Quetion about Memory - It's really been bothering me.

[psychometrics]

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Hello. I've been reading about Ebbingaus' forgetting curve, theories on memory, and I've probably read a few chapters on long term memory from the library, but I can't find an answer to this question that's been depressing me for the last week, and I was hoping someone here might be able to enlighten me.


Suppose a person goes to university and gets a Ph.D in a particular field. Lets say they become experts in one area of study, example intelligence testing, or they get a Ph.D in math and become an expert in topology or something. Assume they study it for years and would be considered an absolute world class expert on this subject.

Okay...now hypothetically, lets say there's some situation where this person is forced not to think about this information in their expert field for 50, 100, or 1000+ years (I know that sound crazy lol, but just to make a point).

Would ANY of the information that this person once knew be intact, or would it all diminish if not thought about over time...

In short, my question is: Is it possible for someone to ever truly memorize something Permanently, so the information is permanent stored in their memories, regardless of the amount of time that passes by? or does it have to be continuously reenforced over time, regardless of how many years the person spent learning the material....



Thanks for reading...hope you can help 🙂

 

[psychometrics]

I just read something about a "permanent memory trace" too ..but I have no idea what that means or if this would anwer me question --because i have no technical knowledge in psychology.

 

[Neuro-Dr]

Ebbinghouse' data is pretty dated and is based on word lists a number lists which have very little associative networks when stored. Based on chemical models of memory including AMPA/NMDA glutamte recepters, cAMP, Cell adhesion molecules and the like, we don't have any real data that trace-decay theory is a part of the normal long term memory system. Hippocampal based systems generally "wear out" after two years so your example would be a person who has cortical LTM stores for this information. Some would be lost to recall, but not permanently unavailable. There are numerous things in life that once learned are not forgotten (fear based amygdala response among the most salient) so sure there are things that won't decay.

I would not read his work as a good way of understanding memory

 

[Flutterbyu]

Some names to look up on this topic:

Bahrick, Harry (1975; 1984; 1991)--came up with the term "Permastore" to identify information that we encode at a much deeper level. He saw a curve similar to the Ebbinghaus studies in which there is a significant decline in the first 3 years, followed by a period of stability that lasts about 20 years, and is followed by a significant loss after 35 years.

Neisser, Ulric (work in the 80s)--critical of the concept of "Permastore" but suggests that schematically based information is relatively perserved for a long period of time; I can't remember details of his work (ha!) but he definitely talks about the subject in several papers.

Conway, 1989--he says that detailed information is more vulnerable to forgetting and he contrasted specific knowledge with conceptual knowledge from structured domains (saw a decline in concepts less than actual names and facts--kind of what we would assume).

So I don't have an answer to this question, but because I am studying to specialize in neuropsych, these are just come of the resources I have used to investigate similar phenomena. The references aren't the most modern, but they may be useful in developing further hypotheses.