Iconic memory is the visual sensory memory register pertaining to the visual domain and a fast-decaying store of visual information. It is a component of the visual memory system which also includes visual short-term memory (VSTM) and long-term memory (LTM). Iconic memory is described as a very brief (<1 second), pre-categorical, high capacity memory store. It contributes to VSTM by providing a coherent representation of our entire visual perception for a very brief period of time. Iconic memory assists in accounting for phenomena such as change blindness and continuity of experience during saccades . Iconic memory is no longer thought of as a single entity but instead, is composed of at least two distinctive components. Classic experiments including Sperling's partial report paradigm as well as modern techniques continue to provide insight into the nature of this SM store.
180-415: Memory is the faculty of the mind by which data or information is encoded , stored, and retrieved when needed. It is the retention of information over time for the purpose of influencing future action . If past events could not be remembered, it would be impossible for language, relationships, or personal identity to develop. Memory loss is usually described as forgetfulness or amnesia . Memory
360-436: A mental image . Visual memory can result in priming and it is assumed some kind of perceptual representational system underlies this phenomenon. In contrast, procedural memory (or implicit memory ) is not based on the conscious recall of information, but on implicit learning . It can best be summarized as remembering how to do something. Procedural memory is primarily used in learning motor skills and can be considered
540-405: A midlife crisis involving an inner conflict about personal identity , often associated with anxiety, a sense of lack of accomplishments in life, and an awareness of mortality. Intellectual faculties tend to decline in later adulthood, specifically the ability to learn complex unfamiliar tasks and later also the ability to remember, while people tend to become more inward-looking and cautious. It
720-474: A nerve net , like jellyfish , and organisms with bilaterally symmetric bodies , whose nervous systems tend to be more centralized. About 540 million years ago, vertebrates evolved within the group of bilaterally organized organisms. All vertebrates, like birds and mammals , have a central nervous system including a complex brain with specialized functions while invertebrates, like clams and insects , either have no brains or tend to have simple brains. With
900-448: A bicycle or playing a musical instrument. Another distinction is between short-term memory , which holds information for brief periods, usually with the purpose of completing specific cognitive tasks, and long-term memory , which can store information indefinitely. Thinking involves the processing of information and the manipulation of concepts and ideas . It is a goal-oriented activity that often happens in response to experiences as
1080-462: A bodily change causes mental discomfort or when a limb moves because of an intention . According to substance dualism , minds or souls exist as distinct substances that have mental states while material things are another type of substance. This view implies that, at least in principle, minds can exist without bodies. Property dualism is another view, saying that mind and matter are not distinct individuals but different properties that apply to
1260-438: A brief period of time (50 ms) consisting of either a 3x3 or 3x4 array of alphanumeric characters such as: Recall was based on a cue which followed the offset of the stimulus and directed the subject to recall a specific line of letters from the initial display. Memory performance was compared under two conditions: whole report and partial report. The whole report condition required participants to recall as many elements from
1440-475: A calculator extend the mind's capacity to store and process information. The closely related view of enactivism holds that mental processes involve an interaction between organism and environment. The mind–body problem is the difficulty of providing a general explanation of the relationship between mind and body, for example, of the link between thoughts and brain processes. Despite their different characteristics, mind and body interact with each other, like when
1620-484: A category includes semantic, episodic and autobiographical memory. In contrast, prospective memory is memory for future intentions, or remembering to remember (Winograd, 1988). Prospective memory can be further broken down into event- and time-based prospective remembering. Time-based prospective memories are triggered by a time-cue, such as going to the doctor (action) at 4pm (cue). Event-based prospective memories are intentions triggered by cues, such as remembering to post
1800-464: A complex neural network and cognitive processes emerge from their electrical and chemical interactions. The human brain is divided into regions that are associated with different functions. The main regions are the hindbrain , midbrain , and forebrain . The hindbrain and the midbrain are responsible for many biological functions associated with basic survival while higher mental functions, ranging from thoughts to motivation, are primarily localized in
1980-414: A complex physical environment through processes like behavioral flexibility, learning, and tool use. Other suggested mechanisms include the effects of a changed diet with energy-rich food and general benefits from an increased speed and efficiency of information processing. Besides the development of mind in general in the course of history, there is also the development of individual human minds . Some of
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#17327649345752160-406: A content that can be expressed by a declarative sentence . When a person believes that it is raining, they have the propositional attitude of belief towards the content "it is raining". Different types of propositional states are characterized by different attitudes towards their content. For instance, it is also possible to hope, fear, desire, or doubt that it is raining. A mental state or process
2340-400: A different form of malfunctioning. Anxiety disorders involve intense and persistent fear that is disproportionate to the actual threat and significantly impairs everyday life, like social phobias , which involve irrational fear of certain social situations. Anxiety disorders also include obsessive–compulsive disorder , for which the anxiety manifests in the form of intrusive thoughts that
2520-453: A few hundred milliseconds). Because this form of memory degrades so quickly, participants would see the display but be unable to report all of the items (12 in the "whole report" procedure) before they decayed. This type of memory cannot be prolonged via rehearsal. Three types of sensory memories exist. Iconic memory is a fast decaying store of visual information, a type of sensory memory that briefly stores an image that has been perceived for
2700-482: A great variety of methods to study the mind. Experimental approaches set up a controlled situation, either in the laboratory or the field, in which they modify independent variables and measure their effects on dependent variables . This approach makes it possible to identify causal relations between the variables. For example, to determine whether people with similar interests (independent variable) are more likely to become friends (dependent variables), participants of
2880-440: A letter (action) after seeing a mailbox (cue). Cues do not need to be related to the action (as the mailbox/letter example), and lists, sticky-notes, knotted handkerchiefs, or string around the finger all exemplify cues that people use as strategies to enhance prospective memory. Infants do not have the language ability to report on their memories and so verbal reports cannot be used to assess very young children's memory. Throughout
3060-672: A long evolutionary history starting with the development of the nervous system and the brain . While it is generally accepted today that mind is not exclusive to humans and various non-human animals have some form of mind, there is no consensus at which point exactly the mind emerged. The evolution of mind is usually explained in terms of natural selection : genetic variations responsible for new or improved mental capacities, like better perception or social dispositions, have an increased chance of being passed on to future generations if they are beneficial to survival and reproduction . Minimal forms of information processing are already found in
3240-435: A more abstract level that cannot be achieved by physics. According to functionalism , mental concepts do not describe the internal constitution of physical substances but functional roles within a system. One consequence of this view is that mind does not depend on brains but can also be realized by other systems that implement the corresponding functional roles, possibly also computers. The hard problem of consciousness
3420-578: A person actively remembers the fact that the Eiffel Tower is in Paris then this state is mental because it is part of consciousness; when the person does not think about it, this belief is still a mental state because the person could bring it to consciousness by thinking about it. This view denies the existence of a "deep unconsciousness", that is, unconscious mental states that cannot in principle become conscious. Another theory says that intentionality
3600-528: A person can discuss. Individuals with MCIs have been found to show decreased iconic memory capacity and duration. Iconic memory impairment in those with MCIs may be used as a predictor for the development of more severe deficits such as Alzheimer's disease and dementia later in life. Previous studies have shown that glucocorticoids have been closely linked to impact higher cognitive functioning. Glucocorticoid exposure causes severe memory retrieval impairment, explicitly advancing iconic memory decay. It reduces
3780-564: A physical condition that impairs memory, and has been noted in animal models as well as chronic pain patients. The amount of attention given new stimuli can diminish the amount of information that becomes encoded for storage. Also, the storage process can become corrupted by physical damage to areas of the brain that are associated with memory storage, such as the hippocampus. Finally, the retrieval of information from long-term memory can be disrupted because of decay within long-term memory. Normal functioning, decay over time, and brain damage all affect
