Search PubMed⌕ Search
Home/Archive/PubMed

PubMed · 3305441

Multiple memory systems and consciousness.

E Tulving
View original source ↗Export metadata ↓

Abstract

This Introduction to the Special Issue on Human Memory discusses some of the recent and current developments in the study of human memory from the neuropsychological perspective. A problem of considerable current interest, that of multiple memory systems, is a problem in classification. Much of the evidence for it is derived from clinical and experimental observations of dissociations between performances in memory tasks. The distinction between short-term and long-term memory is considered as an example of classification by dissociation. Current conceptualizations of multiple long-term memory systems are reviewed from the vantage point that distinguishes among three major kinds of memory--episodic, semantic, and procedural. These systems are briefly described and compared, and current views concerning the relation between them are discussed. The role of consciousness in memory is raised against the backdrop of the suggestion that it may be necessary to differentiate among several kinds of consciousness.

Explore related subjects

ConsciousnessHumansMemoryJournal ArticleResearch Support, Non-U.S. Gov'tReview

Keep this discovery

Explore connections, maps & timelines

BibTeXRIS

E Tulving. 1987. Multiple memory systems and consciousness.. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3305441/

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related citations

PubMed1997

Consciousness in waking and dreaming: the roles of neuronal oscillation and neuromodulation in determining similarities and differences.

State-dependent aspects of consciousness are explored with particular attention to waking and dreaming. First, those phenomenological differences between waking and dreaming that have been established through subjective reports are reviewed. These differences are robustly expressed in most aspects of consciousness including perception, attention, memory, emotion, orientation, and thought. Next, the roles of high frequency neuronal oscillation and neuromodulation are explored in waking and rapid eye movement sleep, the stage of sleep with which the most intense dreaming is associated. The high frequency neuronal oscillations serve similar functions in the wake and rapid eye movement states sleep but neuromodulation is very different in the two states. The collective high frequency oscillatory activity gives coherence to spatially separate neurons but, because of the different neuromodulation, the binding of sensory input in the wake state is very different from the binding of internally perceived input during rapid eye movement sleep. An explanatory model is presented which states that neuromodulation, as well as input source and brain activation level differentiate states of the brain, while the self-organized collective neuronal oscillations unify consciousness via long range correlations.

Consciousness↗
PubMed1996

The role of the prefrontal cortex in self-consciousness: the case of auditory hallucinations.

Many patients with schizophrenia report hallucinations in which they hear voices talking to them or about them. Behavioural and physiological studies show that this experience is associated with processes occurring in auditory language systems associated with both the production and the reception of speech. I propose that hallucinations are experienced because patients have difficulty in distinguishing sensations caused by their own actions from those that arise from external influences. This distinction can be made by predicting the sensations that will result from executive commands (forward modelling). If the predicted sensation matches the actual sensation then no outside influences have occurred and perception of change can be 'cancelled'. At the physiological level this mechanism depends upon interactions between the prefrontal areas where the executive commands originate and posterior brain regions concerned with the resultant sensations. Evidence from functional brain imaging confirms that interactions between prefrontal (executive) areas and auditory association areas are abnormal in schizophrenia. However, this account needs to be extended before we can understand why patients experience the voices as emanating, not just from an external source, but from agents who are trying to influence their behaviour. Recent imaging studies suggest that medial prefrontal cortex is engaged when we think about other people, but the precise nature of the interaction of this brain area with other regions remains to be established.

Consciousness↗