Some thoughts on the psychophysical representation of memories (1882)

SummaryThe paper presents an annotated translation of Section 21 of Gustav Theodor Fechner's Revision der Hauptpuncte der Psychophysik (1882). The section provides an interesting illustration of what Fechner meant by inner psychophysics. Memory depends on oscillations in nerve fibers and on more or less permanent changes in the configuration of oscillating corpuscles. Memories are not stored in individual ganglion cells, but in neural networks permeating the entire grey matter of the cerebral hemispheres. Memory retrieval works by the resonance principle. Fechner's ideas anticipate some recent developments such as the holographic theory of memory and the principle of distributed representation.