Amnesia is, by definition from DSM-IV, one or more episodes of the inability to recall important information or a total loss of memory. To begin, brain injuries or damage, strokes, seizures, lack of oxygen in the brain and tumors in the memory part of the brain are some of the ways that cause amnesia. Almost all injuries or damage to the brain will cause amnesia because of the chances that it will hit the memory part of the brain. In psychology, this disease can be viewed from a biological and cognitive perspective. Treatments can vary from hypnosis to being healthier. Ultimately, amnesia is accepted in society and people treat others with this disease better than others. Biological perspective is the way of looking at psychological topics …show more content…
Basically, this perspective is almost the same as biological, but cognitive is based more on memory and how humans are able to process, store and retrieve information and then use the information to solve problems. In Saul McLeod’s articlem” Cognitive Psychology,” the author states,” Even the same memories from different people will be processed differently. Two individuals who went through the same events will also have different memories of those events. As a result, every individual will have a different method of action through the cognitive perspective”(McLeod, 1). What this means is that amnesia can wipe any memory away no matter how long the memory has been stored inside the brain. Psychologists can look at where the brain has been affected during amnesia and try to understand how long the memory was in before the disease took it away. Other ways that psychologists can look at amnesia is how much of the brain was affected after the incident from a seizure or stroke. For example, asking someone questions from their childhood before an incident and after a brain injury. Chances are they will forget most or all of their childhood after their brain injury. To end, cognitive is the other perspective that psychologists can use to examine …show more content…
To start, as defined in John F Kihlstrom’s article,” Hypnosis, memory, and amnesia,” hypnosis is the social interaction between a subject and his hypnotist, where the subject acts on suggestions from the hypnotist for imaginative experiences involving alterations in cognition and voluntary action (Kihlstrom, 1). Hypnosis is one of the ways to help amnesia, but is not recommended as it offers more risks of distortion than chances of obtaining any useful information. The author states,” There is no question that hypnosis has the power to enhance memories by improving the mechanisms by which we create and retrieve them”(Kihlstrom, 2). Hypnosis can help amnesia out by having the subject go back into the past to discover certain events that they missed. Although it may not work or help, there is always the chance that it will help bring back memories and one day get rid of this disease. All in all, hypnosis is one out of the many ways that can help stop
Hippocampus is a small, curved region, which exists in both hemispheres of the brain and plays a vital role in emotions, learning and acquisition of new information. It also contributes majorly to long term memory, which is permanent information stored in the brain. Although long term memory is the last information that can be forgotten, its impairment has become very common nowadays. The dysfunction is exemplified by many neurological disorders such as amnesia. There are two types of amnesia, anterograde and retrograde. Anterograde amnesia is inability in forming new information, while retrograde refers to the loss of the past memory. As suggested by Cipolotti and Bird (2006), hippocampus’s lesions are responsible for both types of amnesia. According to multiple trace theory, the author suggests that hippocampal region plays a major role in effective retrieving of episodic memory (Cipolotti and Bird, 2006). For example, patients with hippocampal damage show extensively ungraded retrograde amnesia (Cipolotti and Bird, 2006). They have a difficult time in retrieving information from their non-personal episodic events and autobiographical memory. However, this theory conflicts with standard model of consolidation. The difference between these theories suggests that researchers need to do more work to solve this controversy. Besides retrieving information, hippocampus is also important in obtaining new semantic information, as well as familiarity and recollection (Cipolotti and Bird, 2006). For instance, hippocampal amnesic patient V.C shows in ability to acquire new semantic knowledge such as vocabularies and factual concepts (Cipolotti and Bird, 2006). He is also unable to recognize and recall even...
Although hypnosis might produce increased recall, it also produces more error; quantity doesn't always mean. quality in this case, he said. Through hypnosis it is easy for the interrogator. to implant false information into the mind of the eyewitness. In this way, again memory can be distorted.
There are two main forms of amnesia that this article will focus on and they will be retrograde and anterograde amnesia. Retrograde amnesia is “a deficit in memory characterized by an inability to remember past events” (Purdy, Markham, Schwartz, and Gordon 2001). This means that any memory before an accident or a surgery can (will be) lost. Retrograde amnesia is has puzzled many people. “The fact that information acquired before the onset of amnesia can be lost (retrograde amnesia) has fascinated psychologists, biologists, and clinicians for over 100 years.” (Squire, Alvarez 1995).
