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7/MEMORY:
CONSTRUCTING AND
RECONSTRUCTING OUR PASTS
TABLE OF CONTENTS
LECTURE GUIDE
How Memory Operates: The Memory Assembly Line (p. 254)
The Three Processes of Memory (p. 257)
The Biology of Memory (p. 259)
The Development of Memory: Acquiring a Personal History (p. 261)
False Memories: When Good Memory Goes Bad (p. 262)
LECTURE GUIDE
Lecture Launchers
Amnesia and Implicit Memory
Memory Anomalies: Beyond Déjà Vu
Web Resources
Exploratorium: http://www.exploratorium.edu/memory/magnani/index.html
v. Most researchers agree that primacy and recency effects reflect the
operation of different memory systems.
a. The recency effect seems to reflect workings of STM.
b. The primacy effect seems to reflect workings of LTM.
c. Types of Long-Term Memory
i. Some psychologists argue that LTM isn’t just one system, but many
(Figure 7.8, text p. 250).
ii. Explicit memory—the process of recalling information
intentionally, also called declarative memory.
a. Semantic memory—knowledge of facts about the world; tends
to activate the left frontal cortex more than right frontal cortex.
b. Episodic memory—recollection of events in our lives; tends to
activate the right frontal cortex more than left frontal cortex.
iii. Implicit memory—the process of recalling information that we
don’t remember deliberately, and that doesn’t require conscious
effort on our part.
a. Procedural memory—memory for motor skills and habits.
b. Priming—our ability to identify a stimulus more easily or more
quickly when we’ve previously encountered similar stimuli.
c. Stem completion task—task in which an individual fills in
missing letters of a word, and which can be used to demonstrate
priming.
Lecture Launchers
Examining Memory with Video
The Power of Schemas
Lecture Launchers
The Molecular Biology of Memory Storage
Musical Memories
Gingko Biloba and Memory
Predicting Alzheimer’s Disease
Web Resources
H.M.—The Day His World Stood Still: http://brainconnection.positscience.com
Alzheimer’s Association: http://www.alz.org/index.asp
Self-Improvement Online: http://www.selfgrowth.com/memory.html
p. 262)
a. Long-term potentiation (LTP)—gradual strengthening of the connections
among neurons from repetitive stimulation over time; results in an increased
release of glutamate.
b. Most neuroscientists agree that LTP plays a key role in learning and that the
hippocampus plays a key role in forming lasting memories.
c. LTP and the hippocampus
i. The hippocampus, the amygdala and parts of the association cortex
exhibit LTP-like activity.
ii. These results establish LTP-like activity as a correlate of memory,
but don’t demonstrate that LTP serves as the basis of memory.
d. LTP and glutamate
i. LTP tends to occur at synapses where the sending neuron releases
glutamate into the synapse.
B. Where Is Memory Stored?
1. The hippocampus is critical to memory, but learned information is not stored
permanently in the hippocampus itself.
2. Memories distribute themselves throughout many areas of the cortex.
3. Amnesia–Biological Bases of Explicit and Implicit Memory
a. Explicit and implicit memories are governed by different brain systems.
i. Evidence for this comes from research on amnesia.
ii. Retrograde amnesia—loss of memories from our past.
iii. Anterograde amnesia—inability to encode new memories from our
experiences.
b. Amnesia myths
i. Generalized amnesia in which a person loses all previous memories
is exceedingly rare.
ii. Memory recovery from amnesia tends to occur gradually, if at all.
4. Case Studies of Amnesia: H.M. and Clive Wearing
a. H.M. suffered from severe epileptic seizures: following the surgery to remove
large chunks of his temporal lobe, H.M. developed virtually complete
anterograde amnesia, and couldn’t encode new memories. Implicit memories,
like those assessed in H.M. was assessed using a mirror tracing task (see
Figure 7.15, text p. 263).
b. Brain imaging used to explore H.M.’s brain found damage to the
hippocampus, the surrounding cortex, and the amygdala .
c. Clive Wearing had his hippocampi damaged from herpes virus.
d. Clive suffered from virtually complete anterograde amnesia like H.M.
5. Emotional Memory
a. The role of the amygdala
i. Emotional components of memories, especially fear, are stored
(Figure 7.16, text p. 263).
ii. Studies with patients with damage to the hippocampus (W.S.) and
the amygdala (S.M.) helped differentiate the role of each structure.
b. Erasing painful memories
i. The hormones adrenaline and norepinephrine are released in
response to stress and stimulate protein receptors which solidify
emotional memories.
ii. Studies have shown that the drug propranolol, which blocks the
effects of adrenaline on beta-adrenergic receptors, can dampen recall
of emotional memories.
Lecture Launchers
The Chowchilla Kidnapping
The Fallibility of Eyewitness Testimony
How False Memories are Formed
Web Resources
Imagination Inflation: Imagining a Childhood Event Inflates Confidence that it
Occurred : http://faculty.washington.edu/eloftus/Articles/Imagine.htm
Recovered Memories of Sexual Abuse: http://www.jimhopper.com/memory/
The Recovered Memory Project:
http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Taubman_Centre/Recovmem/index.html
Creating False Memories: http://faculty.washington.edu/eloftus/Articles/sciam.htm
Elizabeth F. Loftus: http://faculty.washington.edu/eloftus/
Elizabeth Loftus Interview for Frontline’s “What Jennifer Saw”:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/dna/interviews/loftus.html
A. False Memories
1. Flashbulb Memories
a. Flashbulb memories—emotional memories that are extraordinarily vivid and
detailed.
b. Phantom flashbulb memory—the idea that many seemingly flashbulb
memories are false.
