Memory

"Some researchers have reported that high levels of stress are associated with improved memory in the laboratory (Goodman et al. 1991b; Warren & Swartwood, 1992), some have reported that high levels of stress are associated with poorer memory (Bugental et al., 1992; Merritt, Ornstein, & Spicker, 1994). For example, Howe, Courage, & Peterson (1994) found no relationship between the amount of stress (reported by the parents) and the amount of information recalled by their children either 3-5 days or 6 months after an emergency room procedure. By contrast, Goodman et al. (1991b) found that children who showed higher levels of arousal during a medical procedure reported the incident more accurately than children who simply had a washable tattoo applied."

"Within what we might call “classical cognitive science” (Piattelli-Palmarini, 2001) it has always been understood that the mind/brain is to be considered a computational-representational system. Yet, not all cognitive scientists have ever (fully) agreed with this assessment (e.g., Rumelhart et al., 1986). Actually, as of today, large parts of the field have concluded, primarily drawing on work in neuroscience, that neither symbolism nor computationalism are tenable and, as a consequence, have turned elsewhere. In contrast, classical cognitive scientists have always been critical of connectionist or network approaches to cognitive architecture (e.g., Fodor and Pylyshyn, 1988), and recent work on memory (e.g., Gallistel and King, 2009; Gallistel and Matzel, 2013; Gallistel and Balsam, 2014) has been adding fuel to the fire. Recent work in neuroscience (Chen et al., 2014; Johansson et al., 2014; Ryan et al., 2015) has now provided first tentative neurobiological evidence for the cognitive scientists' doubts about the synapse as the locus of memory in the brain."

"If we believe that memories are made of patterns of synaptic connections sculpted by experience, and if we know, behaviorally, that motor memories last a lifetime, then how can we explain the fact that individual synaptic spines are constantly turning over and that aggregate synaptic strengths are constantly fluctuating? (Bizzi and Ajemian, 2015, p. 91)"

"…episodic memories are the only ones with direct reference to the past. As Tulving (1999, p.15) points out: “episodic memory is the only form of memory that, at the time of retrieval, is oriented toward the past: retrieval in episodic memory means ‘mental time travel’ through and to one’s past. All other forms of memory, including semantic, declarative and procedural memory, are, at retrieval oriented to the present”"

"“Not only is it impossible to compare our memories with the events of which they are the memories; but because the present is, as it were, always slipping away from us into the past we cannot even compare our memories with what purport to be the effects of the original events (or, more properly, with our inferences from those ‘effects’). For what I am comparing must always be, not the memory itself but my memory of that memory. Suppose that today I remember building, a short while ago, a castle in the sand. Tomorrow I go to the beach and there it is. I say ‘Yes just as I remembered it yesterday’. But how do I then know it is just as I remembered it yesterday? The sight of the sand castle itself may well influence my memory of my previous remembering” (Brian Smith, 1966, p.27, italics original)"

"Thomas Suddendorf and Michael Corballis (2007, p. 301-302) write: “The fact that episodic memory is fragmentary and fragile suggests that its adaptiveness may derive less from its role as an accurate record of personal history than from providing a “vocabulary” from which to construct planned future events (and perhaps to embellish events of the past). It may be part of a more general toolbox that allowed us to escape from the present and develop foresight, and perhaps create a sense of personal identity. Indeed, our ability to revisit the past may be only a design feature of our ability to conceive of the future”"

"When comparing human memory and computer memory it is clear that the human version has two distinct disadvantages. Firstly, as indeed I have experienced myself, due to ageing, human memory can exhibit very poor short term recall."

"Memory, then, is a necessary part of the logical faculty. … The proposition A = A must have a psychological relation to time, otherwise it would be At1 = At2."

"As the dew to the blossom, the bud to the bee, As the scent to the rose, are those memories to me."

"Memory is kinder than reality, it always has been. We make our memories; we knit them together out of disparate events; we define ourselves by what we make."

"But how is Mneme dreaded by the race, Who scorn her warnings and despise her grace? By her unveil'd each horrid crime appears, Her awful hand a cup of wormwood bears. Days, years mispent, O what a hell of woe! Hers the worst tortures that our souls can know."

"Out of the cradle endlessly rocking, Out of the mocking-bird’s throat, the musical shuttle, Out of the Ninth-month midnight, Over the sterile sands, and the fields beyond, where the child, leaving his bed, wander’d alone, bare-headed, barefoot, Down from the shower’d halo, Up from the mystic play of shadows, twining and twisting as if they were alive, Out from the patches of briers and blackberries, From the memories of the bird that chanted to me, From your memories, sad brother—from the fitful risings and fallings I heard, From under that yellow half-moon, late-risen, and swollen as if with tears, From those beginning notes of sickness and love, there in the transparent mist, From the thousand responses of my heart, never to cease, From the myriad thence-arous’d words, From the word stronger and more delicious than any, From such, as now they start, the scene revisiting, As a flock, twittering, rising, or overhead passing, Borne hither—ere all eludes me, hurriedly, A man—yet by these tears a little boy again, Throwing myself on the sand, confronting the waves. I, chanter of pains and joys, uniter of here and hereafter, Taking all hints to use them—but swiftly leaping beyond them, A reminiscence sing."

