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and she could flawlessly play CHAPtER 7 MeMory 185
any of hundreds of hymns,
including ones she had not
thought of for 20 years. Where
did her brain store those thou-
sands of note patterns?
For a time, some surgeons
and memory researchers mar-
veled at what appeared to be
vivid memories triggered by
stimulating the brain during roger Harris/Science Source
For suggestions on surgery. Did this prove that
how to apply the testing effect to your own our whole past, not just well-
learning, watch my [DM’s] 5-minute Video: practiced music, is “in there,” FIGURE 7.6 The hippocampus Explicit
Make Things Memorable (also at tinyurl. just waiting to be relived? memories for facts and episodes are processed in
com/HowToRemember). Further research disproved the hippocampus (purple structures) and fed to
this idea. The vivid flashbacks other brain regions for storage.
were actually new creations of a stressed
aspects of an event — its smell, feel,
brain, not real memories (Loftus & Loftus,
Memory Storage 1980). We do not store information in sound, and location. Then, like older files
single, specific spots, as libraries store shifted to be archived, memories migrate
LOQ 7-9 What is the capacity of their books. As with perception, lan- to the cortex for storage. This storage
long- term memory? Are our long- term guage, emotion, and much more, mem- process is called memory consolidation.
memories processed and stored in ory requires brain networks. Many parts Your brain’s right and left frontal lobes
specific locations? of our brain interact as we encode, store, process different types of memories.
and retrieve information. Recalling a password and holding it in
n Arthur Conan Doyle’s A Study in working memory, for example, would
I Scarlet, Sherlock Holmes offers a popu- activate your left frontal lobe. Calling up
lar theory of memory capacity: Explicit Memory System: The a visual image of last night’s party would
Hippocampus and Frontal more likely activate your right frontal lobe.
[A] brain originally is like a little empty
attic, and you have to stock it with Lobes Sleep supports memory consoli-
such furniture as you choose. . . . It is LOQ 7-10 What roles do the dation. In one experiment, students
a mistake to think that that little room who learned material in a study/sleep/
has elastic walls and can distend to any hippocampus and frontal lobes play in restudy condition remembered material
extent. Depend upon it, there comes a memory processing?
time when for every addition of knowl- Separate brain regions process our
edge you forget something that you explicit and implicit memories. We know spacing effect the tendency for distributed
knew before. study or practice to yield better long- term
this from scans of the brain in action, retention than is achieved through massed
Contrary to Holmes’ “memory and from autopsies of people who expe- study or practice.
model,” our capacity for storing long- rienced different types of memory loss. testing effect enhanced memory after
term memories has no real limit. Many Explicit, conscious memories are retrieving, rather than simply rereading,
memories endure for a lifetime. Our either semantic (facts and general information. Also sometimes referred to as
brains are not like attics, which, once knowledge) or episodic (experienced a retrieval practice effect or test- enhanced
filled, can store more items only if we events). New explicit memories of these learning.
discard old ones. After studying the facts and episodes are laid down via the semantic memory explicit memory of
brain’s neural connections, researchers hippocampus, a limbic system neural facts and general knowledge; one of our
two conscious memory systems (the other
estimated its storage capacity as “in the structure that is our brain’s equivalent is episodic memory).
same ballpark as the World Wide Web” of a “save” button (FIGURE 7.6). As chil-
(Sejnowski, 2016). dren mature, their hippocampus grows, episodic memory explicit memory of
personally experienced events; one of our
enabling them to construct detailed two conscious memory systems (the other
RETAINING INFORMATION memories (Keresztes et al., 2017). Brain scans is semantic memory).
IN THE BRAIN reveal activity in the hippocampus and hippocampus a neural center located in
nearby brain networks as people form the limbic system; helps process explicit
I [DM] marveled at my aging mother- explicit memories of names, images, and (conscious) memories — of facts and
in- law, a retired pianist and organist. At events (Norman et al., 2019). Your hippocam- events — for storage.
age 88, her blind eyes could no longer pus acts as a loading dock where your memory consolidation the neural
read music. But let her sit at a keyboard brain registers and temporarily stores storage of a long- term memory.

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