Cerebral Mechanisms of Information Storage: The Problem of Memory

Abstract

Recently one of those rare events has occurred in which developments in two separate fields—the experimental psychology of memory and physiological psychology—have yielded congruent information. We will consider those developments here. The chapter will be organized into two main sections: first, a review of some theory in the psychology of memory, which will center on multiple-store models, since those models have clear relevance to current physiological findings; second, a review of work on the effects of brain damage and brain stimulation on memory. Both sections will be concerned wholly with work on human subjects. There is, of course, a large literature on the physiology of memory in other species, including studies specifically concerned with the role of the limbic system (Drachman and Ommaya, 1964; Gaffan, 1976; Isaacson, 1975; O’Keefe, Nadel et al., 1975). Although the work is suggestive, it does not establish effects in other species that closely parallel the effects found in man. More generally stated, it remains to be established that homologous brain structures, in the several species studied, are carrying out closely related memory functions. A more optimistic view may be found in Iversen (1973) and Weiskrantz (1966).

This chapter was written under Grant GB-3208 from the National Science Foundation. Elisabeth O. Clark holds a predoctoral fellowship from the National Institutes of Mental Health.