Two kinds of memory lecture notes

• Declarative memory


  A form of memory involving the (conscious) recall of experiences and facts. Recalled items can be communicated to another person (declared)
• Non-declarative memory


  A form of memory in which remembered information cannot be recalled into consciousness and communicated to others. Its existence is demonstrated by doing things.
• Learning results in the formation of memories
• In Pavlovian learning and non-associative learning the memory that is formed underlies the change in behavioural propensity (change in responsiveness)
• Memory in neural terms


  • The memory takes the forms of changes in the strength of synaptic connections between neurons in the sensorimotor pathways that mediate stimulus-elicited behaviour
• The kind of memory involved in Pavlovian and non-associative learning is different to the everyday concept of memory
• Declarative memory is a memory from which we can recall 'items' and describe them in words
• Non-declarative memory is a memory in which remembered information cannot be recalled into consciousness and communicated to others
• Non-declarative memory is sometimes called implicit memory
• Types of memory


  • Declarative memory
  • Non-declarative memory
• Non-declarative memory includes non-associative learning, Pavlovian associative learning, motor skill learning, other skill learning, and habit formation
• In eye-blink conditioning


  The non-declarative memory is the change in circuitry (CS → CR circuit), and people may also acquire the declarative memory that the puff of air was preceded by a tone
• Declarative memory plays no role in generating the conditioned response (CR) in eye-blink conditioning, and non-declarative memory plays no role in the declaration that the tone preceded the air-puff
• If there is no declarative memory, CRs are still acquired in eye-blink conditioning
• In simultaneous and backward conditioning, learning takes place but it's not Pavlovian learning, as only declarative knowledge is acquired, not non-declarative knowledge
• When asked to make a lane change without vision, people leave out the second phase, as visual information about position on the road is needed to produce the second phase</b>
• Two different memories are formed by the same training experience but are independent of each other. Formation of declarative memory does not necessarily accompany formation of non-declarative memory.
• Retrograde amnesia (RA)


  Loss of memory about life events experienced prior to the damage and factual information acquired prior to the damage
• Anterograde amnesia (AA)


  Inability to remember for more than a minute or two life events experienced after the damage and factual information to which one is exposed after the damage
• Amnesia is defined exclusively in terms of a loss of declarative memory
• Anterograde amnesics can form long term non-declarative memory, despite impairments in declarative memory
• HM could not remember doing the mirror tracing task (no declarative memory of performance), but he clearly improved and so learned something (non-declarative memory)
• Boswell showed improvement in the pursuit rotor task over trials, demonstrating intact non-declarative memory, despite his anterograde amnesia