Chris Berry

Memory, amnesia, and awareness

Can our memories influence our behaviour, but outside of our awareness? Intuitively, we feel like they can, but demonstrating this in the laboratory has proven to be a controversial topic. There is now a fascinating array of research relating to unconscious, or implicit, memory. We will explore this research by examining major theories of unconscious memory the main ways of demonstrating that memories can be unconscious. We will also look at a new line of evidence that suggests that amnesia can be demonstrated in all individuals, not only those with clinical amnesia. This is the new phenomenon of Everyday Amnesia. We’ve all had the experience of completely forgetting an experience or an event. A deeper understanding of these issues has profound consequences for understanding memory impairments in amnesia and healthy ageing, and also for understanding the influences that shape our behaviour in the world.

Format: In each lecture we will use interactive polling (with mentimeter.com) to have regular informal quizzes. This option will be taught with five lectures, plus a revision lecture. Recommended readings will be given in each lecture.

Readings

Squire, L. R., & Dede, A. J. (2015). Conscious and Unconscious Memory Systems. Cold Spring Harbor Perspectives in Biology, 7(3), a021667. http://cshperspectives.cshlp.org/content/7/3/a021667.full.pdf+html

Roediger III, H. L., & Tekin, E. (2020). Recognition memory: Tulving’s contributions and some new findings. Neuropsychologia, 139, 107350. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2020.107350