2. Source Monitoring: Who Said That?
a. Source monitoring—ability to identify the origins of a memory.
b. Source monitoring confusion—lack of clarity about the origin of a memory.
c. According to source monitoring view of memory, we try to identify the
origins of our memories by seeking cues about how we encoded them.
d. In many cases, source monitoring works well, by helping us avoid confusing
our memories with our fantasies.
e. In some cases, we can be fooled.
f. Some studies suggest that fantasy-prone people and the elderly are more likely
to experience memory illusions on memory illusion tasks.
g. Cryptomnesia—failure to recognize that our ideas originated with someone
else.
iii. The opposing side claims that there is slim evidence that people
repress traumatic memories.
(a) A mounting body of evidence shows that painful memories
are well remembered.
(b) These studies show that it is doubtful memories can be
repressed and recovered later.
(c) These researchers also question the suggestive techniques
used to recovery memories.
B. The Seven Sins of Memory
1. Although our memories generally work well and are often accurate, they’re anything
but perfect.
2. The following are tricks that memory can play on us (though each has an adaptive
function).
a. Suggestibility—misleading information following events, leading questions,
and explicit information and suggestions can increase the chances of our
believing that fictitious events occurred.
b. Misattribution—suggestions are often effective because they lead us to
misattribute memories to incorrect sources, mistaking what’s imagined for a
real memory.
c. Bias—our schemas can bias our memories.
d. Transience—many of our memories, both short- and long-term, will fade with
time.
e. Persistence—some events can linger in our minds for days or weeks and
intrude into our thoughts, even disrupting our ability to sleep.
f. Blocking—temporary inability to access information.
g. Absentmindedness—a failure either to encode memories because we’re not
paying attention or to retrieve memories we’ve already stored.
CHAPTER 7
Learning Objectives
Memories can be surprisingly accurate over very long periods of time but tend to be malleable and
prone to error. They tend to be more reconstructive rather than reproductive.
Three memory systems are discussed and differ along two dimensions, span and duration. The first
memory system is sensory memory, which is the brief storage of perceptual information before it is
passed to short-term memory. Each of the senses (hearing, vision, touch, taste, and smell) has its own
form of sensory memory. The second memory system is short-term memory (STM), also referred to as
working memory, it retains information for limited durations and is the memory store for information we
are currently thinking about, attending to, or processing actively. Duration of STM is no longer than 20
seconds; memories are lost quickly as a result of decay and interference (i.e., retroactive inhibition or
proactive inhibition). George Miller coined the term Magic Number 7, referring to the universal capacity
or limit of STM as 7 + or – 2 pieces of information. Recent researchers now suggest that it may be as low
as four. Chunking information can expand the upper limit of STM. Whereas chunking increases the span
of memory, rehearsal (repeating the information) increases the duration of information in memory. There
are two types of rehearsal: Maintenance rehearsal and elaborative rehearsal.
The third memory system is long-term memory (LTM); it is the sustained (from minutes to years)
retention of information stored regarding our facts, experiences, and skills. Compared to STM the LTM
does not have a capacity limit of 7 +/– 2, it lasts much longer than 20 seconds and can last years, and the
memory errors tend to be semantic rather than acoustic. Some memories after 2 to 3 years seem to decline
less rapidly and appear to be relatively permanent. This type of memory is called permastore memory.
Forgetting doesn’t seem to be random and seems to be effected by the primacy, recency, and von
Restorff effects.
There are several types of long term memory. Semantic memory refers to our knowledge of facts
about the world. Episodic memory refers to the recollection of events in our lives and tends to activate
the right frontal cortex. Explicit (Declarative) memory is the intentional recall of memories of which we
have conscious awareness. Implicit memories are memories that we don’t deliberately remember or
reflect on consciously. Implicit memory has two subtypes: Procedural memory and priming.
There are three stages of memory, which are encoding, storage, and retrieval. Encoding is the
process of getting information into our memory banks. Mnemonics are learning aids, strategies, or
devices that enhance recall by enriching the encoding. Three common strategies are the Pegword
Method, Method of Loci, and the Keyword Method.
Once encoded, information is put in memory; it is called storage. A central component of storage
is the concept of schemas, an organized knowledge structure or mental model that we’ve stored in
memory. Schemas simplify information processing which helps us make sense of the world; however, at
times they oversimplify which is bad as it can lead to memory illusions. In this way, schemas help explain
how prejudices distort memory and lead to biases in our memories.
Retrieval refers to the reactivation or reconstruction of experiences from our memory stores.
Psychologists assess people’s memory in three ways: Recall (generating previously remembered
information), recognition (selecting previously remembered information from an array of options) and
relearning (reacquiring knowledge that we’d previously learned but largely forgotten over time).
Hermann Ebbinghaus happened upon a crucial principle: the law of distributed practice versus massed
practice. This law states that studying information in small increments over time (distributed) is superior,
in order to retain information, to studying information in large increments over a brief amount of time,
continuously until the task is completed (massed). The principle of encoding specificity refers to the
phenomenon of remembering something better when the conditions under which we retrieve information
are similar to the conditions under which we encoded it. Two examples of this phenomenon are: context-
dependent learning and state-dependent learning.
