Chapter 9 Reflections and Connections

Memory is the central topic of cognitive psychology. It is relevant to all aspects of both conscious and unconscious mental activity. To better organize, elaborate upon, and thereby encode into long-term memory the ideas in this chapter, you may find the following general thoughts useful.

1. A model of information processing provides a functional representation of the mind. The information-processing model introduced in the opening pages of this chapter served as the organizing structure for thinking about memory and the mind. You read of three memory stores, of control processes related to the stores, and of research aimed at characterizing the stores and processes. Your review and thoughts about all this will be most effective, we think, if you adopt a functionalist perspective. From that perspective, each store and process represents not a different part (or structure) of the mind but a different job that the mind performs in its overall task of acquiring and using information. As you review each mental component and process, think first of its main function—how it contributes to normal, everyday thought and behavior—and then think about how its special characteristics help it serve that function.

You might apply such elaborative reasoning to (a) sensory memory and differences between iconic and echoic memory; (b) the process of attention, including roles played by the unconscious, automatic processing of unattended stimuli; (c) working memory and executive functions; (d) distinctions between semantic and episodic forms of long-term explicit memories; (e) means of encoding information into long-term memory, including elaboration, organization, and visualization; (f) the selective consolidation of long-term memories into a more stable form; (g) the role of retrieval cues in retrieving information from long-term memory; (h) the roles of general knowledge and inferences in constructing memories of past experiences; and (i) the role of executive functions in prospective memory.

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2. Unconscious supports for conscious thought and behavior. Long ago, Sigmund Freud (1933/1964) drew an analogy between the human mind and an iceberg. Consciousness, he suggested, is the small visible tip of the mind, which is supported by massive unconscious portions of the mind that are invisible, submerged under the ocean’s surface. Although Freud’s view of the functions of the unconscious mind (discussed in Chapter 15) was different from that presented here, the analogy remains apt. We are conscious only of the perceptions and thoughts that course through our limited-capacity working memory. We are unconscious of all the preattentive analysis of information and of the top-down control of selective attention that help determine which stimuli make it into working memory. We are also unconscious at any given time of the vast store of information we have in long-term memory and of the priming processes that determine which portions of that store will, at that moment, be most available for retrieval into consciousness. And we are unconscious of the vast set of procedural memories and effects of conditioning that allow us to carry out routine tasks and respond adaptively to stimuli without conscious attention. As you review the chapter, think about all the ways in which unconscious information and processes support that small part of your mental activity that enters your consciousness.

3. The mind as a product of the brain. In cognitive psychology the term mind refers to the entire set of processes—unconscious as well as conscious—by which information is acquired and used within a person to organize and direct the person’s behavior. The mind is entirely a product of the brain. In recent times, cognitive psychology has merged increasingly with neuropsychology into what is now often called cognitive neuropsychology. Neuroimaging methods allow psychologists to identify which parts of the brain become most active as people engage in specific mental tasks. Such findings complement the results of more traditional neuropsychological studies of deficits in people who have suffered damage to specific portions of the brain.

Of course, there is a big difference between knowing where in the brain a particular task is accomplished and knowing how it is accomplished. At this point we are far from knowing how neural activity in the brain provides the basis for memories, thoughts, and decisions. The brain may be a computer, but it is vastly more complex than any nonbiological computer that has yet been built. At this point the mapping of mental tasks onto brain areas is useful primarily as an adjunct to behavioral evidence in helping us to categorize mental tasks. The contention that two mental tasks are fundamentally different from one another can be supported by evidence that they involve different areas of the brain.

One way to review the results of the neuroimaging and brain-damage studies presented in this chapter is to think about how each helps to validate the distinctions among the different memory systems and processes described in the chapter. Stated differently, what evidence concerning the brain was presented to support the ideas that (a) attention involves top-down processes that magnify the neural analysis of attended stimuli; (b) verbal working memory is like talking and listening; (c) executive function involves planning and the regulation of emotions; (d) explicit memory is distinct from implicit memory; (e) episodic memory is at least partly distinct from semantic memory; (f) long-term memory is distinct from working memory; and (g) long-term memory exists in more and less stable forms.