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MEMORY BREAKDOWN: THE CASE OF CLIVE WEARING Monday, March 25, 1985: Deborah Wearing awoke in a sweat-soaked bed. Her husband Clive had been up all night perspiring, vomiting, and with a high fever. He said that he had a “constant, terrible” headache, like a “band” of pain tightening around his head (Wearing, 2005, p. 27). The symptoms worsened over the next few days, but the two doctors caring for Clive reassured Deborah that it was just a bad case of the flu. By Wednesday, Clive had spent three nights awake with the pain. Confused and disoriented, he turned to Deborah and said, “Er, er, darling. . . . I can’t . . . think of your name” (p. 31).

The doctor arrived a couple of hours later, reassured Deborah that her husband’s confusion was merely the result of sleep deprivation, and prescribed sleeping pills. Deborah came home later that day, expecting to find her husband in bed. But no Clive. She shouted out his name. No answer, just a heap of pajamas. After the police had conducted an extensive search, Clive was found when a taxi driver dropped him off at a local police station; he had gotten into the cab and couldn’t remember his address (Wearing, 2005). Clive returned to his flat (which he did not recognize as home), rested, and took in fluids. His fever dropped, and it appeared that he was improving. But when he awoke Friday morning, his confusion was so severe he could not identify the toilet among the various pieces of furniture in his bathroom. As Deborah placed urgent calls to the doctor, Clive began to drift away. He lost consciousness and was rushed to the hospital in an ambulance (Wearing, 2005; Wilson & Wearing, 1995).

Prior to this illness, Clive Wearing had enjoyed a fabulous career in music. As the Director of the London Lassus Ensemble, he spent his days leading singers and instrumentalists through the emotionally complex music of his favorite composer, Orlande de Lassus. A renowned expert on Renaissance music, Clive produced music for the prestigious British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), including that which aired on the wedding day of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer (Sacks, 2007, September 24; Wilson, Baddeley, & Kapur, 1995; Wilson, Kopelman, & Kapur, 2008). But Clive’s work—and his whole life—tumbled into chaos when a virus that normally causes blisters on the mouth invaded his brain.

Millions of people carry herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1). Usually, it causes unsightly cold sores on the mouth and face. (There is also HSV-2, more commonly associated with genital herpes.) But for a small minority of the adult population—as few as 1 in 500,000 annually—the virus invades the central nervous system and causes a life-threatening infection called encephalitis. Left untreated, herpes encephalitis causes death in over 70% of its victims. Most who survive have lasting neurological deficits (Sabah, Mulcahy, & Zeman, 2012; Whitley & Gnann, 2002).

Although Deborah saw to it that Clive received early medical attention, having two doctors visit the house day and night for nearly a week, these physicians mistook his condition for the flu with meningitis-like symptoms (Wilson & Wearing, 1995). Misdiagnosis is common with herpes encephalitis (even to this day), as its symptoms resemble those of other conditions, including the flu, meningitis, a stroke, and epilepsy (Sabah et al., 2012). When Clive and Deborah arrived at the hospital on the sixth day of his illness, they waited another 11 hours just to get a proper diagnosis (Wearing, 2005; Wilson & Wearing, 1995).

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Clive survived, but the damage to his brain was extensive and profound; the virus had destroyed a substantial amount of neural tissue. And though Clive could still sing and play the keyboard (and spent much of the day doing so), he was unable to continue working as a conductor and music producer (D. Wearing, personal communication, June 18, 2013; Wilson & Wearing, 1995). In fact, he could barely get through day-to-day life. In the early stages of recovery, simple activities like eating baffled him. He ate the menu and attempted to spread cottage cheese on his bread, apparently mistaking it for butter. He confused basic concepts such as “scarf” and “umbrella,” and shaved his eyebrows and nose (Wearing, 2005; Wilson & Wearing, 1995).

In the months following his illness, Clive was overcome with the feeling of just awakening. His senses were functioning properly, but every sight, sound, odor, taste, and feeling registered for just a moment, and then vanished. As Deborah described it, Clive saw the world anew with every blink of his eye (Wearing, 2005). The world must have seemed like a whirlwind of sensations, always changing, never stable. Desperate to make sense of everything, Clive would pose the same questions time and again: “How long have I been ill?” he would ask Deborah and the hospital staff members looking after him. “How long’s it been?” (Wearing, p. 181). For much of the first decade following his illness, Clive repeated the same few phrases almost continuously in his conversations with people. “I haven’t heard anything, seen anything, touched anything, smelled anything,” he would say. “It’s just like being dead” (Wearing, p. 160).

