Free Essay

The Man Without a Memory

In:

Submitted By dunakey1
Words 1160
Pages 5
The Man without a Memory

Psych/575

January 27, 2013

The Man without a Memory
Remembering is what a person understands; understanding is only what the person pay’s attention to, and individuals only pay attention to what they want to (Keeley, 1997). Memory brings so much to our lives; whether it's’ contributions are positive or negative. Our memories write, underwrite, and re-tell our lives’ journeys. But what happens when this very luxury or curse is robbed from us? What happens when what is recalled and remembered is chosen for us? After viewing Clive’s story in ‘The Man Without A Memory,’ we are reminded not to take the things we remember, choose to remember, and choose to forget for granted. Within this paper, the relationship between learning something and remembering it is described. The specific area of Clive’s brain that was damaged is revealed; Clive’s loss of memory for most things except his memory for his wife and the piano are explained. Memories we would miss the most are described, and how emotions are linked to memories are examined.
Relationship between Learning and Remembering
To explain the relationship between learning and remembering, I would start with learning information such as preparing for a test. The student can remember the material for the test, but does not retain the information after the test to remember the knowledge. If the student learns the information for the test, but then retains the material, the student will remember what was studied to remember at a later time.
The Specific Region of Clive's Brain is damaged to Result in this Memory Loss
The hippocampus and medulla are damaged on the extensive left and a large amount on the right. The greatest damage is bilateral and to the left temporal lobe; the combination between inferior frontal and bilateral temporal lobe is usually extensive (Vattano, Bennett, & Butler, 2013). The space with the missing brain tissue was filled with cerebral spinal fluid on the left side of the temporal lobe and a large portion of the right, along with some of the lateral temporal lobe on the right. On the left side of the brain, a small remit of superior temporal lobe is left; everything else is gone on the right side except for some of the left lateral temporal lobe (Vattano et al, 2013). Extensive enlargement of the ventricular system: these are the ant to the horn of the lateral system. Clive’s corpus callosum is smaller, and there is just a little remnant fornix (Vattano et al, 2013).
Clive's loss of memory, despite his lasting memory for his Wife and the Piano
Clive’s loss of memory came from herpes viral encephalitis, which attacked his central nervous system (Vattano et al, 2013). The hippocampus was damaged which prevents short term memory to be transferred into long term memory leaving Clive unable to create lasting memories (Vattano et al, 2013). Clive’s procedural memory was not damaged by the virus which allows him to be able to conduct music and play the piano like he did before the damage, although when he is done he cannot remember what he played and shakes uncontrollably (Vattano et al, 2013). Clive can learn some minor facts by watching a video over and over, and that is because of procedural memory. He will not remember the video but can anticipate parts of video as he is watching it (Vattano et al, 2013). His learning capabilities are limited to what can be learned with the procedural memory; sadly most motor skills are damaged due to the hippocampus and he is unable to retain any new information (Vattano et al, 2013).
If you were Clive, what Memories Would you Miss the Most
Clive speaks about being completely confused, never eating anything or touching anything because he said it is like he is not alive (Vattano et al, 2013). Clive has very intense emotions when he sees his wife; he either believes he has not seen her for years or never seen her before, but he is totally in love with his her. Clive lives in the moment; he writes journal entries every day; nearly every entry he writes is as if he is awake for the first time (Vattano et al, 2013). Clive’s perception of his condition is just like death; no thought of any kind, no dreams, sight, sound, taste, no differences from day and night. I just don’t know anything at all; it’s just like death (Vattano et al, 2013). Clive is very angry and frustrated about his condition because he does not retain new memory. The memory I would miss the most, if I was Clive, would be if my spouse was there for me, but I could not remember this special moment because the memories would be gone within seconds.
Emotions linked to memories
Emotions are linked to memories per events in your life. When you have a special event, you like to remember those things and pull them out more often; these things create happy thoughts to come to mind. When you are traumatized with something bad happening to you, some things can associate emotions like anger, sadness, stress, along with other things in the environment to make you recall this event.
When it comes to Clive, memories are confusing to Clive. He started with a headache and didn’t respond to medication (Vattano et al, 2013). By the fourth and fifth days he was forgetting many things including his daughter’s name. Repeated himself many times and showed emotional behavior; gets upset when he is confronted by his notebook saying he wrote it down, but keeps forgetting (Vattano et al, 2013). Clive does not acknowledge that he is writing things down. He has very short term memory; Clive cannot remember things except moment-to-moment (Vattano et al, 2013). Clive’s life is a new experience each time, and every moment is like a new time. When he sees someone he has known for a long time, he does not remember those (Vattano et al, 2013).

