PSYC10003 Lecture Notes - Lecture 27: Clive Wearing, Episodic Memory, Processor Register
12 Jun 2018
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Lecture 27, Tuesday, 10 May 2016
PSYC10003 - MIND, BRAIN & BEHAVIOUR 1
LECTURE 27
INTRODUCTION TO MEMORY
→ Clive Wearing
•Clive Wearing was a professional musical broadcaster and musician who suffered herpes
encephalitis and subsequent damage to his brain, known as bilateral hippocampal damage.
•After the brain damage, his capacity to recall autobiographic episodes was poor, his capacity to
learn new things was poor, his capacity for general knowledge acquired prior to the accident was
relatively good. His musical ability was perfectly preserved; he could still sit down and play. He
would say ‘I don’t know how to play that’ but he could sit down and play it very well. He can’t
recall that he’s learned it in the past but he can still play it (and even improvise with it), so he still
retained creativity. He also retained his ability to interact in the present moment; suggesting he
retained his STM, until his attention is diverted again.
•His wife Deborah Wearing wrote a book, ‘Forever Today - A Memoir of Love and
Amnesia’ (2005). These are some excerpts:
•“Clive was constantly surrounded by strangers in a strange place, with no knowledge of where he
was or what had happened to him. To catch sight of me (his wife) was always a massive relief.
Every time he saw me, he would run to me, fall on me, sobbing, clinging. It was a fierce reunion.”
•“ ‘I thought I was dead’, he would say, ‘if I had any thoughts at all.’ “
•“If I left Clive’s side, the impact of my reappearance after a trip to the bathroom, a word with the
nurse, was no less than at my first appearance that day.”
•“In spite of Clive’s amnesia, he retained his fundamental intelligence. That was what made his
condition all the more horrific. Clive no longer had any episodic memory, that is, memory for
events. Clive did not have the brain parts necessary to recall anything that had happened to him in
the whole of his life. But, he could remember general things (semantic memory). For example,
Clive knew that he was married (semantic), although he was unable to recall our wedding
(episodic).”
•“Music opened a door for Clive. He could sit down at the chapel organ and play with both hands
on the keyboard, changing stops, and with his feet on the pedals, as if this were easier than riding
a bicycle. And the momentum of the music carried Clive from bar to bar. He knew exactly where
he was because in every phrase there is context implied: by rhythm, key, melody. When the music
stopped, Clive fell through to the lost place. But for those moments he”
DEFINING MEMORY
•Memory is defined as the processing, storage and retrieval of information acquired through
learning. It is neurological representations of info and experiences.
•Human memory is a set of systems for storing and retrieving info that is acquired through our
senses. The mental representation of info that we have experienced, imagined and learned.
•The storage duration of different memory systems ranges from fractions of a second to a lifetime,
while the capacity of different memory systems ranges from a few items to more than the largest
available computer.
ENCODING, STORAGE AND RETRIEVAL
•Encoding is the process of converting information into a useable form so that it can be
represented and stored in memory.
•Acquisition registers inputs in temporary sensory storage, and consolidation creates a stronger
representation to enable retrieval at a later time )it results in storage).
•Encoding depends on the process of attention.
•Storage is the retention of info over time. Stored representations of info are referred to as
memories.
•Retrieval is the utilization of stored info to create a conscious representation, or to execute a
learned behaviour (Eg. A motor act).
Document Summary
His musical ability was perfectly preserved; he could still sit down and play. He would say i don"t know how to play that" but he could sit down and play it very well. He can"t recall that he"s learned it in the past but he can still play it (and even improvise with it), so he still retained creativity. He also retained his ability to interact in the present moment; suggesting he retained his stm, until his attention is diverted again: his wife deborah wearing wrote a book, forever today - a memoir of love and. These are some excerpts: clive was constantly surrounded by strangers in a strange place, with no knowledge of where he was or what had happened to him. To catch sight of me (his wife) was always a massive relief. Every time he saw me, he would run to me, fall on me, sobbing, clinging. That was what made his condition all the more horrific.
