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УДК 930.1 DOI 10.18522/2500-3224-2020-4-114-
TOTAL RECALL. SHORT ESSAY ON HUMAN
MEMORY
Dalia A. Pokutta
Abstract. This multidisciplinary study focuses on various concepts of memory. Special attention is paid to biological foundations of human memory. The article briefly presents the concepts of declarative and nondeclarative forms of memory and the mechanisms of memory formation, with the special role of early adulthood. Some complex functions reflect also planned future events. In recent years there has been increased interest in prospective memory or remembering to perform actions in the future. The study is ar‑ ranged around four core topics: memory of apes, humans, humanoid robots and collective memories (nation‑state groups). Modern studies regarding memory formation focus on three major research lines: evolutionary development, metacognition and social cogni‑ tion. Much of what we know about human long‑term memory has actually resulted from non‑human primates studies. There are several hypotheses for the evolution of advanced social cognition in non‑human primates and they have profound impact upon human memory research. On the other hand, new problems arise in the modern understanding of memory processes due to the influence of technology, including replication of human memory in machines and robots. The idea of absolute and unlimited robotic memory, never degrading nor failing, raises new questions for humanity.
Keywords: history of research, neurotransmitters, memory formation processes, non‑hu‑ man primates, humanoid robots, collective memories.
Pokutta Dalia A., PhD, Senior Researcher, Department of Archaeology and Museology, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic; Department of Archaeology and Classical Studies, University of Stockholm, Sweden. Lilla Frescativägen 7, 114 18 Stockholm, dalia.pokutta@arklab.su.se.
(^1) My work was possible thanks to the international academic exchange and scholarship (Östersjösamarbete program) supported by the Svenska institutet, Sweden (stipend no.23394/2019).
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ВСПОМНИТЬ ВСЕ. КРАТКИЙ ОЧЕРК
О ЧЕЛОВЕЧЕСКОЙ ПАМЯТИ
Далия А. Покутта
Аннотация. Данное междисциплинарное исследование сосредоточено на раз‑ личных концепциях памяти. Особое внимание уделяется биологическим основам человеческой памяти. В статье кратко представлены понятия декларативных и некларативных форм памяти и механизмы формирования памяти, с особым значе‑ нием юности. Некоторые сложные функции отражают также планируемые будущие события. В последние годы возрос интерес к перспективной памяти или воспоми‑ наниям о действиях в будущем. Исследование построено вокруг четырех основных тем: память обезьян, человека, человекоподобных роботов и коллективная память (группы национальных государств). Современные исследования в области форми‑ рования памяти сосредоточены на трех основных направлениях: эволюционное развитие, метапознание и социальное познание. Большая часть того, что мы знаем о долговременной памяти человека, на самом деле является результатом иссле‑ дований приматов. Существует несколько гипотез эволюции развитого социаль‑ ного познания у нечеловеческих приматов, и они оказывают глубокое влияние на исследования человеческой памяти. С другой стороны, в современном понимании процессов памяти возникают новые проблемы, связанные с влиянием технологий, в том числе репликации человеческой памяти в машинах и роботах. Идея абсолют‑ ной и неограниченной памяти роботов, никогда не деградирующей и не ослабеваю‑ щей, ставит новые вопросы перед человечеством.
Ключевые слова: история исследований, нейромедиаторы, процессы формирова‑ ния памяти, нечеловеческие приматы, гуманоидные роботы, коллективная память.
Покутта Далиа Анна , PhD, старший научный сотрудник, Департамент археологии и музеологии, Университет Масарика, Брно, Чехия; Департамент археологии и классических исследований, Стокгольмский университет, 11419, Стокгольм, Frescativägen, Швеция, dalia.pokutta@arklab.su.se.
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and concluded that memory was distributed over widespread cortical areas [Lashley, 1929]. This view dominated the field for more than 25 years, until findings from another study transformed our understanding of the localization of memory in the brain.
