This chapter describes the path of formation of the approach here. It happened when I read about a study concerning memory. In this chapter you can read and understand in a basic way how all the aspects discussed on this website come together in a complex yet traceable way. Also, in this chapter we understand how to integrate explicit memory and implicit training processes in a better way.
This chapter describes the path of formation of the approach here. Different inputs may have conglomerated in my head to what then came up as this frame. Of which I cannot name them all. I was seeing a class on concept formation theory, and others. Also in the beginning of my studies I read different literature on (animal) experiments, learning, conditioning, and physiological principles of neuronal function for instance the thorough book "Learning" by David Lieberman and "Biopsychology" by John Pinel. My readings beyond this were not extensive yet neat. I am a slow but sound reader. When reading my only intend was to understand. What I understood I beheld provisory.
Also I did not follow any specific goal apart from understanding. This is called theoretical sensitivity in the research method called Grounded Theory that I only just got to know. Actually the principles of Grounded Theory may parallel the general concept formation I am describing in this chapter. So, what I did was, at the same time, what I found out about!! Natural concept formation! This kind of free working through material is most important in psychology where object and subject of the matter become equal.
My own subjective experience and personal background are traced in a small book 'Psie'.
As one of my main influences I have to name the book 'To Have or to Be' by Erich Fromm. His view strongly impressed me, naming what I felt of conflicting emotions in the modern world. Also his idea denotes strongly a key principle to be considered in psychological matters: we can never infer from action only what the matter is with a person's feelings. It is just their own experience of authenticity that they may have or not, and that they can describe, that makes the difference. If it is not there it might be built.)
So, how did I come to the insight?
An experiment by Huppert and Piercy (1976): In this study persons suffering from Korsakow's syndrome were able to recognize pictures they had seen before. They were almost equally well able to decide if they knew a picture as the persons of the control group not suffering from the (amnesic) disease. But in contrast to the controls they could not remember when, under which circumstances (the ones of a similar presentation a few days before) they already had seen the material. They only had a feeling of familiarity towards the already seen pictures (in contrast to new pictures also presented at the second trial)!
According to this and similar finding’s in other studies (check the famous case H. M.), the kind of memory that was shown by the healthy controls but not the patients is called declarative memory, the memory for the situation of a task. Whereas the kind of memory still displayable by the patients, a kind of ‘training’, is called non-declarative, as is there but without ‘declarable’ circumstance for the persons.
An explanation of this finding can be given by a physiologically oriented framework. The frame is of quite a general nature! It rests on the general classification of the nerve system into Peripheral Nervous System/separated functions on one side, and existence of association areas on the other. On one side we have the different, separated sensory (and motor) pathways. These pathways are arranged in a rather linear way (with inner differentiation and layers/levels of processing/association). On the other side we have the associative brain areas that could be conceptualized by a net made by the differing functions (according areas)! This is the ‘where’ the differentiated senses meet and differentiated concepts can come to form! The place of multiperceptual/crossmodal association!
Another important information important here for our model is the fact that both kinds of memory described above, declarative and non-declarative memory, are made by a process involving protein synthesis at the synapse induced through repeated activation. This was pointed out already by Eric Kandel. This mechanism is called long-term facilitation and leads to easier functioning/’memory’ of synanpses in the ‘long’ run (depending on the number of repetitions). This mechanism is assumed here to be the underlying process of memory inscription on 'both' sides named in the previous passage, the linear, 'isolated' side (PNS) and the associative ‘side’ (‘associative’ brain - areas) of the human nervous system!
First the resulting explanation for the kind of memory that the Korsakow patients still had. To date we've been calling this kind of non-declarative memory 'recognition memory'. It is somehow a kind of implicit memory, there but not aware. Proposition: This kind of memory is a 'functional' memory genuinely.
What does that mean?
The ability to see a given picture was trained - already! - during the first confrontation with the picture material by a kind of ‘synapse-facilitation’ as introduced above. But only within the visual processing system/pathways.
The visual pathway is organized retinotopically: That means there are parallel associations in the visual layers weighted specifically according the stimulus characteristics such as visual contrast constituting a certain visual pattern! There is a phenomenon called lateral inhibition that enhances/suppresses specific synapses on a visual level and represent visual contrast. So when the same pattern appears again, rather the same relations of stimulated receptors and further processing cells will be stimulated, that will work easier. So, the same specific pattern of one picture can more easily travel the sensory route when presented the second time to the person.