Conclusion
While it has been described above; the story of Clive opens many doors to topics regarding memory. Whether those topics find their way into our own thoughts about the process, format, and importance of our own memory; this is defined within the content above. To its’ benefit, the relationship between learning something and remembering it is described, the specific area of Clive’s brain that was damaged is revealed. Clive’s loss of memory for most things except his memory for his wife and the piano are explained; memories we would miss the most are described, and how emotions are linked to memories are examined.

References
Keeley, M. (1997). Memory and importance of review. Retrieved from: http://faculty.bucks.edu/specpop/memory.htm
Vattano, F., Bennett, T., & Butler, M. (2013, February 17). The Mind Second Edition the Clive Wearing Story Pt. 2 Living without Memory [Video file]. Retrieved from YouTube website: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipD_G7U2FcM

Similar Documents

Free Essay

The Man Without a Memory

...The Man without a Memory PSYCH/575 October 31, 2011 Dr. B The Man without a Memory Relationship between Learning Something and Remembering it Learning is when we are able to attain a particular skill or piece of knowledge, and remembering takes place when you are able to utilize that knowledge or skill right away without having to go through the monotonous process of learning it (Carlson, 2010). Once the skill is learned it is stored in short-term memory and then once it is practiced often it is stored into long-term memory available for retrieval and instant application (Carlson, 2010). For example, in order to learn how to ride a bike you constantly practice being able to steady yourself while pushing the peddles in order to move forward. By the time you learn how to ride the bike you have practiced the skill so much that it is imprinted in your long term memory. Region of Brain Damaged The area of the brain that was damaged is the hippocampus; this was due to the total amnesia that was a result from his illness. The hippocampus is the region of the brain that relocates memories from the short-term memory to the long-term memory. “Wearing is not capable of forming new memories because his memory only last between 7 and 30 seconds” (MedLibrary, 2002, p. 1). Loss of Memory for Things Wearing only has moment –to-moment consciousness because he has not only retrograde amnesia but also anterograde amnesia, Wearing can still remember how to play the piano and conduct...

Words: 598 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

The Man Without a Memory Paper

...A Man Without a Memory There is a relationship between learning something and remember it. Clive Wearing do not have this relationship because he suffered a serious infection called encephalitis causing him severe brain damage in several regions of his brain and totally destroyed the hippocampus, which important role is memory formation. In the video “A Man Without a Memory-Clive Wearing”, it talks about how his life and family was affected by him not remembering. This paper will let readers know what specific region of Clive’s brain was damaged which resulted in this memory loss and will also explain how his loss of memory for most things despite his lasting memory for the piano and his wife. This paper will also gives our personal opinion on if we were Clive, what memories would we miss the most and explain how emotions links to memories while given examples to support our answer. Relationship between Learning Something and Remembering It To define the relationship between learning something and remembering it, you must first determine what learning is. Learning is acquiring, constructing, or developing new knowledge or skills. In Bloom's taxonomy of learning, the cognitive domain consists of knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation (Terry, 2009). With this being said, knowledge (to know something) is to be able to recall the information. Comprehension is to understand the meaning of something. Application is being able to use a concept...

