Cognitive Neuroscience of Memory

Cambridge Fundamentals of Neuroscience in Psychology

by Scott D. Slotnick

Within the last two decades, the field of cognitive neuroscience has begun to thrive with technological advances that non-invasively measure human brain activity. This is the first book to provide a comprehensive and up-to-date treatment on the cognitive neuroscience of memory. Topics include cognitive neuroscience techniques and human brain mechanisms underlying long-term memory success, long-term memory failure, working memory, implicit memory, and memory and disease. Cognitive Neuroscience of Memory highlights both spatial and temporal aspects of the functioning human brain during memory. Each chapter is written in an accessible style and includes background information and many figures. In his analysis, Scott Slotnick questions popular views, rather than simply assuming they are correct. In this way, science is depicted as open to question, evolving, and exciting.

Genres: Neuroscience, Science, Psychology, Nonfiction

396 pages, Paperback

First published October 15, 2012

About the author

Professor, Department of Psychology, Boston College
Editor, Cognitive Neuroscience
(Lab at Boston College)
(Google Scholar page)

Reviews

[Tom Hunter · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fascinating book that both shows the current state of the art in neuroscience and the limitations of that art.
The first curiosity here is the types of memory:

Memory
 Explicit Memory
 Long-term Memory
 Episodic Memory
 Context Memory
 "Remembering"
 Recollection
 Semantic Memory
 Item Memory
 Working Memory
 Implicit Memory
 Skills
 Repetition Priming

The book describes well the two major tools used to research the living brain: fMRI and ERPs. By using fMRI, it's possible to see which parts of the brain art lighting up when a person is performing a particular memory task. However, this exposes the central problem in current brain research and this excellent book manifests that exact issue. We now know where but not why. Beyond knowing which areas of the brain light up, we don't know enough to make that useful. Beyond the early parts, this book devolves into listing which areas of the brain light up for a particular memory task but beyond that, it's a mystery what's going on in that lit-up section of the brain. This book would have gotten 5 stars only if the story was better understood and not so ambiguous.

Beyond that, there were two key insights:
"Episodic Memory involves retrieval of what items comprised the event, where the event took place, and when the event occurred. Retrieval of such detailed what-where-when information requires mentally traveling back in time to the previously experienced event. Such mental time travel is a key component of episodic memories and is associated with the subject experience of 'remembering' rather than 'knowing'.
Regarding the memories of animals, the following insight was given: "Some of the most compelling evidence that animals can have episodic memory stems from the discovery of memory replay in the hippocampus. Memory replay refers to the reactivation of brain activity associated with a previous experience in the correct temporal order. ... A study of bottlenose dolphins also showed evidence of memory replay during periods of sleep or rest. The dolphins heard recorded humpback whale sounds... The whale sounds are very different from the whistles and burst-pulsed vocalizations typically made by dolphins. Sounds from the dolphins were recorded during subsequent days and nights. It was found that the dolphins made whale-like sound productions, mostly at night but also during quiet restfulness while swimming slowly or floating. Such sounds were never observed before the dolphins heard the whale sounds."

[Bogdan Toma · Rating 3 out of 5]

Too much emphasis on anatomy, imaging and electrophysiology... without any information about the molecular mechanisms, psychopharmacology, and so forth.