Memory Is Localized and Distributed

                                               Memory Is Localized and Distributed

            Memory is such a wonderful amazing ability we have that allows us to relive some of the most important moments in our individual lives and recall at will what we need to know about something/someone/someplace. While it has no prejudice for good or bad memories, we will remember it (sometimes even when we wish we could crawl in a hole and hide from the thought).  It has so many facets to it and is capable of storing more memories and information than we could even conceive imaginable. Some question whether it is localized or whether it’s distributed. In this paper, I will discuss my theory as to why I believe it is conceivable that memory is both localized and distributed.

            Local memory is where a single node represents a single concept. (Cognition: The Thinking Animal by Daniel Willingham pg. 256) This on the surface of that statement seems to indicate that local memory is for the focused person who only thinks of one thought at a time. However, a more in-depth analysis suggests that local memory is a secondary to distributed memory. Distributed memory is a concept that is represented across multiple nodes. (Cognition: The Thinking Animal by Daniel Willingham pg. 256) When information is received and encoded into the brain it is done so in several different areas of the brain, cross-sectioning with other information and creating its own subset web attached to a person’s already growing web of information and data; much like a computer but on a much grander scale. Now that specific piece of information could be considered localized to a certain area, even though it could be encoded into multiple areas. For example, riding a horse would be encoded at its informational level of the “how-to” aspect as well as at the experience level where an individual will remember what it was like and how it felt to actually be riding the horse. Each piece of the experience of learning to ride a horse is interconnected in the human brain web but it is split and localized to 2 separate areas, one for informational purposes and the other for the sensory feeling of what the experience was in terms of remembering that time.  Henry Molaison was a good example of this. He was able to learn new motor skills but could not remember how or when or where or who taught him this information, he just knew it. Therefore, indicating that there are separate areas of the brain dealing with specific brain functions. They are all interconnected regardless of brain functioning ability, however, if brain functionality is disrupted in some way by disease or brain injury, the brain can and will rewire itself to work around the missing or damaged section, again indicating that while the memory and information processing framework is all interconnected it is also localized specifically. By allowing information and memories to encode at multiple points in the brain we ensure that while the riding a horse experience may not be remembered for what horse we rode, how our body felt afterward or what the place looked like where we were learning this new skill, we are able to remember the specific motor skills for riding a horse.

            In order for the human brain to function through our everyday lives of increasing technology and infrastructure, networking, and social interactions it is crucial that we have multiple memory systems to filter through all of this information. It is crucial that we have acoustic coding for our primary memory and semantic coding for our secondary memory and sensory and iconic memory to filter what we need and don’t need to encode for storage.  At each of these levels of encoding we see a specific localized process happening that is specialized to its purpose of retaining only the information that we the individual feels is needed to know or remember.  

            So while it would be hard to argue that the brain was just one localized area of memory encoding and retrieval, it can be completely conceivable that within the distribution of information and memories they are being distributed to specific localized areas to be encoded properly so that upon retrieval it can be done effortlessly through the minds mental web; also allowing us to be able to retrieve like information if the desired information is not actually learned and or known. Therefore, we can always keep our own personal library of congress incomplete functional working order regardless of brain capacity or injury. So the argument shouldn’t be whether or not memory and information are localized or distributed because it is a combination of the 2 that allows us to achieve full encoding and retrieval success, full memory and knowledge success. 

Henry Molaison Paper

                                    Reconciliation of Evidence of HM’s Disorder

                                    Within The Levels of Processing Framework

            In 1933 Henry Molaison suffered from a biking accident that injured him with left and right medial temporal lobe damage that caused him epileptic seizures resulting in the need for surgery to remove the damaged parts of his brain in order to stop the seizing. Neurological surgery was performed and successful in terms of stopping the seizures however Mr. Molaison was left with severe anterograde and moderate retrograde amnesia. Despite this drawback to life, Mr. Molaison was able to adapt and live a full life. During his life span, Fergus Craik and Robert Lockhart came up with a theory, in 1972, that challenged the normal perception that “what mattered most was what happened in the primary memory” (page 174, Cognition The Thinking Animal, Daniel Willingham) by creating the ‘Levels of Processing Framework’. Thus possibly explaining how Mr. Molaison was able to manage, memory-wise, when it was virtually impossible for him to convert any short term memory into a long term memory.

            Given that Mr. Molaison could form a thought or learn a new piece of information just like anyone else it wasn’t like he couldn’t be taught or retrieve some memories from his past or even create associations for older memories with new information. It just meant the ways in which he had to remember anything had to get creative, become different or new. Since he could hold a short term memory for about 20 seconds it was possible that if he could attach a new piece of information to an existing piece of information he had already learned that he wasn’t so much creating a whole new piece of information as just modifying an existing one; which was within the means of his condition. He was completely able to learn new motor skills, or learn information; he just wouldn’t remember how he learned it, where he was when he learned it or why. To him, every day was a brand new day, a little worse than Drew Barrymore in 50 First Dates, style of a brand new day.

            According to Craik and Lockhart’s theory of depth of processing the way information got into the primary memory is through deep or shallow processing; it never mattered what certain way or how much time was put into remembering. They devised a sort of hierarchy for memory encoding and retrieval. By means of defining shallow and deep memory encoding, those are the basis for how our memories get stored. Shallow memories will get sorted through and most will never make it to a deeper encoding but some do through personal association and attachment to the memory. This is where Mr. Molaison has trouble. An everyday memory that doesn’t get separated or filtered to a motor skill area or information area of the processing framework is considered to his brain a shallow memory that just gets tossed after 20 seconds. The part of Mr. Molaison’s brain that was removed was the part that would have added that extra piece to the day’s memory so that it would have gone on through to a lasting long term memory. By defining a processing framework, it is easier to see that there are different parts of the brain that are assigned to do different processes when encoding a memory. A person just doesn’t see, touch, smell, taste, feel, experience, or hear something without instantly processing it into categories, sub-categories, and even subsets of sub-categories for where it needs to be stored for when it needs to be retrieved. Mr. Molaison could do this, but if it came down to a memory that would need an attachment to it, like seeing a beautiful flower on a sunny Sunday day walking with a beautiful woman that smelled like springtime could go no further in his thoughts than 20-second intervals till the walk was over and with nothing to attach to this memory he had no way to encode it to his mind more than in a shallow way. By this I mean, he knew what a sunny day was, period, he knew what Sunday was, period, he knew what it meant to walk, period, and so on. Each of those was simply shallow descriptions of basic information he had already attained prior to his accident so he could retrieve that knowledge and know it presently but to associate the feeling and depth of the beautiful woman with him and the significance of the day would never get encoded into his memory.    

            In conclusion, it is irrefutable that the Levels of Processing has a solid stance in the theory of Depth of Processing. This in relation to Mr. Molaison does help to establish how the information was getting into his brain and where it was going after it entered. Which memories or information were getting in and which were not and which were getting stored and which were not. By defining the depth of processing and the difference between shallow and deep processing it is easier to understand which ones Mr. Molasion is remembering and which he isn’t and why.