In 1957, Scoville and Milner described the effects of experimental surgeries of temporal lobe in humans. These surgeries were done in an attempt to relieve a variety of psychiatric conditions, including schizophrenia, manic depressive psychosis, and epilepsy [Scoville and Milner, 1957]. This study demonstrated several fundamental principles of memory organization in the brain. First, it showed definitively that memory could be localized to a particular brain area, namely the medial temporal lobe. Secondly, it demonstrated that memory could be studied independently of other general cognitive functions. It also led the way to more recent demonstrations that the medial temporal lobe has a critical role in establishing declarative memory for facts and events. Study by Scoville and Milner was the catalyst for the ensuing experimental studies focused on defining more precisely the neuroanatomical basis of declarative memory. But was it memory?
BIOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS OF HUM AN MEMORY
Memory is the recording, retention, and retrieval of knowledge. It accounts for all knowl‑ edge gained from experience, facts that are known, events that are remembered, and skills that are gained (Fig. 1). Memory can be defined also as a series of molecular events. What is memory on molecular level? Consider following example: in a sunny sum‑ mer day you observe red apples hanging on the tree.
One of them has fallen on the ground. Our brain obtains an information: a) an apple has fallen on the ground; b) an apple was red and read to be consumed; c) the fruit made a boom sound hitting the ground, etc. The initial processing of information and remember- ing of the event is possible thanks to NMDA receptors (N‑methyl‑D‑aspartate receptors). When a neuron tries to send a message, an electrical signal is sent, triggering the release of glutamate molecules [Squire and Kandel, 2000].
These neurotransmitters travel across the synapse to the neuron receiving the message [Edmonds et al., 1995]. Single memory is physical; it makes chemical fingerprint. “Freshly born” memory is an activation of NMDA (and other neurotransmitters) on the surface of neurons throughout the brain. This physical change is believed to be the mark of a mem- ory occurs. The change happens at tiny gaps called synapses across which brain cells communicate. A memory system therefore may be defined as a particular neural network that mediates a specific form of mnemonic processing [Nowak et al., 1984].
Memory can be divided in various ways. One of the most common approach assumes the existence of declarative and nondeclarative forms of memory [Eichenbaum, 2002]. Declarative memory corresponds to the everyday sense of memory and is responsible for the learning and remembrance of new events. It encompasses both episodic memories (my last vacations, etc.) and semantic memories (knowledge of generic information: the
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capital of India; the Earth is located in the Solar system, etc.). Nondeclarative memory refers to the many forms of memory that are not retrieved intentionally but reflexively; navigational memory or remembering how to swim or ride a bicycle belong in this catego‑ ry. All further subdivisions of mnemonic processes and memory functions are linked to complexity of human brain.
THE MECH ANISM
Memory does not work like a video recorder or computer. Our brain acts like fastidious collector; sometimes cannot encode or retrieve every aspect of an event perfectly. The memories depend on personal priorities, past experiences, on our expectations, and the current demands. What people remember about given past event also depend on what happened after the event, their biases, expectations, and reports from others. When the state of alertness is high, people tend to narrow their focus to only certain aspects of an event. An example of encoding bias is own‑race bias, in which we are better able to identify individuals from our own race than individuals from a different race (esp. in wit‑ ness testimonies in criminal cases [Brown et al., 1998]. Studies by Loftus and colleagues [Loftus and Palmer, 1974] demonstrated that misinformation introduced after an event can alter our recollection (memory) of the original event. False memories occur more often than we would like to think. Pieces of false information can be also embedded into our minds in artificial manner. In their study Loftus and Pickerell (1995) shown that people who thought extensively about events that never happened to them (e.g., vacation trip with grandfather) began to believe they did experience those events. In such way, human subjects rely on expectations and experience when we attempt to retrieve information.
Another interesting problem is acoustic memory, more specifically music. In seconds, human brain can process and recognize millions of sounds, including their combinations. Memories of sounds, emotions and melodies create a portion of individual musical preferences and personality. Many can recall long‑time gone melodies of their youth much better than recent hits. Rubin and colleagues (1986) have demonstrated that over the course of a lifetime, we seem to have heightened memory for personal, cultural, and historical events that occurred during our late adolescence and early adulthood (roughly between the ages of 15 and 30). Investigators have termed this the reminiscence bump. We can clearly recall our first love , favourite dog or serious bike accident, that happened when we were young (specifically age 15–25). These memories are vivid and feel more important than others. Early adulthood is important for memory, especially in personality/ identity formation. We shall return to reminiscence bump phenomenon later, discussing collective memories and generational group formation in society.