Beginning in the 1920s researchers like Karl Lashley were interested finding the engram, the
biological, physical trace of each memory in the brain. Canadian researcher Donald Hebb suggested that
the engram is not located in any one place but rather in cell assemblies (organized groups) of neurons in
the brain. Presently, long-term potentiation (LTP), the gradual strengthening of the connections among
neurons from repetitive stimulation, is considered to play a role in the formation of memories.
There are different types of memory loss. Retrograde amnesia is the loss of memories from our past
whereas anterograde amnesia is the inability to encode new memories from our experiences. Case
studies involving amnesia have illuminated differences between the implicit and explicit memory
systems. The case studies of H.M. and Clive Wearing demonstrated that damage to the hippocampus
impairs explicit but leaves implicit memories intact.
Memory deteriorates with old age. An extreme form of this is Alzheimer’s disease and accounts
for about 50–60 percent of cases of dementia (severe memory loss). Alzheimer’s disease affects both
cognitive and language related deficits. Memory loss begins with recent events, with distant past events
being the last to go.
Children’s memory ability changes over time. Children’s memory spans increase with age, their
conceptual understanding increases allowing for better chunking and storing of information and lastly
they develop enhanced meta-memory skills, knowledge about thief memory abilities and limitations.
Some adults fail to remember personal experiences that took place at an early age, called infantile
amnesia. Often, our poor memories of childhood are the result of a partially developed hippocampus and
an under-developed sense of self, which is necessary to encode or store memories. Since children
sometimes confuse fantasy with reality, they are especially vulnerable to suggestions to recall events that
did not occur making child testimonies unreliable. Especially problematic is that repeating questions to
children may run the risk of children giving answers that are in fact wrong and often acquiescing to their
expectations of how others would want them to act.
Several factors influence people’s susceptibility to false memories and memory biases. Flashbulb
memories are emotional memories that people can recount in vivid, remarkable detail; however, despite
the vividness of the memory these are prone to errors. Source monitoring refers to the ability to identify
the origins of a memory. Individuals who are elderly or fantasy-prone are more likely to confuse fantasy
with reality and consequently make memory errors regarding source monitoring. Cryptomnesia is an
error in source monitoring wherein a failure occurs in recognizing that our ideas originated with someone
else. Researchers such as Elizabeth Loftus have demonstrated the effects of misleading suggestions on
everyday memories and eyewitness testimonies. Researchers have been successful in implanting complex
false memories in some people. Eyewitness Testimony is less likely to be accurate when less than optimal
conditions (e.g., lighting, etc.) are met, when people are of a different race, when people talk to other
witnesses, and when they view a crime under stressful circumstances or feel threatened. False memories
have created substantial controversy amongst psychologists regarding the topic of repressed childhood
sexual abuse being recovered years later by a therapist. Suggestive procedures by therapists can create
false memories in some clients.
Implicit memory effects occur when there is improvement on a task, in which participants are not asked to
consciously remember prior information. Instead, increases in performance on implicit memory tasks
demonstrate priming effects. Implicit memory effects have been found in amnesic individuals who
perform poorly on explicit memory tasks of recall and recognition, relative to normal controls.
Interestingly, individuals with amnesia perform at the same level as normal controls with implicit
memory tests, suggesting that previously learned information is available in memory but not accessible
with traditional memory measures of recall and recognition.
H.M. suffered from anterograde amnesia due to removal of several brain areas associated with
memory, including the segments of the hippocampus. While H.M. could not explicitly remember newly
experienced events, such as solving the Tower of Hanoi puzzle, he showed improved performance on
such tasks on later trials, indicating an implicit memory effect. H.M. died December, 2008.
The déjà vu experience is perhaps the best known anomaly of memory, but it is by no means the only one.
Like déjà vu, these anomalies are relatively harmless (unless they occur quite frequently) and may occur
in most people’s lives at some point.
• Jamais vu. The opposite of déjà vu, jamais vu refers to experiencing a lack of familiarity in a
particular situation when this should clearly not be the case. For example, someone who insists that
they have never before met a fairly well-known acquaintance might be having a jamais vu
experience. Clearly, jamais vu needs to be distinguished from the memory disruptions found among
Alzheimer’s patients (who often fail to recognize familiar objects, people, or settings), from the
effects of amnesia (whether physical or psychogenic in origin), or from simply a faulty memory
(such as not encoding information about a person in the first place). A defining quality of jamais vu,
then, is the feeling of astonishment or incredulity at encountering the object (“Are you sure we’ve
met before?!”).
• Time-gap experience. “I left work, and then I arrived at home. I’m not sure what happened in
between.” Most of us have shared the experience of doing a fairly complicated task (such as driving
a car) and upon completion realizing that we have no recollection of the task at all (such as which
turns were made, when we stopped, the route we took, and so on). This time-gap experience can be
explained using the distinction between automatic and effortful processing. An effortful task, such
as one that is new or unfamiliar, demands our cognitive resources for its completion. Even a fairly
intricate task, however, once it has become automatic, can be performed outside of conscious
awareness.
