Modularity and Dissociations in Memory Systems

A cynical attitude toward progress in psychology is that we simply move back and forth between well-defined polarities, on pendulum swings, without really getting anywhere. Personally, I much prefer the model of a helix, in which we can recognize steady progress in one direction while not denying oscillations of perspective on certain other issues. One unmistakable trend that has been sweeping across the behavioral and cognitive sciences is the advancement of genetic explanations over environmental explanations. This is easy to find in such diverse fields as linguistics, intelligence, personality, and mental health, to say nothing of medicine. My grandparents were staunch believers in genetic causation, too, but I like to think we now have better reasons for our attitudes than they did. A different trend back to earlier ideas is becoming evident in the reappearance of faculty psychology in cognition, generally, and in the analysis of memory, in particular. Publication of Fodor's Modularity of Mind (Fodor, 1983) only celebrates this newest cycle. The histories of such topics as localization of function in the brain and the interpretation of intelligence put the trend in perspective. The impulse to subdivide memory into isolated subsystems should be appreciated as a manifestation of Fodor's views, with modularity itself manifesting a historical rhythm that governs our approach to many of the great issues.

[1]  W. Russell,et al.  Traumatic amnesia. , 1946, Brain : a journal of neurology.

[2]  E. Tulving.  Multiple memory systems and consciousness. , 1987, Human neurobiology.

[3]  A. Glenberg,et al.  A temporal distinctiveness theory of recency and modality effects. , 1986, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[4]  Raymond J. Bandlow.  Theories of Learning, 4th Edition. By Ernest R. Hilgard and Gordon H. Bower. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1975 , 1976 .

[5]  H. Roediger.  Does current evidence from dissociation experiments favor the episodic/semantic distinction? , 1984, Behavioral and Brain Sciences.

[6]  R. G. Crowder,et al.  On the remembrance of times past: The irregular list technique. , 1987 .

[7]  Peter A. Tucker,et al.  Primary Memory , 1965, Encyclopedia of Database Systems.

[8]  Robert L. Greene,et al.  Sources of recency effects in free recall. , 1986 .

[9]  Mark C. Detweiler,et al.  A Connectionist/Control Architecture for Working Memory , 1988 .

[10]  John R. Anderson,et al.  RECOGNITION AND RETRIEVAL PROCESSES IN FREE RECALL , 1972 .

[11]  G. Farthing,et al.  Short-term memory and information processing in pigeons , 1977 .

[12]  A. Baddeley,et al.  Short Term Forgetting in the Absence of Proactive Interference , 1971 .

[13]  P. Carpenter,et al.  Individual differences in working memory and reading , 1980 .

[14]  Daniel Reisberg,et al.  Limits of working memory: The digit digit-span. , 1984 .

[15]  Wayne A. Wickelgren,et al.  Chunking and consolidation: A theoretical synthesis of semantic networks configuring in conditioning , 1979 .

[16]  R. Gerard.  Physiology and psychiatry. , 1949, The American journal of psychiatry.

[17]  D. Schacter,et al.  Implicit and explicit memory for new associations in normal and amnesic subjects. , 1985, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[18]  Steven A. Sloman,et al.  Forgetting in primed fragment completion. , 1988 .

[19]  D. Schacter,et al.  Implicit and explicit memory for new associations in normal and amnesic subjects. , 1985, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[20]  E. Tulving.  Elements of episodic memory , 1983 .

[21]  M. Posner,et al.  On the role of interference in short-term retention. , 1966, Journal of experimental psychology.

[22]  J. A. C. EMPSON,et al.  Rapid Eye Movements and Remembering , 1970, Nature.

[23]  James L. McGaugh,et al.  Conceptual and Neurobiological Issues In Studies of Treatments Affecting Memory Storage , 1974, Psychology of Learning and Motivation.

[24]  J. H. Wright.  Effects of formal interitem similarity and length of retention interval on proactive inhbition of short-term memory. , 1967, Journal of experimental psychology.

[25]  B. Murdock,et al.  The distinctiveness of stimuli. , 1960, Psychological review.

[26]  I. Pollack,et al.  Running memory span. , 1959, Journal of experimental psychology.

[27]  Janellen Huttenlocher,et al.  Why does memory span increase with age? , 1976, Cognitive Psychology.

[28]  L. Squire,et al.  Preserved learning and retention of pattern-analyzing skill in amnesia: dissociation of knowing how and knowing that. , 1980, Science.

[29]  L. Jacoby.  Remembering the data: analyzing interactive processes in reading , 1983 .

[30]  Consolidation in human memory: Retrograde amnestic effects of confusable items in paired-associate learning , 1974 .

