Discussion

In the lectures, I mentioned a few notable cases of memory and memory impairment. We have the case of H.M. who lost his ability to form new memories due to a lobotomy surgery. There is the cases of the two sets of nuns from southern Minnesota in which they were developing Alzheimer’s at about the same rate, the nuns in one group showed a markedly slower progression compared to the other. I discussed how recognition memory works fast but recall memory can sometimes make us doubt that information – nothing good comes from something being easy after all. And, of course, the work of Ebbinghaus and the curve of forgetting.

Memory is a powerful tool. As I stated early in the semester, we don’t need to know the science or theory of how a tool works to use it, but the more we learn, the more adept we are when we wield it. Because of these reasons and more, memory studies have fascinated me for so long.

For this case study, we’re going to look at our long-term memory (LTM), specifically ways that we can process information from both the semantic and episodic sides in ways that make access to recall more reliable.

Look at the information we’ve learned in Chapters 5 (Learning) and 6 (Memory). Come up with a set of strategies to process the information (semantic) into your memory where it can connect with your personal (episodic) memory. Tell me why you believe (or don’t believe) this process will have a benefit to you. Finally, what other methods have worked or failed you in the past and evaluate why the process turned out the way it did for you.