• Cryptomnesia. Cryptomnesia can be thought of as unintended plagiarism: A person honestly
believes that some thought, publication, composition, or other work is an original creation when in
fact it is not. Many musicians, for example, seem to fall prey to this memory anomaly. The most
celebrated case involved George Harrison’s song “My Sweet Lord,” which a court ruled was
unintentionally based (quite closely, actually) on the Chiffons’ “He’s So Fine” (Brown & Murphy,
1989). A song by Huey Lewis and the News, “I Want A New Drug,” also came under scrutiny as a
too-close variant of Ray Parker’s “Ghostbusters,” and Aerosmith recently came under fire for
lifting the line “Mister, you’re a better man than I” from the Yardbirds’ song of the same name. In
each case the similarities were determined to be unintentional, suggesting that cryptomnesia was at
work.
Brown, A. S., & Murphy, D. R. (1989). Cryptomnesia: Delineating inadvertent plagiarism. Journal of Experimental Psychology:
Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 15, 432–442.
Searleman, A., & Herrmann, D. (1994). Memory from a broader perspective. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Students may argue that card tricks do not really represent the real world, and may maintain that they
really do attend to important stimuli. Next, show this short video clip that provides a more real-world
example. The video clip shows Derren Brown, a British entertainer, who describes his craft as a mixture
of magic, suggestion, psychology, misdirection, and showmanship. In an entertaining way, he
demonstrates informally what Levin and Simons demonstrated experimentally regarding inattentional
blindness. Namely, that people often fail to notice substantial changes in the world around them. In this
clip, Brown asks a series of people on the street for directions. Midway through each request, men
carrying a door-sized picture of Derren Brown walk between Brown and the person giving directions.
Brown swaps positions with one of the men carrying the picture and leaves. The other man stays behind
and finishes the conversation regarding directions. In each example, the person giving directions fails to
notice that Brown was replaced by a different person midway through the conversation. Talk with
students about the different kinds of things that might lead to this attention failure. In this particular case,
for example, people seem to be looking around at their environs or at the map rather than at their
conversational partner.
This oldie but goodie is surprisingly (sadly) a brain teaser that students still have a hard time figuring out.
A son and his father get into a serious car accident. The boy is taken in one ambulance to a hospital, and
the father is taken in another ambulance to a different hospital. Upon reaching the emergency room, the
doctor looks at the boy and says, "I can't work on this patient. He is my son!" How is this possible? The
answer, of course, is that the emergency room doctor is the boy’s mother, but students will have
difficulty. The scenario is “tricky” because our schemas of medical staff still include males as the doctors
and females as the nurses. After presenting this scenario, you can describe the function, value, and
problems with relying on schemas.
In 2000, Dr. Eric R. Kandel won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on the
molecular biology of memory storage. His Nobel lecture (59 min.) is available at:
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/2000/kandel-lecture.html
The text of his lecture is also available at this site. It might be a nice change of pace for students to
observe a Nobel Laureate giving a talk related to psychology.
Most students can relate to the power of music to evoke emotions and memories. Music is often a
powerful retrieval cue for a variety of other memories. In a 2005 study (Nature, March 10, 2005),
researchers at Dartmouth University discovered that if individuals are listening to familiar music, they
mentally retrieve auditory imagery, or memories to fill in the gaps if the music stops playing. By studying
the brains of participants with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), it was shown that
participants were able to mentally fill in the spaces if a familiar song was missing short segments. The
auditory cortex remained active even when the music had stopped. The investigators report that this
finding expands earlier studies that demonstrate that sensory-specific memories are stored in the brain
areas that created those events. Researchers also discovered that lyrics influence the different auditory
brain areas that are utilized when musical memories are reconstructed.
Although there are ways to improve one’s memory by using strategies for organizing and retrieving
information as discussed in the Study Skills section of this text, people down through the ages have hoped
for an easier way to get better memory. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to take a simple little pill and have
improved memory ability without all the effort? Or help prevent or at least relieve the memory problems
that come with aging, such as Alzheimer’s?
One of the most recent substances that has been proposed as an aid to memory is an herbal extract
from the leaves of the gingko biloba tree, the oldest living tree species currently known to be in existence.
Commonly prescribed as a drug in Germany and France, gingko biloba extract (GBE) is one of the most
well-researched herbal treatments worldwide (Murray, 1996).
GBE, in the form of a daily supplement, is said to increase blood flow to the brain, has been
credited with a number of health-enhancing effects: countering the effects of aging, reducing the ringing
in the ears that often comes with age, controlling cholesterol, enhancing circulation in the brain, and
improved memory skills (Murray, 1996; Solomon et al., 2002). It is the effect of GBE on memory that
will be the focus here. Testimonials from people who have used GBE are numerous, but they are still only
testimonials. People who take supplements and then notice an improvement in whatever the supplement
was said to improve may be experiencing the placebo effect—they notice improvement because they
expect to improve. What does the scientific research say about the effects of gingko biloba on memory?
There have been numerous double-blind studies of the effects of GBE on memory, both in people
with Alzheimer’s-type dementia and in people with normal cognitive functioning. In people with
dementia-related memory problems, the tendency for GBE to open up blood vessels and improve the
oxygen flow to the brain cells seems to significantly improve cognitive functioning and memory when
compared to a placebo treatment (Haase et al, 1996; Le Bars et al., 2000, 2002). Those studies did find
that the improvement was dependent upon the degree of impairment: those who were showing only mild
to moderate symptoms did improve, but those who suffered from more severe symptoms experienced
only a slowing down of the worsening symptoms or a stabilization of those symptoms (Le Bars et al.,
2002).
