Question

1. Memory Question (worth 25 points) Answer all parts of the question to earn all of the points. In the movie Fifty First dates, the main character had was in a car accident wherein she sustained a head injury which left her with memory loss. In the movie, she would wake up each morning with only memories up to the time of the accident, she would live a normal day with no memory issues at all, and then go to sleep, the next morning she would not remember what happened the day before and the cycle repeated. (Each day she had to fall in love with Adam Sandler again.. but that is unrelated). Answer the following questions relative to the movie description, you need not have seen the movie. 1. Why is the description of her memory loss not possible give what we know about the Modal model of Memory? a. How is it wrong relative to what we know about short term memory and long term memory storage? b. If she had hippocampal damage, what would her memory be like or what would she not be able to do? C. How is the movie portrayal of her memory loss different than what we know about the way Clive Wearing or HM, memory functioned?

Answer 1

Ans 1. The modal model of memory was developed by Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968). They proposed that memory consisted of three stores: a sensory register, short-term memory (STM) and long-term memory (LTM). According to this model,the information is detected by the sense organs and enters the sensory memory. And, if attended properly,then the information enters the short-term memory. The information then from the short term memory is passed on to the long-term memory only by rehearsal. If maintenance rehearsal (repetition) does not occur, then information is forgotten, and lost from short term memory through the processes of displacement or decay. So the description of memory loss portrayed in the movie is not possible because it is a fiction and things are created for the movie only. Further, it does not mean that in reality the process of memory loss is same.

a) In this case, it is wrong relative to one's understanding as Short-term memory storage is less than 30 seconds due to maintenance rehearsal it stays. However, in this case she is unable to store it due to her memory loss. Also, the fact that she is unable to store the information in the short-term memory is the reason it is not going to her Long-term memory and further enhancing her memory loss of events.

b) If she had hippocampal damage, there would be an inability to form new explicit memories which is the reason to her loss of memory of events after getting up from her sleep. Also, she might develop poor impulse control and disorientation in her life.

c) The movie portrayal of her memory loss is different from Clive Wearing as he was suffering from both anterograde amnesia i.e the inability to create new memories as well as retrograde amnesia i.e the inability to remember many of the past memories. His life was a haze somewhere between consciousness and slumber. And the reason for his memory loss was that he contracted a herpes virus that attacked his nervous system further leading to the inability. However, in this movie the main character due to the car accident got a head injury,leading to her short term memory loss and so the inability to create new memories. However, in her daily routine,she had no memory issues unlike Clive who felt as if he woke up from a coma, and felt a haze between his consciousness and slumber.