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From: wmartin@brl-smoke.ARPA (Will Martin )
Newsgroups: net.med
Subject: Memory
Message-ID: <1214@brl-smoke.ARPA>
Date: Fri, 21-Feb-86 14:35:42 EST
Article-I.D.: brl-smok.1214
Posted: Fri Feb 21 14:35:42 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 24-Feb-86 08:11:47 EST
Distribution: net
Organization: USAMC ALMSA, St. Louis, MO
Lines: 57

What's the curent medical/psych thought about short-term & long-term
memory? As I (vaguely) recall, at one time it was either being
postulated or had been accepted that stuff remained in short-term memory
for about 7 minutes, and, if it wasn't transferred over to long-term
memory by then, it was lost. I can't make that hypothesis jibe with my
personal experience, and so I'd like to see info on what the current
thought in this field might be.

Let me describe a typical memory-related incident in my own experience;
maybe someone could then be able to describe the mechanisms that are
going on in the brain to produce this result?

I get up in the morning an go into the bathroom. As I sit there, I
notice a pair of scissors lying on top of the radiator. I tell myself,
"I left those there by mistake last night. When I go back into the
bedroom, I want to take the scissors with me and put them back where
they belong." I then proceed with the rest of my morning tasks (which
take longer than 7 minutes -- more like 10-12), and go back to the
bedroom, having completely forgotten about the scissors and failed to
take them with me. Hours later, at work, I pick up a pair of scissors
and all at once recall the entire morning incident in the bathroom, and
also clearly recall that I forgot and that I went into the bedroom without
taking the scissors. I then post this note about it all... :-)

So, the fact that I can remember the entire scene hours later means that
I *must* have transferred a lot of data into my long-term memory. But,
if I did that, why did I forget to do what I told myself to do (take the
scissors back into the bedroom) at the time I could have (and should
have) done it? Why forget then and remember later?

I can think of many similar incidents, many related to schedules and
time, especially regarding radio programs I wanted to tape or listen to --
I will remember that I want to do this hours in advance of the event, and
then completely forget about it until it is *just too late*, like remembering
about a 6:30PM program at 7:05PM. When I DO remember, the details are
clear and there is no fuzziness or vagueness, but it is too late to do
the action I had meant to perform. This particular thing angers me
immensely, as I feel doubly betrayed by myself -- if I just completely
forgot, I think it would be less annoying. But to forget what I wanted
to do until it is *just* too late is to grind my face into the dirt of
my failure, and really insult me.

So, some of these memory "lapses" (or whatever they may be), are important
to me, but others, like the scissors incident described, are trivial and
of no consequence. If they were all of some import, it might be
reasonable to start to offer various psychoanalytic explanations about
self-punishment, but if the process occurs often, with no particular
correlation with import, then it should be a for-real psychological or
physiological event, with chemical or anatomical explanations.

Well, would anyone care to describe the internals behind this sort of
event? Pointers to good references (understandable by a layman) would
also be useful.

Regards, Will Martin

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