In addition, some argue that the recovery of repressed memories during psychotherapy might be a result of suggestive practices employed by the therapist (Madill & Holch, 2004). This has raised questions among scholars who have suggested that the creation of false memories is plausible, especially if repressed memories have been recovered in therapy where suggestive techniques, such as hypnosis, have been used by the therapist in treatment. Ms. Jaynor stated that after experiencing symptoms of depression and low self-esteem, she decided to seek help and started therapy to treat her symptoms. Ms. Jaynor mentioned to therapist Janet Balderston that she did not recall any traumatic experiences as a child. Memories of her childhood were not clear but she remembered it as being average, neither terrible nor extremely happy. Ms. Jaynor’s therapist suggested hypnosis and dream interpretation as part of treatment since Cindy’s description of her childhood was typical of a person who suffered from
First, it is important to understand past experiences from the perspective of Helga Ryan, an inductor of hypnosis. One of her many articles describes how on a spiritual level, we hold the energy of our past experiences and memories in every cell we are made of. Because of this, we are constantly forced to relive these memories and be reintroduced to the energies associated with them (1). Although Ryan tends to focus more on her practice and its psychological benefits, she very clearly and openly describes that our past does indeed affect our future. In fact, her entire practice is based on this principle as she makes a living through helping people heal the negative feelings people experience from their past. This basis of
One cause is benzodiazepine drugs, which are known to have powerful amnesic affects. This has also been recorded in non-benzodiazepine sedatives which act on the same set of receptors. Another cause is a traumatic brain injury in which damage is usually done to the hippocampus or surrounding cortices. It can also be caused by shock from psychological trauma or an emotional disorder. Illness, though much rarer, can also cause anterograde amnesia such as encephalitis, which is the inflammation of brain tissues do to some foreign pathogen. Lucy is diagnosed as having Goldfield’s Syndrome, which is the exact same thing as anterograde amnesia. She shows signs of short-term memory loss, her brain stores the new memories of the day has she lived however, after falling asleep she is unable to access these
In both class and in Shaun the sheep we have been memory loss in the form of amnesia has been the topic at hand. Different anatomical regions of the brain could contribute to this kind of memory loss, which the movie does not go to much in-depth in. To determine these anatomical regions, different tests and exercises can be ran to improve accurate diagnoses of the patient. With each of these tests/exercises, patients will express different abilities and disabilities based on which area of memory in the brain has been affected. With each of these different areas the type of memory loss can be extremely different, which is why knowing the correct anatomical region is so important. In the movie Shaun the Sheep, amnesia sets the plot and we will look at what features of amnesia where expressed by our patient the
Amnesia, a severe long-term memory loss disease, is caused by damaged brain tissue. There are two different types of amnesia. Retrograde amnesia is also known as backward moving. This is when you have a hard time remembering the past, especially episodic memories. This occurs because of memory consolidation. Memory consolidation is the process of a new memory setting until it becomes permanently in the brain. If this process is disrupted, the memory may be lost (Hockenberry and Hockenberry page 265). Anterograde amnesia is also known as forward moving. This is when you are unable to form new
Memory is a very complex system. It is broken down into many different parts. When these parts cease to work it creates such disorders that are discussed above. Many people suffer from these diseases and there is no way of knowing how to cure them as of yet. Cognitive scientists have been working to find cures and to identify where and what memory is. It is still an enigma, but someday they may be able to figure out how the mind wo
Amnesia. What is it? For some, it is simply the partial or total loss of memory. Something that one wouldn’t think too much about. However, it is a very real and present problem. Unlike other mental disorders, amnesia can be experienced at any age.(S. Wood, E. Wood, and D. Boyd 200) Amnesia isn’t as severe as it is commonly shown in the media, but can still have major emotional impact on the people around an amnesia patient. Thankfully, there is plenty of research that better helps us understand what amnesia is and what causes it. From that research, we know that there are several forms of amnesia; anterograde, retrograde, and transient global amnesia. Anterograde amnesia is the inability to store new memories. Retrograde amnesia is the inability
First, a person with amnesia may work with an occupational therapist to learn new information to replace what was lost, or to use intact memories as a basis for taking in new information. Memory training may also include a variety of strategies for organizing information so that it 's easier to remember and for improving understanding of extended conversation. With some training and practice, even people with severe amnesia can use these electronic organizers to help with day-to-day tasks. For example, smartphones can be programmed to remind them about important events or to take medications. Low-tech memory aids include notebooks, wall calendars, pill minders, and photographs of people and places. No medications are currently available for treating most types of amnesia. (Mandal, 2012) Researchers are investigating several neurotransmitters involved in memory formation, which may one day lead to new treatments for memory disorders. But the complexity of the brain processes involved makes it unlikely that a single medication will be able to resolve memory
Have you ever been an eyewitness at the scene of a crime? If you were, do you think that you would be able to accurately describe, in precise detail, everything that happened and remember distinct features of the suspect? Many people believe that yes they would be able to remember anything from the events that would happen and the different features of the suspect. Some people, in fact, are so sure of themselves after witnessing an event such as this that they are able to testify that what they think they saw was indeed what they saw. However, using an eyewitness as a source of evidence can be risky and is rarely 100% accurate. This can be proven by the theory of the possibility of false memory formation and the question of whether or not a memory can lie.
According to numerous references in the field of Psychology, a cognitive psychologist is an individual that studies topics such as thinking, problem-solving, learning, attention, memory, forgetting, and language acquisition, among several others. Cognitive psychology is the branch of psychology that studies mental processes, and its core focus is on how people acquire, process, and store information. While great research has been done within the field of psychology, there are individuals such as B.F. Skinner who criticize its strides, purposes, and research methods.
One of the most interesting phenomenon related to memory is memory distortions. One way in which they occur is through suggestibility, where people begin to remember false experiences if researchers suggested to them that they experienced it (Sternberg and Sternberg, 2012). In real-life situations, this is caused in part by memory being constructive “in that prior experiences affects how we recall things and what we actually recall from memory” (Sternberg and Sternberg, 2012). People’s prior experiences, including their bias and expectations, may influence how they experience false memory formations; the formation of false memories is also affected by several possible factors, one of which may be sleep deprivation (Frenda, Patihis, Loftus,