There are two other interesting processes affecting the way we recall things from the past. First of them has been termed flashbulb memory. Flashbulb memory is a term used to refer to the recollection of extremely significant personal or historical events, fairly rare and typically accompanied by great emotion (e.g. car accident, terrorist attack, war).
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2000]. This is a form of social learning [Bandura, 1977], which is highly evolutionarily advantageous, does not require trial and error, and enables an individual to learn skills and new knowledge from others in social group.
Evolutionarily, the key difference is that humans have evolved not only social‑cognitive skills geared toward competition, but also social‑cognitive skills and motivations geared toward complex forms of cooperation‑what we call skills and motivations for shared intentionality [Tomasello et al., 2005]. Humans are thus characterized to an inordinate degree by what has been called niche construction and gene-culture coevolution [Richerson and Boyd, 2005], as the species has evolved cognitive skills and motivations enabling them to function effective‑ ly in any one of many different self‑built cultural worlds.
ROBOTS: REPLICATION OF HUM AN MEMORY IN M ACHINES
At the beginning of 21 th^ century, implementation or replication of human memory in machines, especially in humanoid robots, can be seen as difficult, yet feasible task. Today robots are no longer mere curiosities, but have become an indispensable pillar of global industry. From the very beginning our fascination extended beyond mere automation to the possibility of creating an entity with our own form and function. In Homer’s Argosy , the bronze sentinel, Talos, was created and animated by Daedalus to guard the island of Thera.
According to Jewish legend, certain great Rabbis used programming prowess to instil life in golem, creating a human‑like automation that could carry out its master’s command. The legend acknowledged that although the golem could perform simple tasks, it would never possess ru’ah ‑ the breath of life bestowed on humans in the primordial creation. This myth provides an interesting context for examining the past, and future of humanoid robotics. Even in myth, humans recognized the uniqueness of their intelligence and the staggering difficulty of replicating it.
Living organisms, both humans and apes, share certain common features when it comes to brain architecture and memory. One of them is aging. Both humans and apes lose memory as a result of aging and deterioration of brain functions. Theoretically, mechan‑ ical memory of robots could last forever, reaching new frontiers of absoluteness and complexity [Turing, 1950].
This vision of absolute and unlimited memory , never degrading nor failing, raises hard questions. Is human intelligence more than any encoding can capture, no matter how el‑ egant or complex? Can robots replicate or develop creativity and imagination? Humanoid robotics is not an attempt to recreate humans. Unlike industrial robots, essentially humanoids are made interact socially with people in typical, everyday environments (Fig. 2). The majority of modern robots used in industry, is, figuratively speaking, blind and deaf. They performed task only when/if controlled by human operator [Atkeson et al., 2000]. Humanoid robots are different; they are equipped with great variety of sensing
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modalities including taste, smell, sonar, thermal imagery, haptic feedback, tactile sensors, a range of motion sensors, and vision. Humanoids learn new tasks by sequencing existing behaviours. A spectrum of machine‑learning techniques involves supervised methods where a human trainer interacts with the humanoid, and unsupervised learning where a built‑in critic is used to direct learning [Pfeifer and Scheier, 1999]. In future, it is expected that human‑shape robots will exhibit (or mimic) emotions (anthropopathic robots), forge relationships with humans, make decisions, and develop as they learn through interac‑ tion with the environment. Mechanical replications of cognition and memory seem to be essential in this task.
Many researchers find it ineffective to directly hard‑code low‑level behaviour with impera‑ tive languages like C or C++ and instead use a more biologically motivated technique such as artificial neural networks. In essence, Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) are algorithms that mimic the biological structure of the brain. Artificial neural networks allow a super‑ vised learning where a designer trains a system’s response to stimulation by adjusting weights between nodes of a network [Fig. 3; Goodfellow et al., 2016]. Critics argue that this method fail to fully capture the recursive power of the human brain; it prohibits meta‑level learning‑the ability to not only generalize but also extend acquired knowledge beyond the frontiers of experience.
Although ANNs do not accurately model cognitive capacities of the human cortex, they do offer a unique and effective way to encode motor skills and low‑level behaviour. It may be that, ANNs can provide a foundation on which high‑level learning can be built [Michalski et al., 2013]. Other learning techniques such as reinforcement learning and genetic algo‑ rithms have also played a role in modelling various levels of learning [Rossi et al., 2006]. In whatever way Artificial Intelligence may develop in future, the need to create better mechanical memory for anthropomorphic machines will accelerate. Our brains are able to forget in a way that robots cannot. The impact of that fact is going to be profound.
