270 ChaPteR 8 Memory
If these happy children remember this birthday party later in life, their constructions may
include details picked up from this photograph, videos, and stories. And they will prob-
ably be unable to distinguish an actual memory from information they got elsewhere.was a last-ditch effort to relieve H. M.’s severe
and life-threatening epilepsy, which was causing
unrelenting, uncontrollable seizures. The opera-
tion did achieve its goal: Henry’s seizures became
milder and could be managed with medication.
His memory, however, had been affected pro-
foundly. Although he continued to recall most
events that had occurred before the operation,
he could no longer remember new experiences
for much longer than 15 minutes. Facts, songs,
stories, and faces all vanished like water down
the drain. He would read the same magazine
over and over without realizing it. He could not
recall the day of the week, the year, or even his
last meal.
H. M. loved to do crossword puzzles and play
bingo, skills he had learned before the operation.
And he remained cheerful, even though he knew
he had memory problems. He would occasionally
recall an unusually emotional event, such as the
assassination of someone named Kennedy, and he
sometimes remembered that both of his parents
were dead. But according to Suzanne Corkin,
who studied Henry extensively, these “islands of
remembering” were the exceptions in a vast sea
of forgetfulness. This good-natured man could
not recognize a photograph of his own face, and
he never remembered the scientists who studied
him for decades; he was stuck in a time warp from
the past. After Henry died in 2008 at age 82, one
neuroscientist observed that he had given sciencethe ultimate gift: his memory (Ogden, 2012).
He taught neuroscientists a great deal about the
biology of memory, and we will meet him again at
several points in this chapter.
Watch the Video Special Topics: When Memory
Fails at MyPsychLabThe Manufacture of Memory LO 8.1
People’s descriptions of memory have always
been influenced by the technology of their time.
Ancient philosophers compared memory to a soft
wax tablet that would preserve anything imprinted
on it. Later, with the advent of the printing press,
people began to think of memory as a gigantic
library, storing specific events and facts for later
retrieval. Today, many people compare memory to
a digital recorder or video camera, automatically
capturing every moment of their lives.
Popular and appealing though this belief
about memory is, however, it is utterly wrong.
Not everything that happens to us or impinges on
our senses is tucked away for later use. Memory is
selective. If it were not, our minds would be clut-
tered with mental junk: the temperature at noon
on Thursday, the price of milk two years ago,
a phone number needed only once. Moreover,
remembering is not at all like replaying a record-
ing of an event. It is more like watching a few
unconnected clips and then figuring out what the
rest of the recording must have been like.