Lecture 5: Memory and the Self. Todays Lecture –Common sense ideas about the Self –Controversy within Cognitive Psychology over the self Its just an illusion?

Lecture 5: Memory and the Self

Today’s Lecture

– Common sense ideas about the Self

– Controversy within Cognitive Psychology over the self• Its just an illusion?

• A distinct cognitive system?

– Some Men that Time Forgot• Amnesic patients Jimmie G, P.S., C.W. and M.L.

– “I know that I exist, the question is, What is this ‘I’ that I know?”

Some Common Sense about the Self

• 1. Continuous over time, past, present and in the future

• 2. Singular

• 3. Responsible for controlling the mind and the body (‘will power’)

• 4. Determines your individuality

Who is behind the wheel?

ConsolidationMechanisms

AttentionalControl

Encoding Storage Retrieval

AttentionalControl

SemanticRecords

PerceptualRecords

Binding

ContextSemanticRecords

PerceptualRecords

Binding

Context

‘Self’

Cognitive Psychology is Soulless!

• Reason 1 concerns the brain– a. There may not be a single,

controlling ‘centre’ of the brain– b. Circuits can work independently

of one another

• Reason 2 concerns function– No Homunculi allowed!

Our Mental Library?

• New experiences and knowledge are filed away systematically

• Search and retrieval operations can take advantage of the library organisation to speed things up

• But how is all this managed? By a librarian?

How To Include the Self in a Cognitive Model

• The self is a biological / physical process, carried out by the brain

• Functions that support memory, attention, etc, should be independent (‘segregated’) from those involved in the self

• The neural basis for self-related functions may lie in the prefrontal cortex

Some Common Sense about the Self

• 1. Continuous over time, past, present and in the future

• 2. Singular

• 3. Responsible for controlling the mind and the body (‘will power’)

• 4. Determines your individuality

Men that Time Forgot

• Amnesic Patients– Jimmie G.– P.S.– C.W.

Amnesia

Past Future

RetrogradeAnterograde

Oliver Sach’s Patient Jimmie G.

• Korsakoff’s amnesic– A chronic alcoholic– Severe retrograde amnesia and dense anterograde

amnesia!– 49 years old, but considered himself to be 19 and living

in the late 1940s.

McCarthy and Hodge’s Patient P.S.

• 67 year old stroke victim– Severe retrograde amnesia and dense anterograde amnesia!

• ‘A delusion more compelling than rational thought’– P.S. lived as if he was in the early 1940s.– His delusion was resistant to contrary evidence and

argument.

Memory’s Influence on Continuity

• Continuity depends on access to the full range of memories for past experiences

• Our ‘self-identity’ now may be constructed out of our most recent memories

Patient C.W.

• A middle aged victim of Herpes Simplex Encephalitis virus

– Severe retrograde amnesia and dense anterograde amnesia!

– Quote from C.W.’s wife: “He perceives the world as you or I do, but as soon as he’s perceived it and looked away, its gone for him. A moment to moment consciousness”

Some Common Sense about the Self

• 1. Continuous over time, past, present and in the future

• 2. Singular

• 3. Responsible for controlling the mind and the body (‘will power’)

• 4. Determines your individuality