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#17327649345753960-485: A priming phenomenon. Priming is the process of subliminally arousing specific responses from memory and shows that not all memory is consciously activated, whereas procedural memory is the slow and gradual learning of skills that often occurs without conscious attention to learning. Memory is not a perfect processor and is affected by many factors. The ways by which information is encoded, stored, and retrieved can all be corrupted. Pain, for example, has been identified as
4140-401: A problem, developing a plan to address it, implementing the plan, and assessing whether it worked. Thinking in the form of decision-making involves considering possible courses of action to assess which one is the most beneficial. As a symbolic process, thinking is deeply intertwined with language and some theorists hold that all thought happens through the medium of language . Imagination
4320-454: A process called chunking . For example, in recalling a ten-digit telephone number , a person could chunk the digits into three groups: first, the area code (such as 123), then a three-digit chunk (456), and, last, a four-digit chunk (7890). This method of remembering telephone numbers is far more effective than attempting to remember a string of 10 digits; this is because we are able to chunk the information into meaningful groups of numbers. This
4500-487: A reaction to particular external stimuli. This view implies that mental phenomena are not private internal states but are accessible to empirical observation like regular physical phenomena. Functionalism agrees that mental states do not depend on the exact internal constitution of the mind and characterizes them instead in regard to their functional role. Unlike behaviorism, this role is not limited to behavioral patterns but includes other factors as well. For example, part of
4680-429: A representation of the world and the objects within it. This complex process underlying perceptual experience is shaped by many factors, including the individual's past experiences , cultural background, beliefs, knowledge, and expectations. Memory is the mechanism of storing and retrieving information. Episodic memory handles information about specific past events in one's life and makes this information available in
4860-429: A small duration. Echoic memory is a fast decaying store of auditory information, also a sensory memory that briefly stores sounds that have been perceived for short durations. Haptic memory is a type of sensory memory that represents a database for touch stimuli. Short-term memory, not to be confused with working memory, allows recall for a period of several seconds to a minute without rehearsal. Its capacity, however,
5040-457: A stimulus (such as a picture or a word) before. Recall memory tasks require participants to retrieve previously learned information. For example, individuals might be asked to produce a series of actions they have seen before or to say a list of words they have heard before. Topographical memory involves the ability to orient oneself in space, to recognize and follow an itinerary, or to recognize familiar places. Getting lost when traveling alone
5220-431: A study could be paired with either similar or dissimilar participants. After giving the pairs time to interact, it is assessed whether the members of similar pairs have more positive attitudes toward one another than the members of dissimilar pairs. Iconic memory The occurrence of a sustained physiological image of an object after its physical offset has been observed by many individuals throughout history. One of
5400-592: A subjective experience of the world and are capable of suffering and feeling joy. Some of the difficulties of assessing animal minds are also reflected in the topic of artificial minds, that is, the question of whether computer systems implementing artificial intelligence should be considered a form of mind. This idea is consistent with some theories of the nature of mind, such as functionalism and its idea that mental concepts describe functional roles, which are implemented by biological brains but could in principle also be implemented by artificial devices. The Turing test
5580-518: A subset of implicit memory. It is revealed when one does better in a given task due only to repetition – no new explicit memories have been formed, but one is unconsciously accessing aspects of those previous experiences. Procedural memory involved in motor learning depends on the cerebellum and basal ganglia . A characteristic of procedural memory is that the things remembered are automatically translated into actions, and thus sometimes difficult to describe. Some examples of procedural memory include
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5760-463: A sustained visible image include M and P retinal ganglion cells . M cells (transient cells), are active only during stimulus onset and stimulus offset. P cells (sustained cells), show continuous activity during stimulus onset, duration, and offset. Cortical persistence of the visual image has been found in the primary visual cortex (V1) in the occipital lobe which is responsible for processing visual information. Information persistence represents
5940-471: A symbolic process aimed at making sense of them, organizing their information, and deciding how to respond. Logical reasoning is a form of thinking that starts from a set of premises and aims to arrive at a conclusion supported by these premises. This is the case when deducing that "Socrates is mortal" from the premises "Socrates is a man" and "all men are mortal". Problem-solving is a closely related process that consists of several steps, such as identifying
6120-585: A therapist to change patterns of thinking, feeling, and acting. Psychoanalysis aims to help patients resolve conflicts between the conscious and the unconscious mind. Cognitive behavioral therapy focuses on conscious mental phenomena to identify and change irrational beliefs and negative thought patterns. Behavior therapy , a related approach, relies on classical conditioning to unlearn harmful behaviors. Humanistic therapies try to help people gain insight into their self-worth and empower them to resolve their problems. Drug therapies use medication to alter
6300-411: A two-state model of visual sensory memory. Although it has been debated throughout history, current understanding of iconic memory makes a clear distinction between visual and informational persistence which are tested differently and have fundamentally different properties. Informational persistence which is the basis behind iconic memory is thought to be the key contributor to visual short-term memory as
6480-583: A visit to the dentist. Another feature commonly ascribed to mental states is that they are private, meaning that others do not have this kind of direct access to a person's mental state and have to infer it from other observations, like the pain behavior of the person with the toothache. Some philosophers claim that knowledge of some or all mental states is infallible , for instance, that a person cannot be mistaken about whether they are in pain. A related view states that all mental states are either conscious or accessible to consciousness. According to this view, when
6660-471: A wide variety of states, such as perception, thinking, fantasizing, dreaming, and altered states of consciousness . In the case of phenomenal consciousness, the awareness involves a direct and qualitative experience of mental phenomena, like the auditory experience of attending a concert. Access consciousness, by contrast, refers to an awareness of information that is accessible to other mental processes but not necessarily part of current experience. For example,
6840-408: Is physicalism , also referred to as materialism , which states that everything is physical. According to eliminative physicalism , there are no mental phenomena, meaning that things like beliefs and desires do not form part of reality. Reductive physicalists defend a less radical position: they say that mental states exist but can, at least in principle, be completely described by physics without
7020-533: Is rational if it is based on good reasons or follows the norms of rationality. For example, a belief is rational if it relies on strong supporting evidence and a decision is rational if it follows careful deliberation of all the relevant factors and outcomes. Mental states are irrational if they are not based on good reasons, such as beliefs caused by faulty reasoning, superstition , or cognitive biases , and decisions that give into temptations instead of following one's best judgment. Mental states that fall outside
7200-462: Is a central aspect of the mind–body problem: it is the challenge of explaining how physical states can give rise to conscious experience. Its main difficulty lies in the subjective and qualitative nature of consciousness, which is unlike typical physical processes. The hard problem of consciousness contrasts with the "easy problems" of explaining how certain aspects of consciousness function, such as perception, memory, or learning. Another approach to
7380-450: Is a creative process of internally generating mental images. Unlike perception, it does not directly depend on the stimulation of sensory organs. Similar to dreaming , these images are often derived from previous experiences but can include novel combinations and elements. Imagination happens during daydreaming and plays a key role in art and literature but can also be used to come up with novel solutions to real-world problems. Motivation
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7560-453: Is a dispositional belief. By activating the belief to consciously think about it or use it in other cognitive processes, it becomes occurrent until it is no longer actively considered or used. The great majority of a person's beliefs are dispositional most of the time. Traditionally, the mind was subdivided into mental faculties understood as capacities to perform certain functions or bring about certain processes. An influential subdivision in
7740-451: Is a longer-lasting memory store which represents a coded version of the visual image into post-categorical information. This would be the "raw data" that is taken in and processed by the brain. A third component may also be considered which is neural persistence : the physical activity and recordings of the visual system . Neural persistence is generally represented by neuroscientific techniques such as EEG and fMRI . Visible persistence
