Memory and motor skill

1. Memory and motor skill …and other forms of memory

2. What to look for • Where is memory? • One place or several? • How are memories stored? • One method or several? • Are memories for all things equal? • If not, how are they different? • What can all this tell us about teaching and learning motor skills?

3. The basics • Red box game • How does performance change over time? • What is being used to guide performance change? • Is it different for the observers and the performer? • What is anticipation? • Long and short term stores?

4. The basics • Short vslong term memory • William James: Short-term, or primary memory: Long-term, or secondary memory:

5. The basics • Short term memory performance • Digit span test

6. The basics • Short Term memory • Limited capacity, used for retrieval • Working memory = short term memory + processes used to work with the information

7. The basics • Working memory function • Rehearsal, perseveration • Chunking – phone #, SS#, etc. • Strategies for digit span!

8. The basics • The three stage model – storage, transfer and retrieval

9. The basics • Long term memory • Imagine all associations being stored in some way How would this affect memory performance and behavior?

10. The basics • Answer these 2 questions: • What continent is Kenya in? • What are the two colors of the pieces in a game of chess? • Name any animal

11. The basics • Features expected of a memory that learns by association • Priming • Encoding-retrieval compatibility (Tulving) • Transfer • False generalization

12. The basics • Learning new memories • Consolidation • Reconsolidation • Confabulation – confusion of events • False positives - getting it wrong • Witness problems

13. The basics • Learning new memories • Reconsolidation • Chan and LaPaglia (2012): http://www.pnas.org/content/110/23/9309.abstract

14. The basics • Types of long term memory

15. The basics • Types of long term memory • Declarative vs procedural • Declarative vs. non-declarative • Declarative vs. dispositional • Explicit vs. Implicit • Conscious vs. Unconscious • Combining these, we get…

16. The basics • Types of long term memory – more detail

17. The basics • Other reliable memory phenomena • Primacy-recency effect • Depth of processing (Craik and Lockhart) • Deficient processing • Brown-Peterson, Peterson-Peterson paradigms

18. Cognitive Neuroscience of Memory • Given all the preceding, what do we know of how all that stuff works? • Neural systems responsible for memory • Recent research on how these systems work

19. Memory storage - History • Lashley (1929) – memories stored throughout cortex. • Hebb (1949) – distributed but features stored in different places. • General picture still of memory integrated with other functions within all regions of brain

20. Memory storage - History • Scoville & Milner (1957) • “citation classic” (around 2,500 and counting) • Patient “H.M.” http://thebrainobservatory.ucsd.edu/hm_live.php

21. Memory storage - History • Scoville & Milner (1957) • Patient “H.M.” • Bilateral medial temporal lobe resection • Severe anterograde amnesia • Some retrograde amnesia • Memory is a “distinct cerebral function”

22. Memory storage - History • Scoville & Milner (1957) • Patient “H.M.” • Structures removed: hippocampus, amygdala, and part of hippocampal gyrus. • Structures subsequently associated with memory: • Research relied often on case studies (R.B., L.M, W.H.)

23. Memory storage - History • Patient “H.M.” • Principles arising from the case study • 1. Could still learn motor skills • Memory is not a single thing

24. Memory storage - History • Patient “H.M.” • Principles arising from the case study • 2. structures required for memory don’t appear to be needed for intellect or perception • H. M. was still lucid and capable after surgery. • 3. Immediate memory and working memory not impeded • H. M. could still selectively attend and rehearse information • Lost memories when distracted (therapy situation) • 4. Long term memories unaffected • Provided a long time prior to surgery • Lost structures aren’t the ultimate storage sites for memory • The structures seem to lead to a series of synaptic changes resulting in storage elsewhere

25. Memory storage - History • Multiple Memory Systems • Motor learning can still proceed (Milner (1962). • What of other tasks? • Perceptual and cognitive skills persist • E.g. skill of reading words in mirror improves with practice (Cohen and Squire, 1980) • Priming intact ((Tulving and Schacter, 1990) • Leads to overall separation of procedural and declarative memory systems.

26. Memory storage - History • Multiple Memory Systems • Other obervations • Neostratium involved in another form of learning (slow and guided by sensory feedback) • “Normals” learn in 80 trials, profound amnesics in over 1000. • If the task is not aided by explicit knowledge, learning rates are similar. • Poor transfer of learning in amnesics • Declarative memory: true or false • Non-declarative memory: dispositional, not true false

27. Memory storage - History • Visual Perception • Some controversy recently • Some studies found losses associated with damage to perirhinal cortex • Others not so much • General current thought: medial temporal lobe structures not involved in visual perception

28. Memory storage - History • Immediate memory • Drachman & Arbit (1966) • Digit strings presented until correctly repeated • Controls: first error at 8 digits (!), strings as long as 20 remembered (up to 25 reps needed) • H.M.: • 6 digits correctly remembered (preop level) • Never succeeded at 7, despite over 25 attempts given.

29. Memory storage - History • Immediate memory • Jeneson et al. (2010) • Objects (1-7) presented on a table top. Immediately had to reproduce array on neighboring table • Controls: as many as 7 objects placed correctly after few trials (up to 10 reps allowed) • G. P.: • 1-3 objects correctly remembered • Never succeeded at more than 3, despite over 10 attempts given.

30. Memory storage - History • Immediate memory • These amnesics can do anything provided it only requires immediate memory functions. • Anything requiring some form of longer term memory is severely impaired

31. Memory storage - History • Remote Memory and Consolidation • H.M. tested at famous face memory (1920-1970) • Did poorly in post-morbid period (1950s, 1960s) • Did better than controls (age matched) for pre-morbid (1920-1940) • Medial temporal lobe not the site of memory storage • Hence “remote” memory • Early autobiographical memory also largely intact

32. Memory storage - History • Memory in the Neocortex • Consolidation and reconsolidation • Disparate regions activated at encoding • Same disparate regions reactivated at retrieval • Newly formed memories use hippocampus to reactivate distant areas of cortex • Older memories activated without hippocampus • Each region only stores particular aspects of the experience • Extensive evidence from specific distal lesions • Achromatopsia, prosopagnosia, amusia.

33. Memory storage - History • Overall conclusions • “independent” memory systems • Medial temporal lobes involved in declarative memories • Immediate and dispositional memories separate • Question: • If they are separate, does asking one to influence the other do harm? See next week’s readings.

34. Cortical areas and associated memory systems: