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96-599: Damasio's three layered theory is based on a hierarchy of stages, with each stage building upon the last. The most basic representation of the organism is referred to as the Protoself, Core Consciousness, and Extended Consciousness. Damasio's approach to explaining the development of consciousness relies on three notions: emotion , feeling , and feeling a feeling. Emotions are a collection of unconscious neural responses that give rise to feelings. Emotions are complex reactions to stimuli that cause observable external changes in

192-437: 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

288-484: 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

384-569: A few enzymes and molecules like those in living organisms, they have no metabolism of their own; they cannot synthesize the organic compounds from which they are formed. In this sense, they are similar to inanimate matter. Viruses have their own genes , and they evolve . Thus, an argument that viruses should be classed as living organisms is their ability to undergo evolution and replicate through self-assembly. However, some scientists argue that viruses neither evolve nor self-reproduce. Instead, viruses are evolved by their host cells, meaning that there

480-453: 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

576-408: A holistic view of consciousness . 2. Homeostasis as Central: Damasio’s theory places homeostasis at the core of consciousness, proposing that consciousness evolved to help organisms maintain internal stability, which is crucial for survival . 3. Microbiome Influence: Damasio highlights the role of the gut microbiome in influencing brain function and emotional states, suggesting that our consciousness

672-440: 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

768-450: A pain (low-level) in our body, and an idea (high level) that enters our imagination (working memory). Likewise, our (low-level) emotional reaction to a painful workplace injury (fear, threat to well-being) can coexist with our (high-level) feeling of anger and indignation at the co-worker who failed to follow safety guidelines. A careful reading of Damasio's work reveals that he distinguishes his theories from those of his predecessors, in how

864-529: A particular layer within the tri-level framework). Earlier less sophisticated models placed the emotions strictly within the Limbic circuits, where their primary role was to consciously respond to, as well as cause responses within, the hypothalamus, the interface between intentional mind states and metabolic (endocrine) body states. Emotionality is demonstrably a global mind state, just like consciousness. For example, we can be simultaneously aware of (low-level)

960-430: A person, to a melody, to a neural image. Core consciousness is concerned only with the present moment, here and now. It does not require language or memory, nor can it reflect on past experiences or project itself into the future. When consciousness moves beyond the here and now, Damasio's third and final layer emerges as Extended Consciousness. This level could not exist without its predecessors, and, unlike them, requires

1056-572: 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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1152-491: 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

1248-399: 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

1344-450: A process of recombination (a primitive form of sexual interaction ). Memory 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

1440-632: A single category, rather each theory uses one approach to form its core premises from which it is then able to extend its main postulates. Damasio's tri-level view of the human mind, which posits that we share the two lowest levels with other animals, has been suggested before. For example, see Dyer ( www.conscious-computation.webnode.com ). Dyer's triune expansion is compared to Damasio's- 1. sensorimotor stage (c.f. Damasio's Protoself) 2. spatiotemporal stage (Core-Consciousness) 3. cognolinguistic stage (Extended Consciousness) An important feature of Damasio's theory (one that it shares with Dyer's theory)

1536-431: 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,

1632-458: 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

1728-519: 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

1824-452: A vast use of conventional memory. Therefore, an injury to a person's memory center can cause damage to their extended consciousness, without hurting the other layers. The autobiographical self draws on memory of past experiences which involves use of higher thought. This autobiographical layer of self is developed gradually over time. Working memory is necessary for an extensive display of items to be recalled and referenced. Linguistic areas of

1920-445: Is a microorganism such as a protist , bacterium , or archaean , composed of a single cell , which may contain functional structures called organelles . A multicellular organism such as an animal , plant , fungus , or alga is composed of many cells, often specialised. A colonial organism such as a siphonophore is a being which functions as an individual but is composed of communicating individuals. A superorganism

2016-401: Is a teleonomic or goal-seeking behaviour that enables them to correct errors of many kinds so as to achieve whatever result they are designed for. Such behaviour is reminiscent of intelligent action by organisms; intelligence is seen as an embodied form of cognition . All organisms that exist today possess a self-replicating informational molecule (genome), and such an informational molecule

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2112-741: Is a colony, such as of ants , consisting of many individuals working together as a single functional or social unit . A mutualism is a partnership of two or more species which each provide some of the needs of the other. A lichen consists of fungi and algae or cyanobacteria , with a bacterial microbiome ; together, they are able to flourish as a kind of organism, the components having different functions, in habitats such as dry rocks where neither could grow alone. The evolutionary biologists David Queller and Joan Strassmann state that "organismality" has evolved socially, as groups of simpler units (from cells upwards) came to cooperate without conflicts. They propose that cooperation should be used as

2208-422: Is a pre-conscious state, which provides a reference for the core self and autobiographical self to build from. As Damasio puts it, "Protoself is a coherent collection of neural patterns, which map moment-by-moment the state of the physical structure of the organism" (Damasio 1999). Multiple brain areas are required for the protoself to function. Namely, the hypothalamus , which controls the general homeostasis of

2304-417: Is affected by the microbial environment within our bodies . 4. Dual Mind Registers: He distinguishes between two mental registers: one for cognitive functions like reasoning, and another for emotions and feelings, which are tied to the body’s state . According to Damasio's theory of consciousness, the protoself is the first stage in the hierarchical process of consciousness generation. Shared by many species,

2400-535: Is an argument for viewing viruses as cellular organisms. Some researchers perceive viruses not as virions alone, which they believe are just spores of an organism, but as a virocell - an ontologically mature viral organism that has cellular structure. Such virus is a result of infection of a cell and shows all major physiological properties of other organisms: metabolism , growth, and reproduction , therefore, life in its effective presence. The philosopher Jack A. Wilson examines some boundary cases to demonstrate that

2496-626: 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

2592-454: 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

2688-399: 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

2784-498: 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

2880-461: 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

2976-467: 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

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3072-418: Is known as core consciousness. Sufficiently more evolved is the second layer of Damasio's theory, Core Consciousness. This emergent process occurs when an organism becomes consciously aware of feelings associated with changes occurring to its internal bodily state; it is able to recognize that its thoughts are its own, and that they are formulated in its own perspective. It develops a momentary sense of self, as

3168-472: Is likely intrinsic to life. Thus, the earliest organisms also presumably possessed a self-replicating informational molecule ( genome ), perhaps RNA or an informational molecule more primitive than RNA. The specific nucleotide sequences in all currently extant organisms contain information that functions to promote survival, reproduction , and the ability to acquire resources necessary for reproduction, and sequences with such functions probably emerged early in

3264-832: 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 )

3360-490: Is organised adaptively, and has germ-soma specialisation , with some insects reproducing, others not, like cells in an animal's body. The body of a siphonophore , a jelly-like marine animal, is composed of organism-like zooids , but the whole structure looks and functions much like an animal such as a jellyfish , the parts collaborating to provide the functions of the colonial organism. The evolutionary biologists David Queller and Joan Strassmann state that "organismality",

3456-593: 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

3552-477: 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

3648-514: 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

3744-400: Is the key role played by mental images, consciously mediating the information exchange between endocrine and cognitive. Ledoux and Brown have a different view of how emotion is connected to general cognition. They place emotionality on a similar level as that of other cognitive states. (In fairness, both Dyer's and Damasio's models concur on this point, ie that emotionality is not isolated to

3840-409: 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

3936-558: Is usually described as forgetfulness or amnesia . Memory 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

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4032-473: 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

4128-548: The Ancient Greek ὀργανισμός , derived from órganon , meaning instrument, implement, tool, organ of sense or apprehension) first appeared in the English language in the 1660s with the now-obsolete meaning of an organic structure or organization. It is related to the verb "organize". In his 1790 Critique of Judgment , Immanuel Kant defined an organism as "both an organized and a self-organizing being". Among

4224-419: 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

4320-642: The "defining trait" of an organism. Samuel Díaz‐Muñoz and colleagues (2016) accept Queller and Strassmann's view that organismality can be measured wholly by degrees of cooperation and of conflict. They state that this situates organisms in evolutionary time, so that organismality is context dependent. They suggest that highly integrated life forms, which are not context dependent, may evolve through context-dependent stages towards complete unification. Viruses are not typically considered to be organisms, because they are incapable of autonomous reproduction , growth , metabolism , or homeostasis . Although viruses have

4416-419: 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

4512-576: 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

4608-603: 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

4704-462: 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

4800-415: 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,

4896-422: 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.

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4992-488: 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

5088-414: The brain are activated to enhance the organism's experience, however, according to the language of thought hypothesis , language would not be necessarily required. Damasio's theory of consciousness has been met with criticism for its lack of explanation regarding the generation of conscious experiences by the brain. Researchers have posited that the brain's interaction with the body alone cannot account for

5184-462: 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

5280-408: The brain continuously builds representative images, based on communications received from the Protoself. This level of consciousness is not exclusive to human beings and remains consistent and stable throughout the lifetime of the organism The image is a result of mental patterns which are caused by an interaction with internal or external stimulus. A relationship is established, between the organism and

5376-434: The brain. Emotion acts as a neural object, from which a physical reaction can be drawn. This reaction causes the organism to become aware of the changes that are affecting it. From this realization, springs Damasio's notion of “feeling”. This occurs when the patterns contributing to emotion manifest as mental images , or brain movies. When the body is modified by these neural objects, the second layer of self emerges. This

5472-547: The complexity of conscious experience, and that additional factors must be considered. Furthermore, the theory has been criticized for its inadequate treatment of the concept of self-awareness and its lack of a clear method of measuring consciousness, which hinders empirical testing and evaluation. Theories of emotion currently fall into four main categories which follow one another in a historical series: evolutionary (ethological), physiological, neurological, and cognitive. Note that no current theory of emotion falls strictly within

5568-408: The concept of an individual is also difficult. Many criteria, few of them widely accepted, have been proposed to define what an organism is. Among the most common is that an organism has autonomous reproduction , growth , and metabolism . This would exclude viruses , despite the fact that they evolve like organisms. Other problematic cases include colonial organisms ; a colony of eusocial insects

5664-678: The concept of organism is not sharply defined. In his view, sponges , lichens , siphonophores , slime moulds , and eusocial colonies such as those of ants or naked molerats , all lie in the boundary zone between being definite colonies and definite organisms (or superorganisms). Scientists and bio-engineers are experimenting with different types of synthetic organism , from chimaeras composed of cells from two or more species, cyborgs including electromechanical limbs, hybrots containing both electronic and biological elements, and other combinations of systems that have variously evolved and been designed. An evolved organism takes its form by

5760-476: The criteria that have been proposed for being an organism are: Other scientists think that the concept of the organism is inadequate in biology; that the concept of individuality is problematic; and from a philosophical point of view, question whether such a definition is necessary. Problematic cases include colonial organisms : for instance, a colony of eusocial insects fulfills criteria such as adaptive organisation and germ-soma specialisation. If so,

5856-426: The development of more complex forms of consciousness. Damasio asserts that the protoself is signified by a collection of neural patterns that are representative of the body's internal state. The function of this 'self' is to constantly detect and record, moment by moment, the internal physical changes that affect the homeostasis of the organism. Protoself does not represent a traditional sense of self; rather, it

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5952-421: 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

6048-422: The evolution of life. It is also likely that survival sequences present early in the evolution of organisms included sequences that facilitate the avoidance of damage to the self-replicating molecule and promote the capability to repair such damages that do occur. Repair of some of the genome damages in these early organisms may have involved the capacity to use undamaged information from another similar genome by

6144-461: 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,

6240-399: 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,

6336-488: 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

6432-406: The formalistic elements interact with each other in a dynamically integrated system. E.g, the suggestion of a dynamic neural map ultimately posits that we are the instantaneous configuration of a neural state in the present moment, rather than the supporting biological construct. I.e., our conscious identity is the software, not the hardware, even though our unique hardware constrains how we operate as