7920-513: Is a traditionally influential procedure to test artificial intelligence: a person exchanges messages with two parties, one of them a human and the other a computer. The computer passes the test if it is not possible to reliably tell which party is the human and which one is the computer. While there are computer programs today that may pass the Turing test, this alone is usually not accepted as conclusive proof of mindedness. For some aspects of mind, it
8100-497: Is acquired and information processed. The intellect is one mental capacity responsible for thought, reasoning, and understanding and is closely related to intelligence as the ability to acquire, understand, and apply knowledge. The brain is the physical organ responsible for most or all mental functions. The modern English word mind originates from the Old English word gemynd , meaning "memory". This term gave rise to
8280-427: Is an aspect of other mental processes in which mental resources like awareness are directed towards certain features of experience and away from others. This happens when a driver focuses on the traffic while ignoring billboards on the side of the road. Attention can be controlled voluntarily in the pursuit of specific goals but can also occur involuntarily when a strong stimulus captures a person's attention. Attention
8460-622: Is an example of the failure of topographic memory. Flashbulb memories are clear episodic memories of unique and highly emotional events. People remembering where they were or what they were doing when they first heard the news of President Kennedy 's assassination , the Sydney Siege or of 9/11 are examples of flashbulb memories. Anderson (1976) divides long-term memory into declarative (explicit) and procedural (implicit) memories. Declarative memory requires conscious recall , in that some conscious process must call back
8640-584: Is an internal state that propels individuals to initiate, continue, or terminate goal-directed behavior. It is responsible for the formation of intentions to perform actions and affects what goals someone pursues, how much effort they invest in the activity, and how long they engage in it. Motivation is affected by emotions, which are temporary experiences of positive or negative feelings like joy or anger. They are directed at and evaluate specific events, persons, or situations. They usually come together with certain physiological and behavioral responses. Attention
8820-400: Is associated with object recognition and object identity. Iconic memory's role in change detection has been related to activation in the middle occipital gyrus (MOG). MOG activation was found to persist for approximately 2000ms suggesting a possibility that iconic memory has a longer duration than what was currently thought. Iconic memory is also influenced by genetics and proteins produced in
9000-421: Is commonly acknowledged today that animals have some form of mind, but it is controversial to which animals this applies and how their mind differs from the human mind. Different conceptions of the mind lead to different responses to this problem; when understood in a very wide sense as the capacity to process information, the mind is present in all forms of life, including insects, plants, and individual cells; on
9180-528: Is controversial whether computers can, in principle, implement them, such as desires, feelings, consciousness, and free will. This problem is often discussed through the contrast between weak and strong artificial intelligence. Weak or narrow artificial intelligence is limited to specific mental capacities or functions. It focuses on a particular task or a narrow set of tasks, like autonomous driving , speech recognition , or theorem proving . The goal of strong AI, also termed artificial general intelligence ,
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#17327649345759360-454: Is crucial in cognitive neuroscience is how information and mental experiences are coded and represented in the brain. Scientists have gained much knowledge about the neuronal codes from the studies of plasticity, but most of such research has been focused on simple learning in simple neuronal circuits; it is considerably less clear about the neuronal changes involved in more complex examples of memory, particularly declarative memory that requires
9540-411: Is dependent upon the synthesis of new proteins. This occurs within the cellular body, and concerns the particular transmitters, receptors, and new synapse pathways that reinforce the communicative strength between neurons. The production of new proteins devoted to synapse reinforcement is triggered after the release of certain signaling substances (such as calcium within hippocampal neurons) in the cell. In
9720-519: Is difficult to directly examine, manipulate, and measure it. Trying to circumvent this problem by investigating the brain comes with new challenges of its own, mainly because of the brain's complexity as a neural network consisting of billions of neurons, each with up to 10,000 links to other neurons. Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. It investigates conscious and unconscious mental phenomena, including perception, memory, feeling, thought, decision, intelligence , and personality . It
9900-497: Is easier to do two different tasks, one verbal and one visual, than two similar tasks, and the aforementioned word-length effect. Working memory is also the premise for what allows us to do everyday activities involving thought. It is the section of memory where we carry out thought processes and use them to learn and reason about topics. Researchers distinguish between recognition and recall memory. Recognition memory tasks require individuals to indicate whether they have encountered
10080-455: Is encoded with specific meaning. Meanwhile, episodic memory refers to information that is encoded along a spatial and temporal plane. Declarative memory is usually the primary process thought of when referencing memory. Non-declarative, or implicit, memory is the unconscious storage and recollection of information. An example of a non-declarative process would be the unconscious learning or retrieval of information by way of procedural memory , or
10260-427: Is further interested in their outward manifestation in the form of observable behavioral patterns and how these patterns depend on external circumstances and are shaped by learning. Psychology is a wide discipline that includes many subfields. Cognitive psychology is interested in higher-order mental activities like thinking, problem-solving, reasoning, and concept formation. Biological psychology seeks to understand
10440-466: Is important for explicit memory. The hippocampus is also important for memory consolidation. The hippocampus receives input from different parts of the cortex and sends its output out to different parts of the brain also. The input comes from secondary and tertiary sensory areas that have processed the information a lot already. Hippocampal damage may also cause memory loss and problems with memory storage. This memory loss includes retrograde amnesia which
10620-433: Is involved with change detection of our visual environment which assists in the perception of motion. Iconic memory enables integrating visual information along a continuous stream of images, for example when watching a movie. In the primary visual cortex new stimuli do not erase information about previous stimuli. Instead the responses to the most recent stimulus contain about equal amounts of information about both this and
10800-417: Is largely dependent on VSTM and not iconic memory. Instead of contributing to trans-saccadic memory, information stored in iconic memory is thought to actually be erased during saccades. A similar phenomenon occurs during eye-blinks whereby both automatic and intentional blinking disrupts the information stored in iconic memory. The development of iconic memory begins at birth and continues as development of
10980-823: Is not available. On the contrary, positive feedback for consolidating a certain short term memory registered in neurons, and considered by the neuro-endocrine systems to be useful, will make that short term memory to consolidate into a permanent one. This has been shown to be true experimentally first in insects, which use arginine and nitric oxide levels in their brains and endorphin receptors for this task. The involvemnt of arginine and nitric oxide in memory consolidation has been confirmed in birds, mammals and other creatures, including humans. Glial cells have also an important role in memory formation, although how they do their work remains to be unveiled. Other mechanisms for memory consolidation can not be discarded. The multi-store model (also known as Atkinson–Shiffrin memory model )
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#173276493457511160-488: Is often understood as an informational processing system with explicit and implicit functioning that is made up of a sensory processor , short-term (or working ) memory, and long-term memory . This can be related to the neuron . The sensory processor allows information from the outside world to be sensed in the form of chemical and physical stimuli and attended to various levels of focus and intent. Working memory serves as an encoding and retrieval processor. Information in
11340-486: Is one in which a probe stimulus (auditory "click") is presented simultaneously with the onset, and on a separate trial, with the offset of a visual display. The difference represents the duration of the visible store which was found to be approximately 100-200 ms. Alternatively, the Phenomenal Continuity and Moving Slit Technique estimated visible persistence to be 300 ms. In the first paradigm, an image
11520-485: Is presented discontinuously with blank periods in between presentations. If the duration is short enough, the participant will perceive a continuous image. Similarly, the Moving Slit Technique is also based on the participant observing a continuous image. Only instead of flashing the entire stimulus on and off, only a very narrow portion or "slit" of the image is displayed. When the slit is oscillated at
11700-489: Is reflected in some countries' tendencies to display telephone numbers as several chunks of two to four numbers. Short-term memory is believed to rely mostly on an acoustic code for storing information, and to a lesser extent on a visual code. Conrad (1964) found that test subjects had more difficulty recalling collections of letters that were acoustically similar, e.g., E, P, D. Confusion with recalling acoustically similar letters rather than visually similar letters implies that
11880-409: Is relevant to learning, which is the ability of the mind to acquire new information and permanently modify its understanding and behavioral patterns. Individuals learn by undergoing experiences, which helps them adapt to the environment. An influential distinction is between conscious and unconscious mental processes. Consciousness is the awareness of external and internal circumstances. It encompasses
12060-591: Is said to be stored in long-term memory. While short-term memory encodes information acoustically, long-term memory encodes it semantically: Baddeley (1966) discovered that, after 20 minutes, test subjects had the most difficulty recalling a collection of words that had similar meanings (e.g. big, large, great, huge) long-term. Another part of long-term memory is episodic memory, "which attempts to capture information such as 'what', 'when' and 'where ' ". With episodic memory, individuals are able to recall specific events such as birthday parties and weddings. Short-term memory
12240-470: Is shown to decay at a faster rate if attention focus is not appropriately met to the attention load. This allows for the information that is being transported into working memory to be retained more precisely. Iconic memory decay has been found to occur at a rapid speed after the visual stimulus is no longer present. Without active retrieval, iconic memory averages to disappear within half a second. The theory of gradual decay in visual working memory claims that
12420-476: Is supported by several functions of the medial temporal lobe system which includes the hippocampus. Autobiographical memory – memory for particular events within one's own life – is generally viewed as either equivalent to, or a subset of, episodic memory. Visual memory is part of memory preserving some characteristics of our senses pertaining to visual experience. One is able to place in memory information that resembles objects, places, animals or people in sort of
12600-514: Is supported by transient patterns of neuronal communication, dependent on regions of the frontal lobe (especially dorsolateral prefrontal cortex ) and the parietal lobe . Long-term memory, on the other hand, is maintained by more stable and permanent changes in neural connections widely spread throughout the brain. The hippocampus is essential (for learning new information) to the consolidation of information from short-term to long-term memory, although it does not seem to store information itself. It
12780-491: Is that which thinks , feels , perceives , imagines , remembers , and wills . The totality of mental phenomena, it includes both conscious processes, through which an individual is aware of external and internal circumstances, and unconscious processes, which can influence an individual without intention or awareness. Traditionally, minds were often conceived as separate entities that can exist on their own but are more commonly understood as capacities of material brains in
12960-408: Is the loss of memory for events that occurred shortly before the time of brain damage. Cognitive neuroscientists consider memory as the retention, reactivation, and reconstruction of the experience-independent internal representation. The term of internal representation implies that such a definition of memory contains two components: the expression of memory at the behavioral or conscious level, and
13140-412: Is the mark of the mental. A state is intentional if it refers to or represents something. For example, if a person perceives a piano or thinks about it then the mental state is intentional because it refers to a piano. This view distinguishes between original and derivative intentionality. Mental states have original intentionality while some non-mental phenomena have derivative intentionality. For instance,
13320-447: Is the phenomenal impression that a visual image remains present after its physical offset. This can be considered a by-product of neural persistence. Visible persistence is more sensitive to the physical parameters of the stimulus than informational persistence which is reflected in its two key properties.: Different techniques have been used to attempt to identify the duration of visible persistence. The Duration of Stimulus Technique
13500-440: Is the process of interpreting and organizing sensory information to become acquainted with the environment. This information is acquired through sense organs receptive to various types of physical stimuli , which correspond to different forms of perception, such as vision , hearing , touch , smell , and taste . The sensory information received this way is a form of raw data that is filtered and processed to actively construct
13680-470: Is the totality of psychological phenomena and capacities, encompassing consciousness , thought , perception , feeling , mood , motivation , behavior , memory , and learning . The term is sometimes used in a more narrow sense to refer only to higher or more abstract cognitive functions associated with reasoning and awareness . Minds were traditionally conceived as immaterial substances or independent entities and contrasted with matter and body . In
13860-528: Is to create a complete artificial person that has all the mental capacities of humans, including consciousness, emotion, and reason. It is controversial whether strong AI is possible; influential arguments against it include John Searle 's Chinese Room Argument and Hubert Dreyfus 's critique based on Heideggerian philosophy. Mental health is a state of mind characterized by internal equilibrium and well-being in which mental capacities function as they should. Some theorists emphasize positive features such as
14040-471: Is very limited. In 1956, George A. Miller (1920–2012), when working at Bell Laboratories , conducted experiments showing that the store of short-term memory was 7±2 items. (Hence, the title of his famous paper, "The Magical Number 7±2." ) Modern perspectives estimate the capacity of short-term memory to be lower, typically on the order of 4–5 items, or argue for a more flexible limit based on information instead of items. Memory capacity can be increased through
14220-867: The Middle English words mind(e) , münd(e) , and mend(e) , resulting in a slow expansion of meaning to cover all mental capacities. The original meaning is preserved in expressions like call to mind and keep in mind . Cognates include the Old High German gimunt , the Gothic gamunds , the ancient Greek μένος , the Latin mens , and the Sanskrit manas . The mind encompasses many phenomena, including perception , memory , thought , imagination , motivation , emotion , attention , learning , and consciousness . Perception
14400-418: The dendritic spines . At these locations the messenger RNAs can be translated into the proteins that control signaling at neuronal synapses . The transition of a memory from short term to long term is called memory consolidation . Little is known about the physiological processes involved. Two propositions of how the brain achieves this task are backpropagation or backprop and positive feedback from
14580-472: The history of philosophy was between the faculties of intellect and will . The intellect encompasses mental phenomena aimed at understanding the world and determining what to believe or what is true; the will is concerned with practical matters and what is good, reflected in phenomena like desire, decision-making, and action. The exact number and nature of the mental faculties are disputed and more fine-grained subdivisions have been proposed, such as dividing
14760-436: The information about a stimulus that persists after its physical offset. It is visual in nature, but not visible . Sperling's experiments were a test of informational persistence. Stimulus duration is the key contributing factor to the duration of informational persistence. As stimulus duration increases, so does the duration of the visual code. The non-visual components represented by informational persistence include
14940-427: The visual and the auditory areas . A central function of the hippocampus is the formation and retrieval of long-term memories. It belongs to the limbic system , which plays a key role in the regulation of emotions through the amygdala . The motor cortex is responsible for planning, executing, and controlling voluntary movements. Broca's area is a separate region dedicated to speech production . The activity of
15120-457: The "mark of the mental", that is, the criteria that distinguish mental from non-mental phenomena. Epistemic criteria say that the unique feature of mental states is how people know about them. For example, if a person has a toothache, they have direct or non-inferential knowledge that they are in pain. But they do not have this kind of knowledge of the physical causes of the pain and may have to consult external evidence through visual inspection or
15300-419: The "partial report paradigm." Subjects were presented with a grid of 12 letters, arranged into three rows of four. After a brief presentation, subjects were then played either a high, medium or low tone, cuing them which of the rows to report. Based on these partial report experiments, Sperling was able to show that the capacity of sensory memory was approximately 12 items, but that it degraded very quickly (within
15480-400: The 1900s, the role of visible persistence in memory gained considerable attention due to its hypothesized role as a pre- categorical representation of visual information in visual short-term memory (VSTM). In 1960, George Sperling began his classic partial-report experiments to confirm the existence of visual sensory memory and some of its characteristics including capacity and duration. It
15660-419: The abilities of a person to realize their potential, express and modulate emotions, cope with adverse life situations, and fulfill their social role. Negative definitions, by contrast, see mental health as the absence of mental illness in the form of mental disorders . Mental disorders are abnormal patterns of thought, emotion, or behavior that deviate not only from how a mental capacity works on average but from
15840-462: The ability to detect change in a visual scene. The phenomenon of change blindness has provided insight into the nature of the iconic memory store and its role in vision. Change blindness refers to an inability to detect differences in two successive scenes separated by a very brief blank interval, or interstimulus interval (ISI). As such change blindness can be defined as being a slight lapse in iconic memory. When scenes are presented without an ISI,
16020-573: The ability to ride a bike or tie shoelaces. Another major way to distinguish different memory functions is whether the content to be remembered is in the past, retrospective memory , or in the future, prospective memory . John Meacham introduced this distinction in a paper presented at the 1975 American Psychological Association annual meeting and subsequently included by Ulric Neisser in his 1982 edited volume, Memory Observed: Remembering in Natural Contexts . Thus, retrospective memory as
16200-424: The abstract characteristics of the image, as well as its spatial location. Due to the nature of informational persistence, unlike visible persistence, it is immune to masking effects. The characteristics of this component of iconic memory suggest that it plays the key role in representing a post-categorical memory store for which VSTM can access information for consolidation. Although less research exists regarding
16380-600: The accuracy and capacity of the memory. Sensory memory holds information, derived from the senses, less than one second after an item is perceived. The ability to look at an item and remember what it looked like with just a split second of observation, or memorization, is an example of sensory memory. It is out of cognitive control and is an automatic response. With very short presentations, participants often report that they seem to "see" more than they can actually report. The first precise experiments exploring this form of sensory memory were conducted by George Sperling (1963) using
16560-422: The accuracy at which the stimulus is remembered in iconic memory deteriorates over time. However, information stored in sensory memory is considered to facilitate exponential decay. In 1960, George Sperling became the first to use a partial report paradigm to investigate the bipartite model of VSTM. In Sperling's initial experiments in 1960, observers were presented with a tachistoscopic visual stimulus for
16740-461: The activation of memory promoting genes and the inhibition of memory suppressor genes, and DNA methylation / DNA demethylation was found to be a major mechanism for achieving this dual regulation. Rats with a new, strong long-term memory due to contextual fear conditioning have reduced expression of about 1,000 genes and increased expression of about 500 genes in the hippocampus 24 hours after training, thus exhibiting modified expression of 9.17% of
16920-501: The active maintenance and storage of sensory information by altering transient neural responses during the initial stimulus processing stages. Elevated cortisol levels have also been associated with faster iconic memory decay and top-down processing impairment, putting individuals at a higher risk of developing Dementia and AD. Iconic memory formation has been previously described as attention-free and fleeting, however newer studies have shown that in fact it does require attention. IM
17100-415: The area is actually responsible for the observed deficit. Further, it is not sufficient to describe memory, and its counterpart, learning , as solely dependent on specific brain regions. Learning and memory are usually attributed to changes in neuronal synapses , thought to be mediated by long-term potentiation and long-term depression . In general, the more emotionally charged an event or experience is,
17280-422: The articulatory process (for example the repetition of a telephone number over and over again). A short list of data is easier to remember. The phonological loop is occasionally disrupted. Irrelevant speech or background noise can impede the phonological loop. Articulatory suppression can also confuse encoding and words that sound similar can be switched or misremembered through the phonological similarity effect.
17460-486: The better it is remembered; this phenomenon is known as the memory enhancement effect . Patients with amygdala damage, however, do not show a memory enhancement effect. Hebb distinguished between short-term and long-term memory. He postulated that any memory that stayed in short-term storage for a long enough time would be consolidated into a long-term memory. Later research showed this to be false. Research has shown that direct injections of cortisol or epinephrine help
17640-461: The brain as mediated by multiple neocortical circuits". Study of the genetics of human memory is in its infancy though many genes have been investigated for their association to memory in humans and non-human animals. A notable initial success was the association of APOE with memory dysfunction in Alzheimer's disease . The search for genes associated with normally varying memory continues. One of
17820-429: The brain chemistry involved in the disorder through substances like antidepressants , antipsychotics , mood stabilizers , and anxiolytics . Various fields of inquiry study the mind, including psychology, neuroscience, philosophy, and cognitive science. They differ from each other in the aspects of mind they investigate and the methods they employ in the process. The study of the mind poses various problems since it
18000-523: The brain. Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) is a part of the neurotrophin family of nerve growth factors. Individuals with mutations to the BDNF gene which codes for BDNF have been shown to have shortened, less stable informational persistence. Iconic memory provides a smooth stream of visual information to the brain which can be extracted over an extended period of time by VSTM for consolidation into more stable forms. One of iconic memory's key roles
18180-445: The case of hippocampal cells, this release is dependent upon the expulsion of magnesium (a binding molecule) that is expelled after significant and repetitive synaptic signaling. The temporary expulsion of magnesium frees NMDA receptors to release calcium in the cell, a signal that leads to gene transcription and the construction of reinforcing proteins. For more information, see long-term potentiation (LTP). Mind The mind
18360-549: The change is easily detectable. It is thought that the detailed memory store of the scene in iconic memory is erased by each ISI, which renders the memory inaccessible. This reduces the ability to make comparisons between successive scenes. It has been suggested that iconic memory plays a role in providing continuity of experience during saccadic eye movements . These rapid eye movements occur in approximately 30 ms and each fixation lasts for approximately 300 ms. Research suggests however, that memory for information between saccades
18540-436: The cognitive level, maladaptive beliefs and patterns of thought can be responsible. Environmental factors involve cultural influences and social events that may trigger the onset of a disorder. There are various approaches to treating mental disorders, and the most suitable treatment usually depends on the type of disorder, its cause, and the individual's overall condition. Psychotherapeutic methods use personal interaction with
18720-484: The concept of mental modules is normally used to provide a more limited explanation restricted to certain low-level cognitive processes without trying to explain how they are integrated into higher-level processes such as conscious reasoning. Many low-level cognitive processes responsible for visual perception have this automatic and unconscious nature. In the case of visual illusions like the Müller-Lyer illusion ,
18900-483: The consumption of psychoactive drugs , like caffeine, antidepressants , alcohol, and psychedelics , temporarily affects brain chemistry with diverse effects on the mind, ranging from increased attention to mood changes, impaired cognitive functions, and hallucinations . Long-term changes to the brain in the form of neurodegenerative diseases and brain injuries can lead to permanent alterations in mental functions. Alzheimer's disease in its first stage deteriorates
19080-438: The contemporary discourse, they are more commonly seen as features of other entities and are often understood as capacities of material brains. The precise definition of mind is disputed and while it is generally accepted that some non-human animals also have mind, there is no agreement on where exactly the boundary lies. Despite these disputes, there is wide agreement that mind plays a central role in most aspects of human life as
19260-418: The contemporary discourse. The mind plays a central role in most aspects of human life but its exact nature is disputed. Some characterizations focus on internal aspects, saying that the mind is private and transforms information. Others stress its relation to outward conduct, understanding mental phenomena as dispositions to engage in observable behavior. The mind–body problem is the challenge of explaining
19440-408: The correct speed, a complete image is viewed. Underlying visible persistence is neural persistence of the visual sensory pathway. A prolonged visual representation begins with activation of photoreceptors in the retina . Although activation in both rods and cones has been found to persist beyond the physical offset of a stimulus, the rod system persists longer than cones. Other cells involved in
19620-431: The development of mind before birth, such as nutrition, maternal stress, and exposure to harmful substances like alcohol during pregnancy. Early childhood is marked by rapid developments as infants learn voluntary control over their bodies and interact with their environment on a basic level. Typically after about one year, this covers abilities like walking, recognizing familiar faces, and producing individual words. On
19800-419: The different areas is additionally influenced by neurotransmitters , which are signaling molecules that enhance or inhibit different types of neural communication. For example, dopamine influences motivation and pleasure while serotonin affects mood and appetite. The close interrelation of brain processes and the mind is seen by the effect that physical changes of the brain have on the mind. For instance,
19980-460: The domain of rational evaluation are arational rather than irrational. There is controversy regarding which mental phenomena lie outside this domain; suggested examples include sensory impressions, feelings, desires, and involuntary responses. Another contrast is between dispositional and occurrent mental states. A dispositional state is a power that is not exercised. If a person believes that cats have whiskers but does not think about this fact, it
20160-437: The earliest documented accounts of the phenomenon was by Aristotle who proposed that afterimages were involved in the experience of a dream. Natural observation of the light trail produced by glowing ember at the end of a quickly moving stick sparked the interest of researchers in the 1700s and 1800s. They became the first to begin empirical studies on this phenomenon which later became known as visible persistence . In
20340-489: The earliest forms of life 4 to 3.5 billion years ago, like the abilities of bacteria and eukaryotic unicellular organisms to sense the environment, store this information, and react to it. Nerve cells emerged with the development of multicellular organisms more than 600 million years ago as a way to process and transmit information. About 600 to 550 million years ago, an evolutionary bifurcation happened into radially symmetric organisms with ring-shaped nervous systems or
20520-445: The emotional and social levels, they develop attachments with their primary caretakers and express emotions ranging from joy to anger, fear, and surprise. An influential theory by Jean Piaget divides the cognitive development of children into four stages. The sensorimotor stage from birth until two years is concerned with sensory impressions and motor activities while learning that objects remain in existence even when not observed. In
20700-421: The endocrine system. Backprop has been proposed as a mechanism the brain uses to achieve memory consolidation and has been used, for example by Geoffrey E. Hinton, Nobel Prize for Physics in 2024, to build AI software. It implies a feedback to neurons consolidating a given memory to erase that information when the brain learns that that information is misleading or wrong. However, empirical evidence of its existence
20880-525: The entire display. This type of sampling revealed that immediately after stimulus offset, participants could recall a given row (from a 3x3 grid of 9 letters) on 75% of trials, suggesting that 75% of the entire visual display (75% of 9-letters) was accessible to memory. This is a dramatic increase in the hypothesized capacity of iconic memory derived from full-report trials. A small variation in Sperling's partial report procedure which yielded similar results
21060-406: The environment. According to this view, mental states and their contents are at least partially determined by external circumstances. For example, some forms of content externalism hold that it can depend on external circumstances whether a belief refers to one object or another. The extended mind thesis states that external circumstances not only affect the mind but are part of it, like a diary or
21240-423: The evolution of vertebrates, their brains tended to grow and the specialization of the different brain areas tended to increase. These developments are closely related to changes in limb structures, sense organs, and living conditions with a close correspondence between the size of a brain area and the importance of its function to the organism. An important step in the evolution of mammals about 200 million years ago
21420-472: The evolutionary processes responsible for human intelligence have been proposed. The social intelligence hypothesis says that the evolution of the human mind was triggered by the increased importance of social life and its emphasis on mental abilities associated with empathy , knowledge transfer , and meta-cognition . According to the ecological intelligence hypothesis, the main value of the increased mental capacities comes from their advantages in dealing with
21600-457: The first candidates for normal variation in memory is the protein KIBRA , which appears to be associated with the rate at which material is forgotten over a delay period. There has been some evidence that memories are stored in the nucleus of neurons. Several genes , proteins and enzymes have been extensively researched for their association with memory. Long-term memory, unlike short-term memory,
21780-399: The following: Techniques used to assess infants' recall memory include the following: Researchers use a variety of tasks to assess older children and adults' memory. Some examples are: Brain areas involved in the neuroanatomy of memory such as the hippocampus , the amygdala , the striatum , or the mammillary bodies are thought to be involved in specific types of memory. For example,
21960-404: The forebrain. The primary operation of many of the main mental phenomena is located in specific areas of the forebrain. The prefrontal cortex is responsible for executive functions , such as planning, decision-making, problem-solving, and working memory. The role of the sensory cortex is to process and interpret sensory information, with different subareas dedicated to different senses, like
22140-486: The form of stimuli is encoded in accordance with explicit or implicit functions by the working memory processor. The working memory also retrieves information from previously stored material. Finally, the function of long-term memory is to store through various categorical models or systems. Declarative, or explicit memory , is the conscious storage and recollection of data. Under declarative memory resides semantic and episodic memory . Semantic memory refers to memory that
22320-423: The functional role of pain is given by its relation to bodily injury and its tendency to cause behavioral patterns like moaning and other mental states, like a desire to stop the pain. Computationalism , a similar theory prominent in cognitive science, defines minds in terms of cognitions and computations as information processors. Theories under the umbrella of externalism emphasize the mind's dependency on
22500-410: The hippocampus is believed to be involved in spatial learning and declarative learning , while the amygdala is thought to be involved in emotional memory . Damage to certain areas in patients and animal models and subsequent memory deficits is a primary source of information. However, rather than implicating a specific area, it could be that damage to adjacent areas, or to a pathway traveling through
22680-643: The hippocampus, reducing the ability to form new memories and recall existing ones. An often-cited case of the effects of brain injury is Phineas Gage , whose prefrontal cortex was severely damaged during a work accident when an iron rod pierced through his skull and brain. Gage survived the accident but his personality and social attitude changed significantly as he became more impulsive, irritable, and anti-social while showing little regard for social conventions and an impaired ability to plan and make rational decisions. Not all these changes were permanent and Gage managed to recover and adapt in some areas. The mind has
22860-482: The increased human mental capacities as a matter of degree rather than kind. Central considerations for this position are the shared evolutionary origin, organic similarities on the level of brain and nervous system, and observable behavior, ranging from problem-solving skills, animal communication , and reactions to and expressions of pain and pleasure. Of particular importance are the questions of consciousness and sentience , that is, to what extent non-human animals have
23040-500: The individual changes vary from person to person as a form of learning from experience, like forming specific memories or acquiring particular behavioral patterns. Others are more universal developments as psychological stages that all or most humans go through as they pass through early childhood , adolescence , adulthood , and old age . These developments cover various areas, including intellectual, sensorimotor, linguistic, emotional, social, and moral developments. Some factors affect
23220-450: The individual. Psychoanalytic theory studies symptoms caused by this process and therapeutic methods to avoid them by making the repressed thoughts accessible to conscious awareness. Mental states are often divided into sensory and propositional states. Sensory states are experiences of sensory qualities, often referred to as qualia , like colors, sounds, smells, pains, itches, and hunger. Propositional states involve an attitude towards
23400-492: The information stored in a memory may be accessible when drawing conclusions or guiding actions even when the person is not explicitly thinking about it. Unconscious or nonconscious mental processes operate without the individual's awareness but can still influence mental phenomena on the level of thought, feeling, and action. Some theorists distinguish between preconscious, subconscious, and unconscious states depending on their accessibility to conscious awareness. When applied to
23580-438: The information. It is sometimes called explicit memory , since it consists of information that is explicitly stored and retrieved. Declarative memory can be further sub-divided into semantic memory , concerning principles and facts taken independent of context; and episodic memory , concerning information specific to a particular context, such as a time and place. Semantic memory allows the encoding of abstract knowledge about
23760-529: The initial data into question. The hippocampus may be involved in changing neural connections for a period of three months or more after the initial learning. Research has suggested that long-term memory storage in humans may be maintained by DNA methylation , and the 'prion' gene . Further research investigated the molecular basis for long-term memory . By 2015 it had become clear that long-term memory requires gene transcription activation and de novo protein synthesis . Long-term memory formation depends on both
23940-469: The intellect into the faculties of understanding and judgment or adding sensibility as an additional faculty responsible for sensory impressions. In contrast to the traditional view, more recent approaches analyze the mind in terms of mental modules rather than faculties. A mental module is an inborn system of the brain that automatically performs a particular function within a specific domain without conscious awareness or effort. In contrast to faculties,
24120-429: The letters were encoded acoustically. Conrad's (1964) study, however, deals with the encoding of written text. Thus, while the memory of written language may rely on acoustic components, generalizations to all forms of memory cannot be made. The storage in sensory memory and short-term memory generally has a strictly limited capacity and duration. This means that information is not retained indefinitely. By contrast, while
24300-647: The memory stores as being a single unit whereas research into this shows differently. For example, short-term memory can be broken up into different units such as visual information and acoustic information. In a study by Zlonoga and Gerber (1986), patient 'KF' demonstrated certain deviations from the Atkinson–Shiffrin model. Patient KF was brain damaged , displaying difficulties regarding short-term memory. Recognition of sounds such as spoken numbers, letters, words, and easily identifiable noises (such as doorbells and cats meowing) were all impacted. Visual short-term memory