[31]  S. L. Chorover,et al.  SHORT-TERM RETROGRADE AMNESIA IN RATS. , 1965, Journal of comparative and physiological psychology.

[32]  R. Bjork,et al.  Recency-sensitive retrieval processes in long-term free recall☆ , 1974 .

[33]  Raymond W. Bennett,et al.  Proactive interference in short-term memory: Fundamental forgetting processes , 1975 .

[34]  T Hamanaka,et al.  [Neuropsychology of memory]. , 1985, No to shinkei = Brain and nerve.

[35]  R. Case,et al.  Operational efficiency and the growth of short-term memory span , 1982 .

[36]  Murray Glanzer,et al.  Storage Mechanisms in Recall , 1972 .

[37]  Paul A Kolers,et al.  Specificity of operations in sentence recognition , 1975, Cognitive Psychology.

[38]  M J Watkins,et al.  The intricacy of memory span , 1977, Memory & cognition.

[39]  H. Loess.  Proactive inhibition in short-term memory , 1964 .

[40]  F. Craik,et al.  Interaction between encoding and retrieval operations in cued recall. , 1977 .

[41]  Alan D. Baddeley,et al.  Disruption of short-term memory by unattended speech : Implications for the structure of working memory , 1982 .

[42]  R. G. Crowder.  The demise of short-term memory. , 1982, Acta psychologica.

[43]  Nick C. Ellis,et al.  A bilingual word‐length effect: Implications for intelligence testing and the relative ease of mental calculation in Welsh and English , 1980 .

[44]  John Brown.  Some Tests of the Decay Theory of Immediate Memory , 1958 .

[45]  M. Bradley,et al.  A two-process account of long-term serial position effects , 1980 .

[46]  B. Underwood,et al.  Proactive inhibition in short-term retention of single items , 1962 .

[47]  W. Estes,et al.  Item and order information in short-term memory: Evidence for multilevel perturbation processes. , 1981 .

[48]  R. L. Cohen,et al.  Relation between intelligence and short-term memory , 1977, Cognitive Psychology.

[49]  G R Hockey,et al.  Forgetting as a Function of Sleep at Different Times of Day , 1972, The Quarterly journal of experimental psychology.

[50]  P. Carpenter,et al.  Individual Differences in Integrating Information between and within Sentences. , 1983 .

[51]  Robert G. Crowder,et al.  Behavioral strategies in immediate memory , 1969 .

[52]  Henry L. Roediger,et al.  Retrieval modes produce dissociations in memory for surface information. , 1987 .

[53]  L. R. Peterson,et al.  Short-term retention of individual verbal items. , 1959, Journal of experimental psychology.

[54]  Michael J. Watkins,et al.  Three recency effects at the same time , 1983 .

[55]  D. Broadbent.  Perception and communication , 1958 .

[56]  C. N. Cofer,et al.  Proactive interference in STM for consonant units of two sizes , 1968 .

[57]  G. A. Miller.  THE PSYCHOLOGICAL REVIEW THE MAGICAL NUMBER SEVEN, PLUS OR MINUS TWO: SOME LIMITS ON OUR CAPACITY FOR PROCESSING INFORMATION 1 , 1956 .

[58]  Michael T. Turvey,et al.  Proactive Interference in Short-Term Memory as a Function of Prior-Item Retention Interval , 1970 .

[59]  F. Craik,et al.  Levels of Pro-cessing: A Framework for Memory Research , 1975 .

[60]  R. R. Miller,et al.  Amnesia, consolidation, and retrieval. , 1973, Psychological review.

[61]  A. W. Melton,et al.  Effects of Frequency of Presentation and Stimulus Length on Retention in the Brown Peterson Paradigm. , 1974 .

[62]  [Rapid eye movements]. , 1988, Zhonghua er bi yan hou ke za zhi.

[63]  A. Baddeley,et al.  Word length and the structure of short-term memory , 1975 .

[64]  Melissa L. Monty.  TEMPORAL CONTEXT AND MEMORY FOR NOTES STORED IN THE COMPUTER , 1986, SGCH.

[65]  E. Hilgard,et al.  Theories of Learning , 1981 .

[66]  D. Spalding.  The Principles of Psychology , 1873, Nature.

[67]  L R Squire,et al.  Retrograde amnesia: temporal gradient in very long term memory following electroconvulsive therapy. , 1975, Science.

[68]  R. G. Crowder,et al.  Precategorical acoustic storage (PAS) , 1969 .

[69]  J. Fodor.  The Modularity of mind. An essay on faculty psychology , 1986 .