Understanding Memory

Memory – Remembering and Forgetting

In this course, Dr Ashok Jansari (Goldsmiths, University of London) explores the processes of remembering and forgetting. In the first lecture, we think about what memory is and how it can be conceptualised. In the second lecture, we think about some key individual differences in memory performance, including the impacts of physical and emotional states. In the third lecture, we think about how studying individuals with specific, acquired brain damage can help researchers better understand memory. Next, we think about amnesia, both in healthy ageing and through neurodegenerative disorders. In the fifth and final lecture, we think about some current research in the field of memory.

Understanding Memory

In this lecture, we think about what memory is, focusing in particular on: (i) the origin of memory improvement discussions being with orators in ancient Greece; (ii) different forms that questions can come in, to evoke retrieval of different types of memory; (iii) a key research finding, that memory is not simply akin to a computer filing system in the way that it stores information, but instead retrieval is a process; (iv) an example of a memory retrieval malfunction, whereby false memories were present in a person’s mind after an aneurism; (v) the important note that memory is the coming together of information, as it doesn’t consist of only one type of information.