Emotion and Memory

[Gees]

Hello Members;

 

My questions are directed to anyone who has a good understanding of neurology, and can explain that understanding in layman's terms, as it relates to emotion and memory. Although I believe myself to be intelligent, MS (Multiple Sclerosis) has done a wonderful job of cutting my vocabulary in half and limiting some of my cognitive skills, which includes an inability to learn new technical terms. So I have no hope of learning what I need to know on my own and am asking for help.

 

My interest is in consciousness, but in deference to neurologists, I should state that I am referring to the philosophical definition of consciousness, which would be better named, awareness. To learn more about conscious awareness, I have been breaking down the different mental aspects and studying them individually, and am currently working on emotion. Most of my information has come from sources that would not be considered credible, so I would like confirmation of what I think I know and a better understanding. The points are numbered for ease in answering, and because I want to know everything, which is impossible. (chuckle)

 

1. It seems that emotion does some rather unusual things when stored in memory. One source stated that it can actually grow, like a film put in chemicals emotion seems to be able to develop and make the memory more over time. I would like to know if this is true, as it may or may not relate to anthropomorphism.

 

2. Another source stated that emotion can actually affect memories. An example would be when you think that you are in love with an attractive person, break up, then see them two years later and note that they are not really very attractive. So emotion can actually distort what we think we remember. Any ideas on this?

 

3. Emotion also seems to be able to select what we remember, as something with an emotional attachment will be a much stronger memory. On the other hand, we can also specifically not remember something because we emotionally don't want to. Thoughts?

 

4. So we can remember thoughts, like math; we can remember thoughts with emotion; but can we remember emotion without thought? This question led me to make up a little test that I asked people to consider, as follows:

 

I would like you to summon up any strong emotion, love, hate, fear, etc., and hold that emotion within you for one minute on the clock. Did you succeed? Good. Now I would like for you to do it again, but this time do not summon any memories of things that made you originally feel the emotion.

 

Thus far, no one has been able to do it. My conclusion is that there is no memory slot for emotion. We can experience emotion, but we can not remember emotion unless it is attached to some thought.

 

5. If (4.) is correct, then how would we remember that we had an emotional experience if there were no thoughts attached? How would we know about it? Is this where delusion comes in? In a case where we experienced emotion because of a chemical change, would our minds interpret the emotion and add whatever it decided was appropriate to the emotion and cause delusions so that we could remember the event? Thoughts?

 

Thanks in advance to any and all who can explain or confirm my considerations.

 

G.

 

 

[EdEarl]

Below are links to a couple of videos that may help you. Consciousness is hotly debated with no scientific theory, but everyone seems to have their own hypothesis. There seems to be less controversy about emotions. Search youtube for consciousness and emotions for more videos. Wikipedia is a good place to start for reading material. Search this forum for discussions about consciousness and emotions; some have recent posts. Others will post in this thread, no doubt.

 

http://i4.ytimg.com/vi/G6CVj5IQkzk/mqdefault.jpg

 

 

Edited June 10, 2013 by EdEarl

[Gees]

Hi EdEarl;

 

Thank you for your response. I've seen that second video before, but the first one was interesting. I learned a little about the neocortex and how learning and memory are hierarchical. I found it interesting that the information goes both ways, from the bottom up and from the top down, but there was nothing that related to emotion and memory.

 

Jeff Hawkins noted that there is a plethora of information on the internet regarding consciousness, almost too much, and that it becomes a difficult task to sort through it to find what one wants to know. I agree. One of the skills, that was diminished in my brain, was the ability to sort and organize. I am sure that if a brilliant neurologist looked at the scars that show up on my MRI, they could explain why I can't seem to learn some things, but for now, all that I know is my neurologist told me that the scars were not where she would expect them to be. No surprise there. (chuckle)

 

I had not used the internet prior to my last major attack, so learning the internet is difficult. I have a terrible relationship with Mr. Google and never get what I want. I found some science encyclopedias, but they wanted me to subcribe and I had a problem with terminology. Most of my information comes from Wikipedia. I love Wikipedia, but would like another source. It had not occurred to me that YouTube would be a good source. Thank you for that suggestion. I checked this forum before posting and got nine hits regarding emotion and memory, but they were not relevant. Maybe in another forum?

 

I will check out YouTube. Thanks again.

 

G.

[Gees]

EdEarl;

 

I love YouTube. I already got confirmation on my thoughts in 2. and 3., and found some lectures by Antonio Damasio, who is absolutely brilliant.

 

If I find anything really good, I will post it here--as soon as I learn how to. Thank you. Thank you.

 

G.

[EdEarl]

 

I love YouTube. I already got confirmation on my thoughts in 2. and 3., and found some lectures by Antonio Damasio, who is absolutely brilliant.

 

If I find anything really good, I will post it here--as soon as I learn how to. Thank you. Thank you.

You are welcome, and you put a smile on my face. Thank you.