The depth of Clive’s impairment is revealed in his diary, where he wrote essentially the same entries all day long. On August 25, 1985, he wrote, “I woke at 8:50 A.M. and baught [sic] a copy of The Observer,” which is then crossed out and followed by “I woke at 9:00 A.M. I had already bought a copy of The Observer.” The next line reads, “This (officially) confirms that I awoke at 9:05 A.M. this morning” (Wearing, 2005, p. 182). Having forgotten all previous entries, Clive reported throughout the day that he had just become conscious. His recollection of writing in his journal—along with every experience in his life—came and went in a flash. The herpes virus had ravaged his memory system.

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The story of Clive Wearing launches our journey through memory. This chapter will take us to the opposite ends of a continuum: from memory loss to exceptional feats of remembering. We will travel to the World Memory Championships, an annual event where competitors from around the globe gather to see how many numbers, words, and images they can squeeze into their brains in 3 days. You will learn some tricks that might help you remember material for exams and everyday life: terms, concepts, passwords, pin numbers, people’s names, and where you left your keys. You, too, can develop superior memorization skills; you just have to practice using memory aids. But beware: No matter how well you exercise your memory “muscle,” it does not always perform perfectly. Like anything human, memory is prone to error.

LO 1 Define memory.

Memory refers to information the brain collects, stores, and may retrieve for later use. Much of this process has gone haywire for Clive. You may be wondering why we chose to start this chapter with the story of a person whose memory system failed. When it comes to understanding complex cognitive processes like those of memory, sometimes it helps to examine what happens when elements of the system are not working.

What is your earliest memory and how was it created? Do you know if it is accurate? And how can you recall it after so many years? Psychologists have been asking questions like these since the 1800s. Exactly how the brain absorbs information from the outside world and files it for later use is still not completely clear, but scientists have proposed many theories and models to explain how the brain processes, or works on, data on their way to becoming memories. As you learn about various theories and models, keep in mind that none of them are perfect. Rather than labeling one as right and another as wrong, most psychologists embrace a combination of approaches, taking into consideration their various strengths and weaknesses.

One often-used model likens the brain’s memory system to a computer. Think about how a computer operates: It receives data from external sources, like your fingers typing on the keyboard, and converts that data into a code it can manipulate. Once this is accomplished, the information can be saved on the hard drive so you can open up the documents, MP3s, and other data files you need. The brain’s memory system accomplishes similar tasks, but it is very different from a computer. Communication among neurons in the brain is more complicated than signals running between electrical components in a circuit. And unlike a computer, which maintains your files exactly how you last saved them, memories are subject to modifications over time, and this means they may be somewhat different each time you access them. Finally, the brain has seemingly unlimited storage capabilities, and the ability to process many types of information simultaneously, both consciously and unconsciously. We don’t completely understand how a functioning memory system works, but there is basic agreement on its general processes, particularly encoding, storage, and retrieval.

LO 2 Identify the processes of encoding, storage, and retrieval in memory.

ENCODING During the course of a day, we are bombarded with information coming from all of our senses and internal data from thoughts and emotions. Some of this information we will remember, but the majority of it will not be retained for very long. What is the difference between what is kept and what is not? Most psychologists agree that it all starts with encoding, the process through which information enters our memory system. Think about what happens when you pay attention to an event unfolding before you; stimuli associated with that event (sights, sounds, smells) are taken in by your senses and then converted to neural activity that travels to the brain. Here, the neural activity continues, at which point the information takes one of two paths: Either it enters our memory system (it is encoded to be stored for a longer period of time) or it slips away. For Clive Wearing, much of this information slips away.

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STORAGE For information that is successfully encoded, the next step is storage. Storage is exactly what it sounds like: preserving information for possible recollection in the future. Before Clive Wearing fell ill, his memory was excellent. His brain was able to encode and store a variety of events and learned abilities. Following his bout with encephalitis, however, his ability for long-term storage of new memories was destroyed—he could no longer retain new information for more than seconds at a time.

RETRIEVAL After information is stored, how do we access it? Perhaps you still have a memory of your first-grade teacher’s face, but can you remember his or her name? This process of coming up with the name is called retrieval. Sometimes information is encoded and stored in memory but cannot be accessed, or retrieved. Have you ever felt that a person’s name or a certain vocabulary word was just sitting “on the tip of your tongue”? Chances are you were struggling from a retrieval failure, which we will discuss later in this chapter.

Before taking a closer look at the three processes of memory—encoding, storage, and retrieval—let’s see what the memory system can do when it’s functioning at an optimal level. Welcome to the world of memory sport.

MEMORY COMPETITORS AND THE REST OF US The brains of memory champions are not wired in a special way; these are regular people who have trained themselves to excel in memory. Just ask eight-time World Memory Champion Dominic O’Brien if he thinks anyone can acquire an exceptional memory, and he will tell you there’s no doubt about it. When O’Brien first began to train his memory at age 30, he could remember no more than 6 or 7 playing cards in a row. Eventually, he was able to memorize 2,808 cards (54 decks) after looking at each card only once. “I transformed my memory power very quickly as a result of applying simple techniques and practicing regularly,” Dominic says. “If I can become a memory champion then anybody can” (D. O’Brien, personal communication, January 10, 2010). Just like a gymnast or a wrestler, a memory athlete prepares, trains, and practices. A powerful memory takes work!