6528-411: 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

6624-546: The information into meaningful groups of numbers. This 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

6720-438: 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

6816-533: 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

6912-429: 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

7008-647: 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

7104-467: The object it is observing as the brain continuously creates images to represent the organism's experience of qualia. Damasio's definition of emotion is that of an unconscious reaction to any internal or external stimulus which activates neural patterns in the brain. ‘Feeling’ emerges as a still unconscious state which simply senses the changes affecting the Protoself due to the emotional state. These patterns develop into mental images, which then float into

7200-443: The organism's awareness. Put simply, consciousness is the feeling of knowing a feeling. When the organism becomes aware of the feeling that its bodily state (Protoself) is being affected by its experiences, or response to emotion, Core Consciousness is born. The brain continues to present nonverbal narrative sequence of images in the mind of the organism, based on its relationship to objects. An object in this context can be anything from

7296-533: The organism, the brain stem , whose nuclei map body signals, and the insular cortex , whose function is linked to emotion. These brain areas work together to keep up with the constant process of collecting neural patterns to map the current status of the body's responses to environmental changes. The protoself does not require language in order to function; moreover, it is a direct report of one's experience. In this state, emotion begins to manifest itself as second-order neural patterns located in subcortical areas of

7392-428: The organism. A feeling arises when the organism becomes aware of the changes it is experiencing as a result of external or internal stimuli. Antonio Damasio’s work on consciousness : 1. Holistic Approach: Damasio argues that consciousness isn’t just a brain function but involves the entire body. He suggests that the brain works in tandem with older biological systems like the endocrine and immune systems, emphasizing

7488-501: The partially understood mechanisms of evolutionary developmental biology , in which the genome directs an elaborated series of interactions to produce successively more elaborate structures. The existence of chimaeras and hybrids demonstrates that these mechanisms are "intelligently" robust in the face of radically altered circumstances at all levels from molecular to organismal. Synthetic organisms already take diverse forms, and their diversity will increase. What they all have in common

7584-474: 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

7680-412: The protoself is the most basic representation of the organism, and it arises from the brain's constant interaction with the body. The protoself is an unconscious process that creates a "map" of the body's physiological state, which is then used by the brain to generate conscious experience. This "map" is constantly updated as the brain receives new stimuli from the body, and it forms the foundation for

7776-480: The qualities or attributes that define an entity as an organism, has evolved socially as groups of simpler units (from cells upwards) came to cooperate without conflicts. They propose that cooperation should be used as the "defining trait" of an organism. This would treat many types of collaboration, including the fungus / alga partnership of different species in a lichen , or the permanent sexual partnership of an anglerfish , as an organism. The term "organism" (from

7872-562: 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

7968-612: The same argument, or a criterion of high co-operation and low conflict, would include some mutualistic (e.g. lichens) and sexual partnerships (e.g. anglerfish ) as organisms. If group selection occurs, then a group could be viewed as a superorganism , optimized by group adaptation . Another view is that attributes like autonomy, genetic homogeneity and genetic uniqueness should be examined separately rather than demanding that an organism should have all of them; if so, there are multiple dimensions to biological individuality, resulting in several types of organism. A unicellular organism

8064-457: The software. A common criticism stems from the fact that both knowing and feeling can be processed with equal success without conscious awareness, as machines, for instance, do, and those models do not explain the need for consciousness and qualia . Organism An organism is defined in a medical dictionary as any living thing that functions as an individual . Such a definition raises more problems than it solves, not least because

8160-535: 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

8256-405: 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

8352-486: 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

8448-438: 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

8544-415: 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

8640-461: 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

8736-420: 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

8832-459: Was co-evolution of viruses and host cells. If host cells did not exist, viral evolution would be impossible. As for reproduction, viruses rely on hosts' machinery to replicate. The discovery of viruses with genes coding for energy metabolism and protein synthesis fuelled the debate about whether viruses are living organisms, but the genes have a cellular origin. Most likely, they were acquired through horizontal gene transfer from viral hosts. There

8928-408: 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:

9024-473: 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

9120-417: 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

9216-413: 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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