Words: 1379 - Pages: 6

Free Essay

Accounting

...several stages to keep memory in human’s brain. In the other words, it is divided into three steps as the process of memory, from sensory to short-term to long-term memory. Sensory memory is the shortest memory in the brain. It received information through five senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch, which last 1-3 seconds but retain accurately. For instance, people saw something and remembered what it looked like is an ability of sensory memory. Short-term memory (“working memory, which is essential for human cognition, can be thought of as a mental workspace or the brain’s notepad- a neural system for storing and manipulating small amounts of useful information.”) last 15-30 seconds and it is closely related to the process of sensory memory. If people receive new information without repeat old information, the new one will push out all information from brain. “Short-term memories can become long-term memory through the process of consolidation, involving rehearsal and meaningful association.” But when people rehearse information, it turns to long-term memory. Without rehearsal, the information is lost from the short-term memory and forgotten. Long-term memory is obviously stored information for a long period of time. [pic] Types of Human Memory: Diagram by Luke Mastin It is necessary to improve memory in different methods. People’s lifestyle is a based way to keep memory. Firstly, the food what we eat play a crucial role in human’s memory. “Fresh vegetables are...

Words: 848 - Pages: 4

Premium Essay

Historical Case Study

...The Man without a Memory Paper Christina Bacon, Annjuntoria Clements, Sereion Humphrey, Angela Thomas Psych 575 May 26, 2015 Dr. Lynda Cable The Man without a Memory Paper How would you define the relationship between learning something and remembering it?  The author would define the relationship between learning and remembering such as preparing for a test or remembering the different signs when studying for a driver’s test. Sometimes when studying for that test a person can learn the material but might have a hard time remembering the information. If a person learns the information that needs to be learned for the test and retains the material, the person will remember what information they need for the test. We also have to ask ourselves the question what is learning and memory? Memories are the mental records that we maintain, which give us instant access to our personal past, complete with all of the facts that we know and the skills that we have cultivated (Wesson, 2012). When we are studying for a test we learn the material necessary to pass that test or to remember certain things that has happened in our lives. According to Wesson (2012) there are three different stages to learning and they are encoding, storage, and retrieval. There could also be a fourth stage which is forgetting. Clive Wearing has that fourth stage because he cannot remember his daughter’s name or when he wrote in his journal. Preservation of Different Memory Types Anterograde...

Words: 477 - Pages: 2

Premium Essay

Memory Man and Macbeth Essay

...is something they should not do merely because it could end with negative consequences; consequences that are almost always exaggerated a great deal. In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the protagonist Macbeth made many decisions to achieve his deepest and darkest desire which was to become king. In order to take a hold of what he wanted he took many huge risks, and in taking those risks he achieved his goal. David Baldacci’s Memory Man and “To Risk” by William Arthur Ward are both works of literature about taking risks, if no risks are taken then no ground can be gained and no rewards can be reaped. Through the rewards of taking a risk, the motivations behind risk taking, and the importance of taking a risk, these works of literature show that in order to achieve a goal, a risk must be taken. Very seldom do people think of the rewards of taking risks and just wallow in the aspects of what could go wrong however, risks need to be taken in order to achieve progress in life. The novel Memory Man was about taking a risk in order to achieve a goal. The protagonist of Memory Man took a risk by walking into his old police precinct disguised while the majority of the police officers were distracted by a serious emergency. “[Amos] knew this was stupid. Insane. He hadn’t been gone that long from the force. He could be recognized at any moment, like with Pete Rourke. But he didn’t care. He really...

