Saturday, May 3, 2014

PRINT VERSION, TITLE: THE ENGINE OF MEMORY (DIGITAL VERSION, TITLE: REBUILDING MEMORIES MAKES THEM STICK)


“Even after his death, the famous amnesic H.M. is revolutionizing our understanding of how memory works and how we maintain it as we age”
By: Donald G. MacKay
Published: Scientific American Mind, May / June 2014 issue; http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/rebuilding-memories-makes-them-stick/  
Level of difficulty:****
BEFORE YOU READ
Research Henry Molaison and discover who he was. An understanding of his experiences will help you cope with the text.
QUESTIONS
1.        What was the long term implication of the surgery H.M. underwent? What was the unintended impact of the surgery on Henry?
2.       It emerged, as a result of the studies with Henry, that the hippocampal region prevents ………………………………………………………………..
3.       The writer states that “These insights also solved a 100-year-old mystery” What is the answer to the mystery? Use your own words.
4.       What does “Such cases” in the sentence “Such cases are pure fiction” refer to?
5.       If you met H.M. at a supermarket, chatted for a minute and then came across each other again at the checkout he would likely ask who you were because…………………………………..
6.       It was discovered in the middle of the 20th century that two areas of the brain,…………………..worked jointly to build and preserve both …………………………and…………….
7.       Read the experiment with the ambiguous sentences to the end. What initial hypothesis of the writer was proved wrong by the experiment? Why did the writer hold this hypothesis?
8.       At the end of the experiment, it became obvious that H’s ……………………….were degenerating although both his ………………………………and his ………………………….were working like clockwork.
9.       The reason why the writer decided language was a useful way to study many aspects of memory was……………………………………………………………………………….
10.   As a result of his studies into specific age related problems related to language, the writer reached the conclusion that………………………..This problem involves both…………………………and ……………………………………………………….
11.   The underlying reason for the problem described above is……………………………………………………
12.   The writer and a colleague decided to retest Henry and compare his results to those of healthy adults in order to test the writer’s hypothesis that………………………………………………
13.   Read the information concerning the second experiment the writer and Lori E James conducted with Henry. What interesting general observation was made at the end of the test?
14.   Read the whole of the Boston naming test to the end. The deficits observed in lexical memories of average elderly adults is due to………………………………………………………..
15.   In Henry’s case, the greater deficits observed in the lexical memories was attributed to the fact that…………………………………………………………………………………………….
16.   Read the story of the riffle. This example was provided to prove that……………………………
WRITING TASK
Based on what you have learnt from the text, describe how memory works.
 THE ENGINE OF MEMORY (OR REBUILDING MEMORIES MAKES THEM STICK) KEY AND TEACHER’S NOTES
This is a tough but very interesting text detailing how our memories are formed and preserved. Due to its style, it makes a very good reading exercise albeit a difficult one. There is one thing one needs to remember about Scientific American Mind articles: the same article may have a different name in the digital copy. To make finding the article easier I have included the month and year so search for that issue first. I also give you the lengthy subtitle which doesn’t change. Various other sites also have copies of the article, links to which are provided.
1.       His condition revolutionized the study of memory and the brain; he could no longer learn new information.
2.       Forgetting OR us from forgetting forever
3.       The hippocampal regions of patients with amnesia were no longer functioning properly or had been damaged.
4.       Trauma immediately wiping out a character’s past but the protagonist still being able to form memories of new facts and experiences.
5.       Brief interruptions wiped out his extremely fragile memories for recent events
6.        The neocortex and the hippocampal region; episodic and semantic memories
7.       That Henry would perform well on the sentence comprehension test; because H’s neocortex was unimpaired.
8.       Lexical memories, neocortex, Broca’s area
9.       The uniformity of word knowledge
10.   Normal adults older than 65 experience slight but reliable difficulties in retrieving lexical information learned decades earlier; the ability to recall pronunciations of familiar but rarely used words; the ability to spell familiar but irregularly written words
11.   The degradation of the relevant neural connections in the neocortex
12.   Henry’s hippocampal damage prevented from offsetting the degradation that accompanies normal aging.
13.   Comparing Henry’s results with those of these individuals revealed dramatic deficits in Henry’s lexical memories.
14.   The synaptic connections in the neocortex deteriorating with age
15.   The hypoccampal maintenance system was defunct / the hippompus couldn’t craft new memories those that had been degraded or fragmented with time

16.   Some episodic memories are impossible to check and correct

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