Memory and Emotion 3/9/08

Kaila McIntyre-Bader

“Selection is the very keel on which our mental ship is built…If we remembered everything, we should, on most occasions be as ill off as if we remembered nothing. It would take as long for us to recall a space of time as it took the original time to elapse, and we should never get ahead with our thinking” –William James (McGaugh, p126).

While there were many detailed descriptions of tiny events happening on a hormonal/chemical level, this week’s readings made me question a lot of bigger picture moral and ethical issues. It’s interesting that most of McGaugh’s friends and neighbors said they would take and/or give a memory-enhancing drug to their children with little hesitation. I wonder if the reaction and answer would be the same if that question were extended to a different social circle, or better yet a completely different culture or society. The fictitious character Funes the Memorious “remembered not only every lead of every tree of every wood, but also every one of the times he had perceived or imagined it. [Funes was]… let us not forget, almost incapable of ideas of a general, Platonic sort…I suspect that he was not very capable of thought”(p126). The mnemonists S and V.P. both had an incredibly hard time in normal daily life even though they could remember street maps and strings of digits. The human brain has evolved and adapted to make us more fit for survival, and being able to retain every bit of information ever learned is hardly helpful.

But retaining the detailed events of a traumatic experience can be. There are systems in our brains that help us to avoid harmful situations and ensure the passing on of genetic information. It was interesting to read that the brain is designed to allow influences after learning, and that there is an important distinction between learning and performance. The strychnine-saline experiments with the rats showed that administering a stimulant before training and short after training were different things entirely. The first may enhance performance, but the latter enhances memory.

In Chapter 5, McGaugh comments on “flashbulb memories” and the “rehearsing” of memories. I was grateful for the presentation in class on Wednesday because I felt I had a much better understanding of the concepts he was presenting. It was interesting to read about the distinction between the significance of rehearsing and the lack of importance it has on actually creating a flashbulb memory (p91). I also found myself wondering why the idea of emotional arousal affecting memory was being mentioned as a surprising discovery. Maybe I was reading into it too much or reading it incorrectly, but that seems so obvious to me. Memory is a survival tool, and it makes a lot of sense that we would remember things that affect us personally and strongly on an emotional level better than things that do not. The idea of rehearsing a memory is intriguing to me as well. We talked about it a bit in class, but when I read McGaugh’s example of the 1989 earthquake in California, it reminded me of my own experience (p88). I have an extremely vivid memory of that day, yet I would have only been two years old at the time. I can picture the scene in my head and recall the conversation my mother had with my neighbor across the fence while holding me in her arms and waiting to see if there would be an aftershock. But do I really remember that? How much of that is fabricated? (I love how LeDoux assures the reader on page 245 that fabrication is not the same as lying, it is merely remembering falsely). Do I have that memory because my mother has repeated the story to me so many times? Was it traumatic enough for me to hold on to that moment all the way up until now? McGaugh refers to “memory as a creative act” (p116), but I’m pretty sure the jury in a courtroom wouldn’t want to hear that. As I was reading LeDoux’s take on false memories, I found myself uncomfortable because of the ethical implications. It’s interesting to question if the hippocampus is damaged, can victims recall traumatic experiences later on that they had once forgotten? What if the hippocampus shut down all together? I worry about what happens to the victim that cannot recall the traumatic memory for a while and then having it re-surface, especially in a court of law. What if a sexual abuse victim doesn’t recall the memory until later? Will anyone believe him/her? If someone can take a therapist to court for implanting false memories in their head of cults and sexual abuse, will the court then believe the next case based purely on memory? How do we ever know which of these memories are fabricated and which are “real.”

McGaugh goes on to write about “phenomenal memory ability found in autistic children and adults” (p131). I can recall a camper I had at a day camp one summer who could tell me the day of my birthday in any given year, in the near future or years and years away. This and LeDoux’s discussion of disorders and illnesses made me think about the way our society defines a “mental disorder.” Now these autistic children and adults are decidedly “sick,” whereas in another time and place they may have been considered shamans and prophets.

I also found Box 1 on page 3 of LaBar and Cabeza’s article thought provoking. The box says that only 5% of males and 10% of women will suffer from PTSD. Does this mean that women are predisposed to PTSD? Or are more frequently victims of traumatic experiences? Or just more reported? Is this a genetic difference, or a social/cultural one?

I read so much and feel like my brain is about to explode (oh man, maybe a panic attack coming on…? Har har har) and I feel like I could keep writing incoherent strings of reflection and commentary forever, so I’ll end with this last thought. How crazy is the influence of music!? “In these experiments, sad music heard while standing at the bottom of a steep hill led participants to overestimate the incline of the hill. The overestimations were similar to those made by participants wearing a heavy backpack.” (Clore, Huntsinger). It’s amazing that different sounds and frequencies can manipulate our emotions to such an extent.