Does gingko biloba extract help people who have normal mental functioning? Can taking a
simple herbal supplement have a positive impact on memory for the average adult? The research shows
mixed support for the positive effect of GBE on the memory abilities of people who have no serious
memory problems. In two studies with healthy young volunteers, ginkgo biloba and a gingko biloba-
ginseng combination (ginseng is an herbal supplement taken from the root of the ginseng plant) were
associated with significant improvement in attention and memory when compared to a placebo (Kennedy
et al, 2000, 2001). Similar effects have been found for older participants (Rigney et al., 1999; Stough et
al., 2001; Wesnes et al., 2000).
More recent research has found evidence to the contrary: in healthy, normal older adults, gingko
biloba extract produced no difference in participants’ performances on a battery of neuropsychological
tests, including measurements of memory, concentration, and the use of language (Solomon et al., 2002).
In this experiment, participants were measured on various cognitive abilities both before and after a six-
week double-blind trial in which half of the participants received GBE and half a placebo. It is not yet
clear if long-term use of the supplement might have a different impact, while manufacturers of the
supplement typically claim that results will be seen in four weeks. Although gingko biloba might help
those in the early stages of Alzheimer’s or similar dementias, its use for ordinary memory improvement in
healthy people is questionable at best in light of these new findings.
Questions for Further Discussion:
1. Is there any possible harm in taking an herbal supplement such as GBE for the purpose of
enhancing memory?
2. What might be some of the dangers in taking supplements that are not approved by the
government?
3. What other memory-improving “home remedies” have you encountered? Is there any scientific
evidence that any of them actually work?
Haase, J., Halama, P., & Horr, R. (1996). Effectiveness of brief infusions with Ginkgo biloba. Special Extract EGb 761 in
dementia of the vascular and Alzheimer type. Gerontology and Geriatrics, 29 (4), 302–309.
Kennedy, D. O., Scholey, A. B., & Wesnes, K. A. (2000). The dose-dependent cognitive effects of acute administration of
Gingko biloba to healthy young volunteers. Psychopharmacology (Berl), 151 (4), 416–423.
Kennedy, D. O., Scholey, A. B., & Wesnes, K. A. (2001). Differential, dose-dependent changes in cognitive performance
following acute administration of Gingko biloba/Panax ginseng combination to healthy young volunteers. Nutrition and
Neuroscience, 4(5), 399–412.
Le Bars, P. L., Kieser, M., & Itil, K. Z. (2000). A 26-week analysis of a double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of gingko biloba
extract EGb 761 dementia. Dementia and Geriatric Cognitive Disorders. 11(4), 230–237.
Le Bars, P. L., Velasco, F. M., Ferguson, J.M., Dessain, E. C., Kieser, M., &Hoerr, R. (2002). Influence of the severity of
cognitive impairment on the effect of Gingko Biloba extract EGb 761 in Alzheimer’s disease. Neuropsychobiology, 45(1),
19–26.
Murray, F. (1996). Gingko biloba: Therapeutic and antioxidant properties of the “tree of health” (Keats Good Herb Guide) .
Keats Publishing.
Rigney U, Kimber S, Hindmarch I. (1999). “The effects of acute doses of standardized Gingko biloba extract on memory and
psychomotor performance in volunteers.” Phytotherapy Research, Aug: 13(5), 408–415.
Solomon, P.R., Adams, F., Silver, A., Zimmer, J., & DeVeaux, R. (2002). Gingko for memory enhancement: A randomized
controlled trial. Journal of the American Medical Association, 288 (7), 835–840.
Alzheimer’s disease tragically afflicts many elderly people each year, resulting in a gradual deterioration
of memory, reasoning ability, and personality. Even more disturbing is that the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s
can only be made conclusively upon autopsy, when the plaques and tangles in the brain, characteristic of
the disorder, can be confirmed. Recently, however, the results of an archival study have suggested that
linguistic markers may predict Alzheimer’s with some degree of accuracy.
David Snowdon, an epidemiologist at the University of Kentucky, led a research team that
examined the writings of 93 nuns. In the 1930s, when these women entered a Milwaukee convent, they
composed brief autobiographical essays, which subsequently were scored by Snowdon’s team for
linguistic markers such as the density of ideas or grammatical complexity. For example, a nun who might
have written “I plan to give my all to God” probably would score low on such measures, whereas a nun
who composed the beatitude “I long to linger in the sweet garden of Christ, rejoicing in the splendor that
He is and thanking Him daily for His abundances” might not win a literature contest, but certainly shows
a greater degree of complexity in her writing. All of the nuns lived under highly similar conditions. Sixty
years later, however, those nuns who scored low on the psycholinguistic markers were more prone to
develop Alzheimer’s. Of the 14 nuns who had died, in fact, five had low idea density scores, and all five
had Alzheimer’s disease.
What this reveals about the course of Alzheimer’s is still something of a mystery. It may be, for
example, that as young women these nuns were already showing signs of the disorder, suggesting that
Alzheimer’s develops slowly and insidiously over a prolonged period of time. Studies showing that some
forms of Alzheimer’s can afflict people in their 20’s complement this idea. An alternative, however, is
that linguistic skills may offer some “immunity” to the development of Alzheimer’s, much as the adage
“use it or lose it” suggests. Perhaps those nuns with more highly developed linguistic ability were better
able to stave off the effects of this disorder. As with most studies of this nature, the causality of events
remains murky. Other archival data, or other markers of ability (such as mathematics scores, or measures
of reasoning or memory) may shed more light on this encouraging line of research.