"Memory... is the diary that we all carry about with us."

"In memory everything seems to happen to music."

"The vapours linger round the Heights, They melt, and soon must vanish; One hour is theirs, nor more is mine,— Sad thought, which I would banish, But that I know, where'er I go, Thy genuine image, Yarrow! Will dwell with me,—to heighten joy, And cheer my mind in sorrow."

"Memory is so corrupt that you remember only what you want to; if you want to forget about something, slowly but surely you do."

"Far from our eyes th' Enchanting Objects set, Advantage by the friendly Distance get."

"I do perceive that the old proverb be not alwaies trew, for I do finde that the absence of my Nathaniel doth breede in me the more continuall remembrance of him."

"Out of sighte, out of mynde."

"Tell me the tales that to me were so dear, Long, long ago, long, long ago."

"Oh, I have roamed o'er many lands, And many friends I've met; Not one fair scene or kindly smile Can this fond heart forget."

"Friends depart, and memory takes them To her caverns, pure and deep."

"Out of mind as soon as out of sight."

"The mother may forget the child That smiles sae sweetly on her knee; But I'll remember thee, Glencairn, And all that thou hast done for me!"

"Yet how much less it were to gain, Though thou hast left me free, The loveliest things that still remain, Than thus remember thee."

"When promise and patience are wearing thin, When endurance is almost driven in, When our angels stand in a waiting hush, Remember the Marne and Ferdinand Foch."

"Les souvenirs embellissent la vie, l'oubli seul la rend possible."

"Memoria est thesaurus omnium rerum e custos."

"Vita enim mortuorum in memoria vivorum est posita."

"Oh, how cruelly sweet are the echoes that start When Memory plays an old tune on the heart!"

"What peaceful hours I once enjoy'd! How sweet their memory still! But they have left an aching void The world can never fill."

"Don't you remember, sweet Alice, Ben Bolt? Sweet Alice, whose hair was so brown; Who wept with delight when you gave her a smile, And trembl'd with fear at your frown!"

"Memory [is] like a purse,—if it be over-full that it cannot shut, all will drop out of it. Take heed of a gluttonous curiosity to feed on many things, lest the greediness of the appetite of thy memory spoil the digestion thereof."

"By every remove I only drag a greater length of chain."

"A place in thy memory, Dearest! Is all that I claim: To pause and look back when thou hearest The sound of my name."

"Fer from eze, fer from herte, Quoth Hendyng."

"So may it be: that so dead Yesterday, No sad-eyed ghost but generous and gay, May serve you memories like almighty wine, When you are old."

"I remember, I remember, The house where I was born, The little window where the sun Came peeping in at morn; He never came a wink too soon, Nor brought too long a day, But now, I often wish the night Had borne my breath away!"

"Where is the heart that doth not keep, Within its inmost core, Some fond remembrance hidden deep, Of days that are no more?"

"And when he is out of sight, quickly also is he out of mind."

"Badness of memory every one complains of, but nobody of the want of judgment."

"Tho' lost to sight to mem'ry dear Thou ever wilt remain."

"Nothing is more memorable than a smell. One scent can be unexpected, momentary and fleeting, yet conjure up a childhood summer beside a lake in the mountains; another, a moonlit beach; a third, a family dinner of pot roast and sweet potatoes during a myrtle-mad August in a Midwestern town. Smells detonate softly in our memory like poignant land mines hidden under the weedy mass of years. Hit a tripwire of smell and memories explode all at once. A complex vision leaps out of the undergrowth."

"Reg, as he insisted on being called, had a memory that he himself had once compared to the Queen Alexandra Birdwing Butterfly in that it was colorful, flitted prettily hither and thither, and was now, alas, almost completely extinct."

"Everyday experience suggests that highly emotional events are often the most memorable, an observation supported by psychological and pharmacological studies in humans. Although studies in animals have shown that nondeclarative emotional memory (behaviors associated with emotional situations) may be impaired by lesions of the amygdala, little is known about the neural underpinnings of emotional memory in humans, especially in regard to declarative memory (memory for facts that can be assessed verbally). We investigated the declarative memory of two rare patients with selective bilateral amygdala damage. Both subjects showed impairments in long-term declarative memory for emotionally arousing material. The data support the hypothesis that the human amygdala normally enhances acquisition of declarative knowledge regarding emotionally arousing stimuli."

"Remembrance is neither what happened nor what did not happen but, rather, their potentialization, their becoming possible once again."

"Memory is fiction. We select the brightest and the darkest, ignoring what we are ashamed of, and so embroider the broad tapestry of our lives."

"As my memory rests, but never forgets what I lost."

"This may be why we appear to learn absolutely nothing from experience, or may, in other words, account for our incoherence: memory does not require that we reconstitute the event, but that we justify it."

"Look at it out here! It's all falling apart. I'm erasing you, and I'm happy! You did it to me first. I can't believe you did this to me. Clem! Did you hear me? By morning, you'll be gone! The perfect ending to this piece of sh*t story!"