One small study actually compared memory competitors to “normal” people and found nothing extraordinary about their intelligence or brain structure. What they did find was heightened activity in specific brain areas (particularly in regions used for spatial memory). This activity seemed to be associated with the use of a method for remembering items by associating them with an imagined “journey” (Maguire, Valentine, Wilding, & Kapur, 2003). As it turns out, memory champions like Dorothea and Dominic rely heavily on this type of imagined journey, which is rich with visual images. We will learn about this memory aid later in the chapter, when we discuss memory improvement, but first we must get a grasp of how the entire system works.

LO 3 Explain the stages of memory described by the information-processing model.

Psychologists employ several models to explain how the memory system is organized. Among the most influential is the information-processing model first developed by Atkinson and Shiffrin. This model suggests that memory operates in a series of stages (Figure 6.1), and these stages represent a flow of information (Anderson, 1971; Atkinson & Shiffrin, 1968; Wood & Pennington, 1973).

According to the information-processing model, the brain has three types of memory storage, each associated with a stage of memory: Sensory memory can hold vast amounts of sensory stimuli for a sliver of time, short-term memory can temporarily maintain and process limited information for a longer stretch, and long-term memory has essentially unlimited capacity and stores enduring information. In the upcoming pages, you will read much more about these stages of memory and how they relate to Clive Wearing, whose short- and long-term memory are severely impaired.

Note: Quotations attributed to Dorothea Seitz are personal communications.

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The information-processing model is a valuable tool for learning about and researching memory, but like any scientific model, it has flaws. Some critics contend that sensory memory is really a primary component of perception. Others doubt that a clear boundary exists between short-term and long-term memories (Baddeley, 1995). And still others argue that this “pipeline” model is a simplistic representation because information does not necessarily flow through the memory system in a straight-line path (Cowan, 1988). Despite its weaknesses, the information-processing model remains an essential tool for explaining how memory works.

Another way to conceptualize memory is from a processing standpoint. To what degree does information entering the memory system get worked on? According to the levels of processing framework, there is a “hierarchy of processing stages” that corresponds to different depths of information processing (Craik & Lockhart, 1972). Thus, processing can occur along a continuum from shallow to deep (Figure 6.2). Shallow-level processing is primarily concerned with physical features, such as the brightness or shape of an object, or the number of letters in a word. Deeper-level processing relies on characteristics related to patterns and meaning, and generally results in longer-lasting and easier-to-retrieve memories. So when you pay only a little attention to data entering your sensory system, shallow processing occurs, resulting in more transient memories. If you really contemplate incoming information and relate it to memories you already have, deeper processing occurs, and the new memories are more likely to persist (Craik & Tulving, 1975; Francis & Gutiérrez, 2012; Newell & Andrews, 2004).

Fergus Craik and Endel Tulving explored levels of processing in their classic 1975 study. After presenting college students with various words, the researchers asked them yes or no questions, prompting them to think about and encode the words at three different levels: shallow, intermediate, and deep. The shallow questions required the students to study the appearance of the word: “Is the word in capital letters?” The intermediate-level questions related to the sound of the word: “Does the word rhyme with ‘weight’?” And finally, the deep questions challenged the students to consider the word’s meaning: “Is the word a type of fish?” When the researchers surprised the students with a test to see which words they remembered without any cues or clues, the students were best able to recall words whose meaning they had thought about (Craik & Tulving, 1975). The take-home message: Deep thinking helps create strong memories (Foos & Goolkasian, 2008).

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Most people have the greatest success with (3) deep processing, but it depends somewhat on how they are prompted to retrieve information. For example, if someone asks you to remember any words that rhyme with “dive daring,” the name “Clive Wearing” will probably pop into your head regardless of whether you used deep processing.

The levels of processing model helps us understand why testing, which often requires you to connect new and old information, can improve memory and help you succeed in school. Research strongly supports the idea that “testing improves learning,” as long as the stakes are low (Dunlosky, Rawson, Marsh, Nathan, & Willingham, 2013). The Show What You Know and Test Prep resources in this textbook are designed with this in mind. Repeated testing, or the testing effect, results in a variety of benefits: better information retention; identification of areas needing more study; and increased self-motivated studying (Roediger, Putnam, & Smith, 2011). Speaking of testing, why not take a moment and show what you know?

Question 1

Question 2

1. Retrieval

2. Encoding

3. Communication

4. Spatial memory

Question 3

1. long-term memory

2. sensory memory

3. memory for keywords

4. sensory register

Question 4