M ASSES AND COLLECTIVE MEMORIES
The crowd per se has no memory. However, collective memory is frequently considered a representation of the past that is shared by members of a group such as a generation or nation. Instead of neutral knowledge, collective remembering typically involves beliefs, often strongly held, that are tied to identity, and hence they may evoke strong emotions when challenged. The fact that different groups can have quite different accounts of the past means that social identity and the politics of identity typically must be taken into account. The concept of collective memory is often traced to writings of the French sociologist Maurice Halbwachs (1887–1945), who argued that remembering is shaped by participation in collective life and that there are as many accounts of the past as there are collectives [Halbwachs, 1992]. In recent decades, related terms such as public memory and cultural memory [Bodnar, 1992; Lotman, 1990] have emerged alongside of collective memory and are now part of the memory industry [Klein, 2000] in the humanities and
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Perhaps the most forceful formulation of this point can be found in Nineteen Eighty-Four, where George Orwell warned, “ Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past ” [Orwell, 1949, p. 204]. While seldom stated in such strong terms, all modern states make an effort to create and maintain collective remembering that will enhance both identity and loyalty. Huntington (2004) took that idea to a new level arguing that a nation is “ more specifically a remembered community, a community with an imagined history, and it is defined by its historical memory of itself” [Huntington, 2004, p. 115]. An essential feature of remembered communities is need for the officially recognized memory.
WH AT IS REAL? DISTORTION OF COLLECTIVE MEMORIES
For collective memory language matters. The relationship between imagistic and narrative forms of remembering is often formulated in terms of translation. Therefore collective memory is subjected to specific forms of semiotic distortion associated with language. In simple terms, the difference is that all people who participated in given historical event have tendency to select facts variously, depending on their own standing in given point of time. What makes collective memory “ collective ” is the fact these narrative tools are shared across the members of a group. Semiotic distributions create probably the biggest problems in modern world history.
Schuman et al. (2005) have recently presented a more elaborated picture of this issue. They examined Americans’ account of Columbus over the past few decades and draw an important distinction between what happens with elite revisionists, on the one hand, and popular beliefs, on the other. Consider the following example (Tab. 1) showing the results from surveys of Russians in Moscow and Novosibirsk provided a list of most frequently chosen items for the WWII outline, compared with memories of the Americans in the same age group [Wertsch, 2002]. A striking fact about these two lists and the narratives they suggest is that there is no overlap. Many Russians know about the events on the American list, but they do not view them as central to the narrative of the war. For example, Russians are quite familiar with the episode called opening the second front in June of 1944. For them, this refers to something that was not only a second, but clearly a secondary front (there is no word/term for D‑Day in Russian), and it is not considered a major event, let alone a turning point in World War II. Conversely, American students often knew little about events typically listed by Russians. For example, the largest tank battle in history at the Kursk plain is something that has no resonance in American collective memory.
A great deal remains to be studied when it comes to understanding the degree to which collective remembering does or does not change. The line of argument developed by Wertsch (2002) suggests that specific narratives may change fairly quickly, but at the level of schematic narrative templates, there is a high level of conservatism and resistance to change.
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Fig. 1. Human memory‑selected functions: A) declarative memory: abstract thinking, B) olfactory memory (smells), C) acoustic memory, D) motoric memory, E) sensory memo‑ ry — taste, F) navigational memory (orientation in space).
Fig. 2. Lateral views of the left hemisphere of the brains of (A) a 19 ‑year‑old patas monkey ( Erythrocebus patas ), (B) a 37 ‑year‑old Sumatran orangutan ( Pongo pygmaeus abelii ), (C) a 48 ‑year‑old Western Lowland gorilla ( Gorilla gorilla gorilla ), (D) a 45 ‑year‑old common chimpanzee ( Pan troglodytes ), and (E) a healthy 82 ‑year‑old human; after: Erwin et al.2001; 2.2. A 5 ‑year‑old chimpanzee performs a memory test with randomly placed numerals, which are later masked, accurately duplicating the line‑up on a touchscreen; photo by Kyoto University, Japan.
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