24480-413: The mind include psychology , neuroscience , cognitive science , and philosophy . They tend to focus on different aspects of the mind and employ different methods of investigation, ranging from empirical observation and neuroimaging to conceptual analysis and thought experiments . The mind is relevant to many other fields, including epistemology , anthropology , religion, and education. The mind
24660-403: The minds of non-human animals are fundamentally different from human minds and often point to higher mental faculties, like thinking, reasoning, and decision-making based on beliefs and desires. This outlook is reflected in the traditionally influential position of defining humans as " rational animals " as opposed to all other animals. Continuity views, by contrast, emphasize similarities and see
24840-553: The motives of others without rational basis. Psychotic disorders are among the most severe mental illnesses and involve a distorted relation to reality in the form of hallucinations and delusions , as seen in schizophrenia . Other disorders include dissociative disorders and eating disorders . The biopsychosocial model identifies three types of causes of mental disorders: biological, cognitive, and environmental factors. Biological factors include bodily causes, in particular neurological influences and genetic predispositions. On
25020-432: The need for special sciences like psychology. For example, behaviorists aim to analyze mental concepts in terms of observable behavior without resorting to internal mental states. Type identity theory also belongs to reductive physicalism and says that mental states are the same as brain states. While non-reductive physicalists agree that everything is physical, they say that mental concepts describe physical reality on
25200-459: The neural representation of informational persistence compared to visible persistence, new electrophysiological techniques have begun to reveal cortical areas involved. Unlike visible persistence, informational persistence is thought to rely on higher-level visual areas beyond the visual cortex. The anterior superior temporal sulcus (STS), a part of the ventral stream , was found to be active in macaques during iconic memory tasks. This brain region
25380-405: The norm of how it should work while usually causing some form of distress . The content of those norms is controversial and there are differences from culture to culture; for example, homosexuality was historically considered a mental disorder by medical professionals, a view which only changed in the second half of 20th century. There is a great variety of mental disorders, each associated with
25560-417: The offset of the display and the auditory cue allowed Sperling to estimate the time course of sensory memory. Sperling deviated from the original procedure by varying tone presentation from immediately after stimulus offset, to 150, 500, or 1000 ms. Using this technique, the initial memory for a stimulus display was found to decay rapidly after display offset. At approximately 1000 ms after stimulus offset, there
25740-426: The original display in their proper spatial locations as possible. Participants were typically able to recall three to five characters from the twelve character display (~35%). This suggests that whole report is limited by a memory system with a capacity of four-to-five items. The partial report condition required participants to identify a subset of the characters from the visual display using cued recall . The cue
25920-408: The other side of the spectrum are views that deny the existence of mentality in most or all non-human animals based on the idea that they lack key mental capacities, like abstract rationality and symbolic language. The status of animal minds is highly relevant to the field of ethics since it affects the treatment of animals, including the topic of animal rights . Discontinuity views state that
26100-558: The overall state of a person rather than specific processes, the term unconscious implies that the person lacks any awareness of their environment and themselves, like during a coma . The unconscious mind plays a central role in psychoanalysis as the part of the mind that contains thoughts, memories, and desires not accessible to conscious introspection. According to Sigmund Freud , the psychological mechanism of repression keeps disturbing phenomena, like unacceptable sexual and aggressive impulses, from entering consciousness to protect
26280-582: The person tries to alleviate by following compulsive rituals . Mood disorders cause intensive moods or mood swings that are inconsistent with the external circumstances and can last for extensive periods. For instance, people affected by bipolar disorder experience extreme mood swings between manic states of euphoria and depressive states of hopelessness. Personality disorders are characterized by enduring patterns of maladaptive behavior that significantly impair regular life, like paranoid personality disorder , which leads people to be deeply suspicious of
26460-474: The phonological loop also has a limit to how much it can hold at once which means that it is easier to remember a lot of short words rather than a lot of long words, according to the word length effect. The visuospatial sketchpad stores visual and spatial information. It is engaged when performing spatial tasks (such as judging distances) or visual ones (such as counting the windows on a house or imagining images). Those with aphantasia will not be able to engage
26640-444: The precategorical sensory store. A similar storage area serves as a temporary warehouse for sounds. The two main components of iconic memory are visible persistence and informational persistence . The first is a relatively brief (150 ms) pre-categorical visual representation of the physical image created by the sensory system. This would be the "snapshot" of what the individual is looking at and perceiving. The second component
26820-404: The preceding stimulus. This one-back memory may be the main substrate for both the integration processes in iconic memory and masking effects. The particular outcome depends on whether the two subsequent component images (i.e., the "icons") are meaningful only when isolated (masking) or only when superimposed (integration). The brief representation in iconic memory is thought to play a key role in
27000-518: The preoperational stage until seven years, children learn to interpret and use symbols in an intuitive manner. They start employing logical reasoning to physical objects in the concrete operational stage until eleven years and extend this capacity in the following formal operational stage to abstract ideas as well as probabilities and possibilities. Other important processes shaping the mind in this period are socialization and enculturation , at first through primary caretakers and later through peers and
27180-435: The present. When a person remembers what they had for dinner yesterday, they employ episodic memory. Semantic memory handles general knowledge about the world that is not tied to any specific episodes. When a person recalls that the capital of Japan is Tokyo, they usually access this general information without recalling the specific instance when they learned it. Procedural memory is memory of how to do things, such as riding
27360-927: The primary and secondary visual system occurs. By 6 months of age, infants' iconic memory capacity approaches adults'. By 5 years of age, children have developed the same unlimited capacity of iconic memory that adults possess. The duration of informational persistence however increases from approximately 200 ms at age 5, to an asymptotic level of 1000 ms as an adult (>11 years). A small decrease in visual persistence occurs with age. A decrease of approximately 20 ms has been observed when comparing individuals in their early 20s to those in their late 60s. Throughout one's lifetime, mild cognitive impairments (MCIs) may develop such as errors in episodic memory (autobiographical memory about people, places, and their contex), and working memory (the active processing component of STM) due to damage in hippocampal and association cortical areas. Episodic memories are autobiographical events that
27540-456: The process of aging. Some people are affected by mental disorders , for which certain mental capacities do not function as they should. It is widely accepted that non-human animals have some form of mind, but it is controversial to which animals this applies. The topic of artificial minds poses similar challenges, with theorists discussing the possibility and consequences of creating them using computers. The main fields of inquiry studying
27720-560: The rat hippocampal genome. Reduced gene expressions were associated with methylations of those genes. Considerable further research into long-term memory has illuminated the molecular mechanisms by which methylations are established or removed, as reviewed in 2022. These mechanisms include, for instance, signal-responsive TOP2B -induced double-strand breaks in immediate early genes . Also the messenger RNAs of many genes that had been subjected to methylation-controlled increases or decreases are transported by neural granules ( messenger RNP ) to
27900-587: The relation between matter and mind. The dominant position today is physicalism , which says that everything is material, meaning that minds are certain aspects or features of some material objects. The evolutionary history of the mind is tied to the development of the nervous system , which led to the formation of brains. As brains became more complex, the number and capacity of mental functions increased with particular brain areas dedicated to specific mental functions. Individual human minds also develop as they learn from experience and pass through psychological stages in
28080-456: The relation between mind and matter uses empirical observation to study how the brain works and which brain areas and processes are associated with specific mental phenomena. The brain is the central organ of the nervous system and is present in all vertebrates and the majority of invertebrates . The human brain is of particular complexity and consists of about 86 billion neurons , which communicate with one another via synapses . They form