So we assume that a specific visual pattern can be inscribed by lateral inhibition and synapse facilitation already by one experience, just within the ‘uniceptual’ visual pathway! That's the reason for an easier functioning of the visual sensory pathway for the specific picture in the second trial. And this might parallel a feeling of familiarity!
Looking at matters from this angle one could use the term sensory training or sensory familiarity, rather than memory. (But that’s rather a philosophical, conceptual debate about where memory ‘starts’.)
Summary: An explanation of visual implicit/procedural/functional/non-declarative memory is possible combining retinotopy, lateral inhibition, and synapse-facilitation! This is a very simple model. Note that there are more stimulus characteristics than contrast. Also it is important to note that we already have a high degree of differentiation or of differentiated processing inherent in our visual nervous structure by evolution and individual experience.
(This is also a way to explain the objective part of the perception of facial beauty. An average face is processed easier and liked more because the faces we meet are imprinted in the retinal substrate layers/levels of 'processing' making an average/'beautiful' face easier to process!).
The same way, motor task processing can be established by 'simple' 'training'. Motor memory is always implicit. It's nature is non-representative, non-declarative. Although the visual representation of an action is closely linked to the action itself. The ideo-motor hypothesis and mirror neurons give rise to the importance of a feedback-loop of observation (vision) of our own or others action to enhance it!
-
But even more interestingly, what makes for 'declarability' of an experience? That is if you take a closer look, the declarability of 'time' and 'space'. Back to our study: So the Korsakow patiens kept the ability of recognition and familiarity. Why then is their consciousness for when and under which circumstances they had seen the pictures missing? Why do they lack the conscious part of the memory: The position in time, the seat of the experience in the row of their experiences?
Normally all incoming patterns in one moment are associated with each other and weighted on the basis of balanced emotion, in the net, in our associative brain! Though we are mostly more or only aware of a part of the whole input - the part with higher weight and/or faster rhythm - all the things we experience in one moment are connected to each other on the basis of intact limbic functioning and emotion - the 'ocean'! We are to a small(er) degree always aware of the surrounding of attended stimuli in each moment!
In Korsakow's syndrome subcortical brain areas are impaired notably the hippocampus. The hippocampus is closely linked to the theta rhythm and is important for establishing selective neocortical networks. Because of the impairment an association of the surrounding stimuli with the attended experimental stimuli may not have taken place properly in the first trial at all!
Then, the persons could not from the same stimulus at a later moment [the 2nd trial] (or an associated thought - When have I seen this picture? - revisit the chapter 'associations') retrieve the 'circum' – 'stances' of the picture material! They could not 'er' – 'innern' ( er – 'taken from a distance/outside', inneres – 'inner part of the body'; 're'-'member')!
The sequence of thoughts, the associations could not lead the persons back to that earlier stage in time with its features. The necessary connections had not been established properly in the first place. The circum-stance 'experiment' (including all sensory features of that moment/situation apart from the picture, and connected thoughts etc.) or the circumstance 'monday' (a single feature, an auditive pattern, a thought [let’s say it was a monday] normally connected with the situation) could not be connected with the experience of the picture properly and so not be retrieved afterwards!
Looking at this the question arises why some patterns or inputs gain more attention than others. It seems reasonable that all inputs at a given moment normally are ‘processed’ and binded, yet, some of them gaining more awareness than others in a given moment. So, normally there will always be a ‘global’ association’ of all inputs, where parts are not so relevant (like color of the wall). At this point the idea of emotional relevance that might come from relators arose in a subtle way for the first time the course the research described here.
I had the idea, that all inputs are binded like elements in an ocean where attention or importance would be differentiated of the elements of this sea yet everything binded. It became explicit that we must be in an emotional state of some degree in any given moment, where we usually only call the peaks and vales of it ‘emotion’. Talking about peaks and vales the metaphor of ocean with higher and lower waves signifying ‘importance’ seemed to fit. Also by intuition or integration personal or social psychology knowledge it seemed nearby to assume that the degrees and importances would to some extend be established by emotional relators, ‘significant’ others.
Conscious memory is made by associated and weighted multiple perceptual contrast! All thought is based on 'secondary' perception!
Conclusion: Thinking is important, but may be overrated! Mostly by people that think a lot. The key to psychological well-being much lies in processes and positive stimulations of the body, in relations!