Words: 1676 - Pages: 7

Premium Essay

Elizabeth Loftus's 'Thanks For The Memories'

...Reading 16, Thanks for the Memories!, introduces the topic with a scenario of eyewitness reports as evidence and their reliability in a criminal trial. The question asked is along the lines why we believe what the eyewitnesses say. Naturally, we believe the eyewitness reports because something must have been vivid and truthful to be remembered so clearly. The book states, “memory is typically thought of as the replayingoi an event, exacdy as we saw it, like playing a video or DVD” (Hock, 2009). That is a concept that is questioned by psychologists that specialize in the study of memory. These psychologists question how much we can rely on memories. Elizabeth Loftus, a specialist in the field, found that a majority of the time the human brain recreates a situation, it is not done meticulously (Hock, 2009). What Loftus has found is called reconstructive memory. “Reconstructive memory is a result of our use of new and existing information to fill in the gaps in our recall of an experience” (Hock, 2009). Basically, our memory is subject to change due to what kind of information we obtain or situations that occur. The human brain can take something you saw in a T.V show and incorporate it into an existing memory to create...

Words: 999 - Pages: 4

Premium Essay

What Connections Have You Found Between the Way Duffy and Pugh Present Relationships in Their Poetry.

...Duffy and Pugh both present their poetry in similar and different ways. In the title of Duffy’s poem ‘whoever she was’ it suggests to be a nostalgic poem of someone without an identity, with the ‘whoever’ suggesting a careless attitude towards the character. Similarly in Pugh’s poem ‘hello’ the title suggests loneliness and the character wanting to create a relationship with someone. Duffy’s ‘whoever she was’ is written predominantly in third person, to create a careless attitude and detach the reader from the character, emphasising the lack of her relationship. However, Duffy uses a confusion of pronouns, ‘she, myself, I’ to exaggerate her confusion over her identity. Pugh’s poem is also written in third person, as we get to hear the onlooker’s views towards the man, emphasising that people don’t really understand that he’s lonely. However Duffy’s poem ‘Mrs Lazarus’ is written in first person, allowing the reader to emphasise and connect more with what is happening throughout the poem, and also Mrs Lazarus’s feelings. Imagery is used in Duffy’s poem to present the uncomfortable memories of the character. ‘Clumsy tongue’ gives the impression that these memories of the past relationship are hurtful to her. The contrasting imagery of ‘six silly ladies torn in half by baby fists’ suggests an abrupt end to the relationship with her children. The innocence of ‘six silly’ massively clashes with ‘torn in half’ to emphasize the idea of the relationship being unfixable, as it was ‘torn’...

Words: 680 - Pages: 3

Free Essay

Mr Abdi

...scar even the most innocent man, in the most horrible way. Despite the scars not always being shown ed, they exist in the mind of the individual. Even though the man might seem to be calm and brave, there will always be something underneath that will constantly will (langt biled ikke adskille s + v) remind him of the horrors he has survived. In “Young and Old” we meet and old man and a young boy, and their view on the past war, which has clearly has (langt biled ikke adskille s + v) touched them in different ways. Fint ( The story is about a young boy and an old man, who are (kongruens) during the war is united by faith during the war (langt biled ikke adskille s + v). It takes place shortly after the war, because soldiers are still walking though the streets, but they are friendly, and the population of the city is free to wander around. In the beginning we learn that the man and the boy spend an awful lot of time in the catacombs of cellars beneath a shattered city, which sets the mood in the text. ( We imagine a city in ruins and a dark and creepy hangout place especially for the young boy. It’s is told by an objective, third person narrator, which results in us not taking any of the protagonist’s party, and therefore makes us capable of to experiencing e both of the characters in an equal way. ( ( Due to this fact, it is important for us to look at the protagonists separately. At first we have the old man, who seems to be a caring and loving man. When a complete stranger...

