The Biological Bases of Memory: How the Brain

Stores Knowledge

n What are retrograde amnesia and anterograde amnesia?

Retrograde amnesia involves loss of memory of events prior to

the amnesia-inducing event. Anterograde amnesia is loss of ability

to remember events that occur after the amnesia-inducing

event.

n What role does the hippocampus play in long-term memory?

The hippocampus seems to play a crucial role in the consolidation

of memorythe process of shifting new information from

short-term to longer-term storage.

n What are explicit and implicit memory? Are they related to

different parts of the brain? Explicit memory permits us to

remember information that has been stored in memory, that we

actively try to bring to mind and that can be described verbally.

Implicit memory allows us to use stored information without

necessarily being able to express it in words. Existing evidence

suggests that the hippocampus may play an important role in

explicit memory, while the occipital lobe may play an important

role in implicit memory.

n What are Korsakoffs syndrome and Alzheimers disease?

What do they tell us about the biological bases of memory?

Korsakoffs syndrome is a serious illness caused by long-term

abuse of alcohol which involves profound retrograde amnesia.

Persons suffering from this illness often have damage to portions

of the thalamus and hypothalamus, so these brain structures

appear to be linked to amnesia. Alzheimers disease

involves severe mental deterioration, including retrograde

amnesia. It may be linked to damage in neurons projecting from

the basal forebrain to the hippocampus and cerebral cortex.

The Biological Bases of Explicit Memory and Implicit

Memory Throughout this chapter, we have focused primarily on what
might be termed intentional memorymemory that permits us to remember
information that has been stored as a result of previous learning and that we
actively try to bring to mind. Psychologists refer to this as explicit memory,
since we can describe its contents verbally, in fairly specific terms. (Both
episodic and semantic memory, which we considered earlier, fall under this
general heading.) There is another kind of memory, however, that is also
importanta kind of memory that involves being able to use information
without necessarily being able to put it into words. This is known as implicit
memory, and it operates in subtle ways. (Procedural memory, which we considered
earlier, is one kind of implicit memory.) For instance, suppose you
see a series of words. Then you are shown another series containing some of
these words along with others that you didnt see previously. This second list
is presented so quickly that its hard for you to recognize the words shown.
Will you do better at identifying the words you saw before than the new ones?
Research findings indicate that you will, and such effects provide one demonstration
of the operation of implicit memory (e.g., Gabrieli et al., 1995).
Now, heres where things get interesting. Many persons suffering from
amnesia do very poorly on tests of explicit memorythey cant recognize or
recall information they have seen very recently. However, their implicit memory
does not seem to be affected: They perform as well as normal persons on
tasks such as the one described above. Such deficits in explicit memory
appear to be linked to damage to the hippocampus, a portion of the temporal
lobes (Knowlton, Ramus, & Squire, 1992).
What about implicit memoryis it related to other parts of the brain?
Research evidence indicates that this is the case. Specifically, persons whohave had
portions of their occipital lobe removed for medical reasons sometimes

show deficits in implicit memory, while maintaining their explicit memory

largely intact (e.g., Gabrieli et al., 1995). So in sum, existing evidence

points to two conclusions: (1) We do seem to possess two distinct kinds of

memory, explicit and implicit; and (2) the functioning of these memory systems

is related to different portions of the brain. For this reason, damage to

different portions of the brain, as a result of accidents or medical procedures,

can produce very differentand sometimes very surprisingeffects on

memory.

Amnesia as