Indeed, Snowdon and his associates have imposed on the generous nuns of the School Sisters of
Notre Dame one more time. The research team has recently discovered an important link between strokes
and declines in mental abilities seen in Alzheimer’s patients. Among 61 deceased nuns whose brains all
clearly showed signs of Alzheimer’s, 19 seemed in life to have escaped the confusion, dementia, and
mental deterioration so characteristic of the disease. In one case, a 101-year-old nun remained, by all
accounts, as sharp as a tack, even though her brain was a battlefield of plagues, tangles, and gaping holes.
The key was that she, like 18 of the others, had not suffered from strokes during old age. In fact, only
57% of stroke-free nuns developed Alzheimer’s, compared to 93% of nuns who had a history of
ministrokes. In an additional comparison, Snowdon looked at the brains of 41 nuns who did not have
Alzheimer’s-like brains but who had suffered strokes; these women had no significant decrease in their
overall mental competence.
An avenue for treatment suggests itself. By preventing strokes it may be possible to delay the
onset of symptoms in Alzheimer’s patients. The “double-whammy” of dealing with two brain diseases in
a single individual may be halved, providing substantial comfort to those dealing with Alzheimer’s.
“Worldly books”? Yes; very certainly, when you know which they are;
for I will have you to abjure, with World, Flesh, and Devil, the
literature of all the three:—and your music and drawing,—that is to
say, all music and drawing which you have learned only for your own
glory or amusement, and respecting which you have no idea that it
may ever become, in a far truer sense, other people’s music and
drawing.
For all the arts of mankind, and womankind, are only rightly learned,
or practised, when they are so with the definite purpose of pleasing
or teaching others. A child dancing for its own delight,—a lamb
leaping,—or a fawn at play, are happy and holy creatures; but they
are not artists. An artist is—and recollect this definition, (put in
capitals for quick reference,)—a person who has submitted to a
law which it was painful to obey, that he may bestow a
delight which it is gracious to bestow. 2 [302]
“A painful law,” I say; yet full of pain, not in the sense of torture, but
of stringency, or constraint; and labour, increasing, it may be,
sometimes into aching of limbs, and panting of breasts: but these
stronger yet, for every ache, and broader for every pant; and farther
and farther strengthened from danger of rheumatic ache, and
consumptive pant.
And the two points had better at first be placed at the small distance
of an inch from each other, both because it is easy to draw so short a
line, and because it is well for us to know, early in life, the look of the
length of an inch. And when we have learned the look of our own
English inch, we will proceed to learn the look of that which will
probably be our currency measure of length, the French inch, for that
is a better standard than ours, for European acceptance.
But this, I beg my readers to observe, will be the seventh large book
I have actually at this time passing through the press; 5 besides
having written and published four volumes of university lectures 6 in
the [306]last six years; every word of them weighed with care. This is
what I observe the ‘Daily Telegraph’ calls giving ‘utterances few and
far between.’ But it is as much certainly as I am able at present to
manage; and I must beg my correspondents, therefore, to have
generally patience with me when I don’t answer their letters by return
of post; and above all things, to write them clear, and in a round
hand, with all the ms and ns well distinguished from us.
The woodcut, indeed, prepared for this Fors was to have been a
lesson in writing; but that must wait till next year, now; meantime you
may best prepare yourself for that, and all other lessons to be given
in my new edition of the Elements of Drawing, by beginning to form
your own cherished and orderly treasures of beautiful art. For
although the greatest treasury in that kind, belonging to St. George’s
Company, will be as often aforesaid public property, in our museums,
every householder of any standing whatever among us will also have
his own domestic treasury, becoming hereditary as accumulative;
and accurately catalogued, so that others may know what peculiar or
separate good things are to be found in his house, and have
graciously permitted use of them if true necessity be.
With the last we must at present class, and largely use, the more
perishable treasure of good photographs; these, however, I do not
doubt but that modern science will succeed, (if it has not already
done so,) in rendering permanent; and, at all events, permanent
copies of many may soon be placed in all our schools. Of such
domestic treasure we will begin with a photograph of the picture by
Fra Filippo Lippi, representing the Madonna; which picture last year
had its place over the door of the inner room of the Uffizii of
Florence, beyond the Tribune. This photograph can of course
eventually be procured in any numbers; and, assuming that my
readers will get one, I shall endeavour in this and future numbers of
Fors, to make it useful to them, and therefore a treasure. 7
The first thing you are to observe in it is that the figures are
represented as projecting in front of a frame or window-sill. The
picture belongs, therefore, to the class meant to be, as far as
possible, deceptively like reality; and is in this respect entirely
companionable with one long known in our picture-shops, and
greatly popular with the British innkeeper, of a smuggler on the look-
out, with his hand and pistol projecting [308]over the window-sill. The
only differences in purpose between the painter of this Anglican
subject and the Florentine’s, are, first, that the Florentine wishes to
give the impression, not of a smuggler’s being in the same room with
you, but of the Virgin and Child’s being so; and, secondly, that in this
representation he wishes not merely to attain deceptive reality; but to
concentrate all the skill and thought that his hand and mind possess,
in making that reality noble.
Next, you are to observe that with this unusually positive realism of
representation, there is also an unusually mystic spiritualism of
conception. Nearly all the Madonnas, even of the most strictly
devotional schools, themselves support the child, either on their
knees or in their arms. But here, the Christ is miraculously borne by
angels;—the Madonna, though seated on her throne, worships with
both hands lifted.
