar, and Cabeza places great emphasis on retrieval mechanisms for good reason. In addition to the assigned readings, I recommend listening to the Radio Lab on Memory and Forgetting (June 8, 2007). See the link on our course website and play close attention to the part about LeDoux’s research assistant who discovered that he could intervene in the process of remembering learned behavior (in rats) in order to erase specific, negative memories. (Sound familiar? Remember that movie, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind? It was made a few years after the study!) Consider the implications for treatment of PTSD and other affective disorders… Accordingly, McGaugh reminds us how our ability to forget is also important, even at the level of every-day operations (8).
In the words of Radio Lab’s moderator, do not forget that emotional memory refers to the “physical structure” of brain cells… and so I keep thinking of emotional memory like a kind of cement, which helps to secure blocks of experience- although the structure is always open to remodeling.
Emotional memory is like a muscle that gets stronger when flexed, but might snap if over-extended. Just like muscles (which help to hold our bodies together) emotions act like a kind of glue, or binding agent, at the site of relationships between (or within) people, things, and ideas.
(Since this topic is prone to anecdotes, be glad I spared you the load! So many scattered memories have come flooding back while reading about this topic. Has this also been the case for you?)
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5 comments:
Sylviane -- Week 7
I was surprised to read in Dolcos, LaBar, and Cabeza’s paper that there had been no previous studying in the field of emotional memory research to connect the two lines of evidence suggesting that both the amygdala (involved in arousal) and the hippocampus (involved with direct recollection) are responsible for the recollection-enhanced effect of emotion. Although they make it clear that this was the most logical conclusion, or prediction, that could be drawn from previous studies, it seems far too obvious to have been neglected. Overall, I enjoyed this reading because of its clear methodology and results; it seems to provide a solid, indisputable study that demonstrates the neural mechanisms that allow for enhanced memory of emotional material.
I am ever more fascinated by the relationship between memory and emotion. Not only do self-narrative and emotion intertwine quite intimately, relegating the question of purely objective memory—on the metaphysical level at least—to the level of the absurd, but they conspire to construct a cohesive memory, one which becomes over time fundamentally embedded within us. Thus we often remember emotionally charged events in greater detail, but not necessarily such as they actually transpired. In short, we are all unreliable narrators. Can we say that memories create a template for evaluating present experience, or does the mind work as a two way street, with the present and recent stimuli deeply influencing a remote event memory? Or better said, do emotion and memory constitute a gestalt, where each element of this chronological map is simultaneously acted upon?
Yes! I also have been really affected by these readings. I can't think about anything this week without trying to analyze where the memory came from, how often I think about it, what sensations accompany it, how I visualize it, etc. It is interesting that memory depends so much on how we integrate or organize our thinking. This strongly connects to the concepts of narrative and "mindsight" from the Siegel article. How we construct memories and sense of self in time seems to be such a slippery process with so many possibilities. This is both scary and invites a sense of flexibility and freedom. Psychotherapy fits well with the idea that you can reconstruct your memory and, thus, yourself, in a way that will change your feelings, behavior and patterns of making new memories.
The Radio Lab really emphasizes how much memory is constructed, and constructed anew with each recollection. Yet with each construction we seem to stray farther from our original recollection. In this way, our system of memory seems to be imperfectly designed. I am interested in the purposes of constantly constructing and reconstructing memories, as well as repressing memories. LeDoux dismisses the idea that the low road through the amygdala is an “evolutionary relic.” Oliver Sacks also points to the sub-cortical areas as being very old and also protected within the anatomy of the brain. How is this complex and elusive type of memory crucial to the human experience?
I was surprised at the finding that emotional memories are not more objectively clear than neutral memories, though the research clearly supports the idea that emotional memories are experiened as more vivid and clear. I know that when I think of emotionally charged memories everything feels much sharper and the details feel much clearer than with neutral memories, which always have the nebulous feeling of abstraction. The thing that gives emotional memories their strength is their concreteness -- they are discrete memories separated from daily noise. It seems that neutral memories blur with one another more readily than emotional memories
I just can't resist the urge to share this story:
During my short stint at art school in Scotland last semester, my tutor divided us into groups for a mapping and a video workshop.
In the video workshop, we were to deal with the concept of confabulation, or the fabrication of gaps in memory.
In the mapping workshop, however, things were a bit more varied and experimental. Among the exercises, we had to sit inside of a shop window and watch the "world unfold" for a solid fifteen minutes (no moving or talking). I suppose it was meant to test our skills at observation ... Then, in a split second, our eccentric tutor dashed across the scene sans clothes!
Afterwards, we learned that some people didn't even notice... others were in denial and might not have mentioned it had others not. Those that saw swore not to tell the second group before the following week.
Truth be told, it only happened during the first week of the workshop... and I was to go second; but a friend had already told me what he was up to- so I was pretty worried the day it was meant to happen. I had already created the memory in my imagination, so you can imagine my mixed sense of relief and confusion when it never occurred.
How could this fabrication (made from elements of real experience of sitting before the window, combined with elements from my imagination) come to replace what really happened?! Any why can't I forget it, a stand-in for memory, imposed by its emotional weight?
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