28260-513: The same individual. Monist views, by contrast, state that reality is made up of only one kind. According to idealists , everything is mental. They understand material things as mental constructs, for example, as ideas or perceptions. According to neutral monists , the world is at its most fundamental level neither physical nor mental but neutral. They see physical and mental concepts as convenient but superficial ways to describe reality. The monist view most influential in contemporary philosophy
28440-418: The same time seeking closeness and conformity with friends and peers. Further developments in this period include improvements to the reasoning ability and the formation of a principled moral viewpoint. The mind also changes during adulthood but in a less rapid and pronounced manner. Reasoning and problem-solving skills improve during early and middle adulthood. Some people experience the mid-life transition as
28620-460: The same. Some religions understand the soul as an independent entity that constitutes the immaterial essence of human beings, is of divine origin, survives bodily death, and is immortal . The word spirit has various additional meanings not directly associated with mind, such as a vital principle animating living beings or a supernatural being inhabiting objects or places. Cognition encompasses certain types of mental processes in which knowledge
28800-406: The schooling system. Psychological changes during adolescence are provoked both by physiological changes and being confronted with a different social situation and new expectations from others. An important factor in this period is change to the self-concept , which can take the form of an identity crisis . This process often involves developing individuality and independence from parents while at
28980-469: The seat of consciousness, emotions, thoughts, and sense of personal identity. Various fields of inquiry study the mind; the main ones include psychology , cognitive science , neuroscience , and philosophy . The words psyche and mentality are usually used as synonyms of mind . They are often employed in overlapping ways with the terms soul , spirit , cognition , intellect , intelligence , and brain but their meanings are not exactly
29160-535: The storage of facts and events (Byrne 2007). Convergence-divergence zones might be the neural networks where memories are stored and retrieved. Considering that there are several kinds of memory, depending on types of represented knowledge, underlying mechanisms, processes functions and modes of acquisition, it is likely that different brain areas support different memory systems and that they are in mutual relationships in neuronal networks: "components of memory representation are distributed widely across different parts of
29340-405: The storage of recent experiences. This is also true for stimulation of the amygdala. This proves that excitement enhances memory by the stimulation of hormones that affect the amygdala. Excessive or prolonged stress (with prolonged cortisol) may hurt memory storage. Patients with amygdalar damage are no more likely to remember emotionally charged words than nonemotionally charged ones. The hippocampus
29520-486: The total capacity of long-term memory has yet to be established, it can store much larger quantities of information. Furthermore, it can store this information for a much longer duration, potentially for a whole life span. For example, given a random seven-digit number, one may remember it for only a few seconds before forgetting, suggesting it was stored in short-term memory. On the other hand, one can remember telephone numbers for many years through repetition; this information
29700-586: The underlying mechanisms on the physiological level and how they depend on genetic transmission and the environment. Developmental psychology studies the development of the mind from childhood to old age while social psychology examines the influence of social contexts on mind and behavior. Personality psychology investigates personality, exploring how characteristic patterns of thought, feeling, and behavior develop and vary among individuals. Further subfields include comparative , clinical , educational , occupational , and neuropsychology . Psychologists use
29880-434: The underlying processes continue their operation and the illusion persists even after a person has become aware of the illusion, indicating the mechanical and involuntary nature of the process. Other examples of mental modules concern cognitive processes responsible for language processing and facial recognition . Theories of the nature of mind aim to determine what all mental states have in common. They seek to discover
30060-438: The underpinning physical neural changes (Dudai 2007). The latter component is also called engram or memory traces (Semon 1904). Some neuroscientists and psychologists mistakenly equate the concept of engram and memory, broadly conceiving all persisting after-effects of experiences as memory; others argue against this notion that memory does not exist until it is revealed in behavior or thought (Moscovitch 2007). One question that
30240-415: The visuospatial sketchpad. The episodic buffer is dedicated to linking information across domains to form integrated units of visual, spatial, and verbal information and chronological ordering (e.g., the memory of a story or a movie scene). The episodic buffer is also assumed to have links to long-term memory and semantic meaning. The working memory model explains many practical observations, such as why it
30420-471: The word piano and a picture of a piano are intentional in a derivative sense: they do not directly refer to a piano but if a person looks at them, they may evoke in this person a mental state that refers to a piano. Philosophers who disagree that all mental states are intentional cite examples such as itches, tickles, and pains as possible exceptions. According to behaviorism , mental states are dispositions to engage in certain publicly observable behavior as
30600-461: The world, such as "Paris is the capital of France". Episodic memory, on the other hand, is used for more personal memories, such as the sensations, emotions, and personal associations of a particular place or time. Episodic memories often reflect the "firsts" in life such as a first kiss, first day of school or first time winning a championship. These are key events in one's life that can be remembered clearly. Research suggests that declarative memory
30780-420: The years, however, researchers have adapted and developed a number of measures for assessing both infants' recognition memory and their recall memory. Habituation and operant conditioning techniques have been used to assess infants' recognition memory and the deferred and elicited imitation techniques have been used to assess infants' recall memory. Techniques used to assess infants' recognition memory include
30960-410: Was a tone which sounded at various time intervals (~50 ms) following the offset of the stimulus. The frequency of the tone (high, medium, or low) indicated which set of characters within the display were to be reported. Due to the fact that participants did not know which row would be cued for recall, performance in the partial report condition can be regarded as a random sample of an observer's memory for
31140-407: Was expanded with the multimodal episodic buffer ( Baddeley's model of working memory ). The central executive essentially acts as an attention sensory store. It channels information to the three component processes: the phonological loop, the visuospatial sketchpad, and the episodic buffer. The phonological loop stores auditory information by silently rehearsing sounds or words in a continuous loop:
31320-473: Was first described in 1968 by Atkinson and Shiffrin . The multi-store model has been criticised for being too simplistic. For instance, long-term memory is believed to be actually made up of multiple subcomponents, such as episodic and procedural memory . It also proposes that rehearsal is the only mechanism by which information eventually reaches long-term storage, but evidence shows us capable of remembering things without rehearsal. The model also shows all
31500-497: Was no difference in recall between the partial-report and whole report conditions. Overall, experiments using partial report provided evidence for a rapidly decaying sensory trace lasting approximately 1000 ms after the offset of a display The effects of masking were identified by the use of a circle presented around a letter as the cue for recall. When the circle was presented before the visual stimulus onset or simultaneously with stimulus offset, recall matched that found when using
31680-466: Was not until 1967 that Ulric Neisser termed this quickly decaying memory store iconic memory . Approximately 20 years after Sperling's original experiments, two separate components of visual sensory memory began to emerge: visual persistence and informational persistence. Sperling's experiments mainly tested the information pertaining to a stimulus, whereas others such as Coltheart performed directs tests of visual persistence. In 1978, Di Lollo proposed
31860-418: Was the development of the neocortex , which is responsible for many higher-order brain functions. The size of the brain relative to the body further increased with the development of primates , like monkeys, about 65 million years ago and later with the emergence of the first hominins about 7–5 million years ago. Anatomically modern humans appeared about 300,000 to 200,000 years ago. Various theories of
32040-411: Was the use of a visual bar marker instead of an auditory tone as the retrieval cue. In this modification, participants were presented with a visual display of 2 rows of 8 letters for 50 ms. The probe was a visual bar placed above or below a letter's position simultaneously with array offset. Participants had an average accuracy of 65% when asked to recall the designated letter. Varying the time between
32220-415: Was thought that without the hippocampus new memories were unable to be stored into long-term memory and that there would be a very short attention span , as first gleaned from patient Henry Molaison after what was thought to be the full removal of both his hippocampi. More recent examination of his brain, post-mortem, shows that the hippocampus was more intact than first thought, throwing theories drawn from
32400-412: Was unaffected, suggesting a dichotomy between visual and audial memory. In 1974 Baddeley and Hitch proposed a "working memory model" that replaced the general concept of short-term memory with active maintenance of information in short-term storage. In this model, working memory consists of three basic stores: the central executive, the phonological loop, and the visuo-spatial sketchpad. In 2000 this model
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