Thirdly, you will at first be pained by the decision of line, and, in the
children at least, uncomeliness of feature, which are characteristic,
the first, of purely-descended Etruscan work; the second, of the
Florentine school headed afterwards by Donatello. But it is
absolutely necessary, for right progress in knowledge, that you begin
by observing and tracing decisive lines; and that you consider dignity
and simplicity of expression more than beauty of feature. Remember
also that a photograph necessarily loses the most subtle beauty
[309]of all things, because it cannot represent blue or grey colours, 8
and darkens red ones; so that all glowing and warm shadows
become too dark. Be assured, nevertheless, that you have in this
photograph, imperfect as it is, a most precious shadow and image of
one of the greatest works ever produced by hand of man: and begin
the study of it piece by piece. If you fancy yourself able to draw at all,
you may begin by practice over and over again the little angular
band on the forehead, with its studs, and the connected chain of
pearls. There are seven pearls and fourteen studs; the fifteenth, a
little larger, at the angle of the transparent cap; and four more,
retiring. They are to be drawn with a fine brush and sepia, measuring
the exact length of the band first; then marking its double curve,
depressed in the centre, and rising over the hair, and then the studs
and pearls in their various magnitudes. If you can’t manage these,
try the spiral of the chair; if not that, buy a penny’s worth of marbles
and draw them in a row, and pick up a snail shell, and meditate upon
it, if you have any time for meditation. And in my Christmas Fors I
will tell you something about marbles, and beads, and coral, and
pearls, and shells; and in time—it is quite possible—you may be able
to draw a boy’s marble and a snail’s shell; and a sea urchin; and a
Doric capital; and an Ionic capital; and a Parthenon, and a Virgin in
[310]it; and a Solomon’s Temple, and a Spirit of Wisdom in it; and a
Nehemiah’s Temple, and a Madonna in it.
Of public, or museum property in art, I have this month laid also the
minute foundation, by the purchase, for our schools, of the
engravings named in the annexed printseller’s account. 9
For these two principal reasons, (and not without further direction
from Fors of a very distinct nature,) I expressed, some time since,
my purpose to place the first museum of the St. George’s Company
at Sheffield.
Whereupon, I received a letter, very well and kindly meant, from Mr.
Bragge, offering me space in the existing Sheffield museum for
whatever I chose to put there: Mr. Bragge very naturally supposing
that this would be the simplest mode of operation for me; and the
most immediately advantageous to the town. To that (as I supposed
private) communication I replied, in what I meant to be a private
letter; which letter Mr. Bragge, without asking my permission, read at
a public dinner, with public comment on what he imagined to be the
state of my health.
Now, I never wrote a letter in my life which all the world are not
welcome to read, if they will: and as Fors would have it so, I am glad
this letter was read [312]aloud, and widely circulated: only, I beg Mr.
Bragge and the other gentlemen who have kindly interested
themselves in the existing Sheffield museum to understand that, had
I intended the letter for publicity, it would have been couched in more
courteous terms, and extended into clearer explanation of my
singular and apparently perverse conduct in what I observe the
Sheffield press, since it has had possession of the letter in question,
characterizes as “setting up an opposition museum at Walkley.”
The workmen who have leisure to enter on this course of study will
also, I believe, have leisure to walk to Walkley. The museum has
been set there, not by me, but by the second Fors, (Lachesis,) on
the top of a high and steep hill,—with only my most admiring
concurrence in her apparent intention that the approach to it may be
at once symbolically instructive, and practically sanitary. [315]
[Contents]
“In the English Prayer-book ‘set’ has the same meaning as in Psalm
lxxviii. ver. 9 ↗️ (sic: the writer means ver. 8 ↗️); and the context
shows the ‘rest and quietness’ desired, to be rest and quietness of
spirit.”
The ‘context’ cannot show anything of the sort, for the sentence is an
entirely independent one: and the MS. I use is not a Breviary, but the
most perfect Psalter and full service, including all the hymns quoted
by Dante, that I have seen in English thirteenth-century writing. The
omission of the word ‘dedita’ makes not the smallest difference to
the point at issue—which is not the mistranslation of a word, but the
breaking of a clause. The mistranslation nevertheless exists also;
precisely because, in the English Prayer-book, ‘set’ has the same
meaning as in Psalm lxxviii ↗️.; where the Latin word is ‘direxit,’ not
‘dedit’; and where discipline is meant, not surrender.
I must reserve my comments on the two most important letters next
following, for large type and more leisure. [316]
II. “I hope that you will live to see Fors and everything printed without
steam: it’s the very curse and unmaking of us. I can see it dreadfully
in every workman that I come across. Since I have been so happily
mixed up with you these eighteen years, great changes have taken
place in workmen. It was beginning fearfully when I last worked as a
journeyman. One instance among many:—The head foreman came
to me at Messrs. Bakers’, and threatened discharge if he caught me
using a hand bow-saw to cut a little circular disc, which I could have
done in ten minutes. I then had to go and wait my turn at the endless
steam saw—or, as commonly called, a band saw. I had to wait an
hour and a half to take my turn: the steam saw did it in perhaps three
minutes; but the head foreman said, ‘We’ve gone to great expense
for steam machinery, and what is the use if we don’t employ it?’ This
little occurrence was by no means uncommon. What workpeople
have been brought to is beyond conception, in tone of feeling and
character. Here, as I have told you, we do all we can ourselves,
indoors and out; have no servant, but make the children do: and
because we are living in a tidy-sized house, and a good piece of
ground, the labouring people make a dead set against us because
we are not dependent upon them, and have even combined to
defeat us in getting a charwoman now and then. We ought, I
suppose, to employ two servants, whether we can pay for them or
not, or even obtain them (which we couldn’t). They have been
picking hops here next our hedge: this is done by people in the
neighbourhood, not imported pickers; and their children called over
the hedge to ours, and said, ‘Your mother is not a lady; she don’t
keep a servant, but does the work herself.’ I name this little incident
because it seems so deep.”