Words: 1464 - Pages: 6

Free Essay

Paper on Philo

...which is to cease to exist. What would then be the ultimate purpose of life if we will all die in the end? Everything that we invested will be gone and everything we have built will be worthless? I would like to argue that it is not necessarily the end that matters the most but the journey. Dying in the end should not mean that we have to live our lives miserably. I believe that death and factitious freedom are deeply intertwined with the thesis question "Why did Jesus die on the cross?" In this paper, we carefully examine not just the father-son relationship between Jesus and God but Jesus as both God-Man through the hypostatic union (As given in the thesis question) , its relationship to people and the very purpose of His and generally an individual's death vis-a-vis human freedom. It is very difficult to try to elaborate this issue that has been going on for years without being theological. There is a gap between theology and philosophy in such a way that theology's main ingredients are faith and belief and philosophy is sheer rationality. Theology becomes rational only if the people have faith or belief in God. Philosophy challenges people through the premises grounded on reason and reality that usually come in conflict with those who believe in God. There is no concrete way to prove if God is real or not, but religion is that powerful that even if there is uncertainty people even die for devotion. This is one...

Words: 2521 - Pages: 11

Premium Essay

National Gallery

...the National Gallery Memories are small pieces of our life stored and kept in our minds and hearts. We can use these memories to cast light over a day where there has only been darkness, to bring a smile up on our friends faces when they are feeling down, or even to learn from any mistakes we have made in the past. It is like a tool we use to overcome the present time, but some people dwell in the past and use it to hide from their present life, and it is here that problems occur. In the short story ”In the National Gallery” by Doris Lessing, from 2007, we follow the narrator, a person who is interested in art and would like to know more about it, to an art gallery “How much I would have liked to know as much as he did, and to share his passion for Stubbs and the horse, but only phrases reached me.” (P. 1, L. 15). The gender of the narrator is unknown to the reader, indicating that the narrator in the story could be Doris Lessing herself. The story is told through a first person narrative which makes the information we get very subjective, leading to the distortion of what is true or false, and making the reader rely on the narrator. The point of view of this story also makes the narrator very passive, as the narrator sits in the middle of the room and describes what is going on around him/her. The narrator is not important to the plot and the only time the narrator interacts with the other characters in the story, is when she talks to the older man. Though the narrator is...

Words: 994 - Pages: 4

Free Essay

Paper1

...young man who is slightly detached from the lives of those around him. Murakami conveys memory to be like fiction; or else its fiction that’s like memory. The story has a very nostalgic tone to it. It is set on the day of the man’s last mowing job and focuses on his encounter with a lonely middle-aged woman who hires him. From what I gather, the protagonist is a Japanese college student who enjoys the past more than the present. It seems like he dislikes many aspects of modernity; viewing the youth as lazy and immature. The protagonist appears to be obsessive compulsive over his determination of mowing lawns, however, lacks skills in other areas, such as his schoolwork and human interaction. The abrupt breakup with his long distance girlfriend leaves him disgruntled, for he is unsure if he had ever loved her at all, but nonetheless he is uncertain of how to deal with the turn of events. On the man’s last day of work, he mows a woman’s lawn, however, as he mentioned, the lawn was not in need of care for another two weeks. This demonstrates the customer’s desperation for company. The customer was a tall, broad, middle-aged woman with a very stern, unapproachable presence. After working on the woman’s lawn for about an hour, she invited him inside for lunch. When the young man was finished taking care of the lawn, the woman invited him inside again, showing him a young girl’s room. She asked him to look through the closet and drawers to get a feel for who the girl was without actually...

Words: 631 - Pages: 3

Free Essay

On Memory and Watchmen

...hurricane of feelings and memories without anything shielding them or holding them down to the ground. Mostly, these people think of things as if they just want to get things over with. Treating memories as if it’s an object, people makes the most out of memories and then simply throws it away as if it’s something useless or dilapidated. Others try to suppress whatever memory they kept as if burying a time capsule, in a place they seldom go to, hoping that the time capsule won’t resurface by itself as time passes by. Contrary to what people usually think, memory and trauma are not objects that can be disposed; memory and trauma are things that stick to us, become dormant and subtly resurfaces in different ways. From the material, ”Remembering, Repeating and Working Through,” we see concepts the repeating and working through as ways of dealing remembering memories, especially trauma. Diving into the paper, just like familiarizing one’s self with a map, it’s best to discuss the terms that are going to be the main points before using it again and again in the paper. Repression is the conscious (or unconscious) suppression of a memory. In simpler terms, we try to hide memories, bury it and try to seal it mostly because the memory being hid is a trauma that we experienced. Resistance is the blocking of memory from conscious memory. As the term implies, we resist a memory from being “stored” into our conscious memory, thus avoiding the chance of a memory being remembered as time passes...

