General Memory Types

There are different memory systems that contribute certain, discrete elements to experience, that, in total and in interaction, represent a single experience. Some of these elements operate outside awareness in forming memories for habits or procedures or emotional responses that attract or repel one from interacting with others. Another has been described as declarative memory that is fully and deliberately retrievable and tends to conscious. (Read more)

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Implicit - Explicit Memory

Freud attributed unconscious processes and repression to deficits in the ability for remembering. There are, however, many different reasons for memory impairment. Memory loss has been traced to two aspects, implicit and explicit memory. Implicit memory is memory that has been learned without phenomenal awareness and “pops into mind”. It is inaccessible, not recallable, inflexible, is exclusively linked to the original learning context and is also slowly acquired, requiring many repetitions. Declarative memory is the cognitive ability for declaring and bringing to mind remembered experiences. (Read more)

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Memory & the Medial Temporal Lobe

Explicit memory needs the support of and is dependent on a functionally viable medial temporal lobe (MTL). Hippocampal loss produces deficits in retrievable recognition and in recollection of human faces, identification of voices, spoken words, and in acquiring definitions. Hippocampal loss causes deficits in retrievable recognition and in recollection of human faces, identification of voices, spoken words, and in acquiring definitions. Interestingly, the hippocampal region also enhances implicit cue-in-context and object-in-scene relations. It supports implicit learning during early perceptual, sequencing, and motor learning and strengthens the recognition learning of previously encountered sequences. (Read more)

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Memory & Retrograde Amnesia

Damage to the hippocampus and surrounding structures (medial temporal lobe-MTL) results in temporal-graded retrograde amnesia. Middle age patients incurring damage to the MTL have intact early childhood autobiographical and episodic memories, and semantic memories for facts and situations. They incur retrograde (past) amnesia for autobiographical, episodic, and semantic memory from the date of insult to 11-40 years, duration contingent on the extent of extra-MTL damage. This suggests a time-limited role for the hippocampus and its surrounding structures in processing long term memory. (Read more)

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