III. “My dear Mr. Ruskin,—I write to ask leave to come and enter my
name on the Roll of Companions of the Company of [317]St.
George. 10 I have seen enough and read enough of the pace at which
we are going, more especially in business matters, to make me long
to see some effort made to win back some of the honesty and
simplicity of our fathers. And although I am afraid I can be but of very
little use to the Company, I would gladly do anything that lay within
my power; and it would be a great help to feel oneself associated
with others, however feebly, in a practical work.
“And this brings me to the point I want to put to you about the
permitted use of the sewing machine (see Fors XXXIV., p. 30 ↗️). 11 It
may seem unreasonable, when our firm employs so many. But it
seems to me that the admission of machinery at all is unwise in
principle. Machinery, especially the sewing machine, has
demoralized the shoe trade,—the same I think you would find in all
other trades,—notably in piece-goods for ladies’ dresses—which,
owing to the cheapness with which they can be made up, are far
more in number than they could have been if no sewing machine
had been used. And a manufacturer told me, only the other day, that
common piece-goods, both woollen and others, take as much and
generally more labour in making than the best. If all work required to
supply clothing to the race were to be done by hand, it would be
worth no one’s while to make rubbish of any kind,—the work would
be done by fewer people, and all raw material would be cheapened.
“In your advice to a young lady, printed at page 29, Letter XXXIV ↗️.,
in the third volume of Fors Clavigera, you give her permission to use
a sewing machine. I hope that, on fuller consideration of the subject,
you will advise all who set the weal of their country above their own
convenience, to discontinue its use wherever it can possibly be
dispensed with. [319]
“For the effect of the sewing machine upon the great industries
connected with clothing has been most disastrous.
“But with the introduction of the sewing machine a great change took
place. It would be impossible within the limits of a letter to follow it
out in every trade which has felt its influence. But briefly,—when it
was found that the stitching process could be got through, though
less solidly, at a very much reduced cost, it became possible for all
classes to have dresses, clothes, and shoes in far greater number,
and to embody in all kinds of clothing a larger amount of useless and
elaborate work.
“It may be said that the customer is not cheated; since he knows,
when he buys what is called a cheap thing, that it is not the best. I
reply that the consumer never knows to the full what bad value, or
unvalue, the common article is. And whose fault is it that he buys
any but the best value?
“Now the use of the sewing machine has been all in favour of the
‘three-coat’ system, indefinitely multiplied and variously
recommended; and the consequent absorption, year by year, of
larger numbers of persons in mechanical toil; toil of the hands only—
numbing to the brain, and blighting to the heart, or maddening to
both.
“So far as the question of clothing is concerned, I would venture to
sum up our duty under present circumstances, broadly, as follows.”
[It can’t possibly be done better.—J. R.]
“Always demand the best materials, and use no more of them than is
necessary to dress yourselves neatly or handsomely, according to
your station in society. Then have these materials made up by hand,
if possible under your own supervision, paying a just price for the
labour. For such ornament as you need to add, remember that it
must be the expression, first of your delight in some work of God’s,
and then, of the human skill that wrought it. This will save you from
ever tampering with the lifeless machine-work; and though you have
little ornament, it will soon be lovely and right.
(“I use the word ‘value’ for the strength or ‘availing of a thing towards
life.’ See Munera Pulveris, p. 10.”)
“Dear Mr. Ruskin,—We have only just read the September number
of Fors Clavigera. My husband is the Ned G—— referred to in the
letter you quote from E. L. Said he, ‘It (i.e., the letter) is not worth
notice.’ I replied, ‘In itself perhaps not; but I have known Mr. Ruskin
in his writings many years, and I shall write him to put before him the
actual facts, and request him to withdraw these misstatements.’ The
whole letter is written on the supposition that Mr. Green is an iron
king, or iron lord. No such thing: he is an engineer—quite a different
affair; the maker of a patent which is known all over the world as the
‘Fuel Economiser.’ He consequently never had a forge, and is
indebted to the use of his intellect and the very clever mechanical
genius of his father for their rise in life, and not merely to toiling half-
naked Britons, as stated. The picture of the forge, with its foul smoke
and sweltering heat and din, is drawn from some other place, and is
utterly unlike the real workshops of E. Green and Son—costly, airy,
convenient, and erected to ensure the comfort of the workpeople,
having a handsome front and lofty interior.
“As to the Scotch estate, Mr. Green does not possess one.
“No squire has lived here for a century and a quarter; and the
[325]last descendant of the venerated Lady B——, (Dame Mary
Bolles, that is,) utterly refused to reside near so dull a town as
Wakefield—preferring Bath, then at the height of its glory and Beau