Words: 1781 - Pages: 8

Premium Essay

In Cold Blood Rhetorical Analysis

...the reader a sense of what their lives were like and why they became who they are. Capote also utilizes detailed descriptions of the men’s appearances, quirks, and habits to characterize the murderers. From the moments in the book when we read about the brutal murders of such a benevolent family the killers appear to be nothing more than violent, cold hearted brutes, to be capable of committing such a terrible crime without no apparent motive. As Dick and Perry are running away from the village of Holcomb, Capote begins to delve into the lives of the men. Perry’s past reveals an unstable household, an alcoholic mother, and an abusive childhood as Capote flashes back in Perry’s memories “when he was seven a hated, half-breed child living in a California orphanage run by nuns—shrouded disciplinarians who whipped him for wetting his bed. One of these beatings, one he could never forget. She woke me up she had a flashlight, and she hit me with it. Hit me and hit me. And when the flashlight broke, she went on hitting me in the dark(Capote 93) .” Later on Perry’s memories flashback again as he remembers his family “his mother, an alcoholic, had strangled to death on her own vomit. Of her children, two sons and two daughters, only the younger girl had entered ordinary life…the other daughter jumped out of a window…the older boy who had one day driven his wife to suicide and killed himself the next(Capote 110-111).” The reader knows that Perry has had a childhood that no child deserves...

Words: 659 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

Ishmael Beah Character Analysis

...a matter of seconds and no one had any control over anything. We had yet to learn these things and implement survival tactics, which was what it came down to” (Ishmael Beah, 29). At the age of twelve, Ishmael Beah’s world was turned upside-down, in the shock of the first few months’ experience with the civil war, he was not yet ready to change with the mercurial situations he finds himself in. The civilization he once knew as “home” was being rendered by attacking rebels, the land was unrecognizable by complete and utter violence. Former priorities were set aside in favor of mere survival. This specific quote captivates and sheds light on the multifaceted damage done by civil war and terrorism. As a victim of the violence, he was a young man who had lost his family and his way of life and was in turn considered dangerous by most civilians he encountered. Beah suffered from more than just simple physical pain. The anguish of losing his family and friends was compounded by the uncertainty each day brought. Beah explains, “One of the unsettling things about my journey, mentally, physically, and emotionally, was that I wasn’t sure when or where it was going to end. I didn’t know what I...

Words: 734 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

The Power of Imagination

...life. One product of man’s imagination is time-travelling. Time-travelling is not all about riding a weird and techy machine with all of these wormholes, vortex and colorful buttons. Time travelling is simply travelling in time through the past, present and future and it can be done through imagination. From time to time, being left alone brings images to flash before our eyes. Some of these images would be memories of the past which can be very enjoyable enough to occupy our attention for a long period of time. However, there are certain memories which we wished to never remember again –memories of our sins and regrets in life. It’s very scary to see and realize our flaws and no one wants to be left alone to contemplate with this (Montague, n.d.). Memories are even made more real by our imagination by making us feel the things we felt during that period (Bronowski, n.d.). This can be seen when we shed a tear while reminiscing these bad memories that revived the pains we felt. We can even magnify the stress it causes us by manipulating this memory (Bronowski, n.d). Since the details can be very vague, we can create information that can worsen the situation (Hedayat, n.d). We can even be paralyzed and fail to move on with life by thinking of the many possibilities that we could have done to prevent or have a better future...

Words: 1099 - Pages: 5