Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 The cognitive science of religion: a new alternative in biblical studies
- 2 Past minds: evolution, cognition, and biblical studies
- I Memory and the transmission of biblical traditions
- 3 How religions remember: memory theories in biblical studies and in the cognitive study of religion
- 4 Rethinking biblical transmission: insights from the cognitive neuroscience of memory
- 5 The interface of ritual and writing in the transmission of early Christian traditions
- 6 Computer modeling of cognitive processes in biblical studies: the primacy of urban Christianity as a test case
- 7 “I was El Shaddai, but now I'm Yahweh”: God names and the informational dynamics of biblical texts
- II Ritual and magic
- III Altruism, morality, and cooperation
- Bibliography
- Index of modern authors
- Subject index
4 - Rethinking biblical transmission: insights from the cognitive neuroscience of memory
from I - Memory and the transmission of biblical traditions
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 The cognitive science of religion: a new alternative in biblical studies
- 2 Past minds: evolution, cognition, and biblical studies
- I Memory and the transmission of biblical traditions
- 3 How religions remember: memory theories in biblical studies and in the cognitive study of religion
- 4 Rethinking biblical transmission: insights from the cognitive neuroscience of memory
- 5 The interface of ritual and writing in the transmission of early Christian traditions
- 6 Computer modeling of cognitive processes in biblical studies: the primacy of urban Christianity as a test case
- 7 “I was El Shaddai, but now I'm Yahweh”: God names and the informational dynamics of biblical texts
- II Ritual and magic
- III Altruism, morality, and cooperation
- Bibliography
- Index of modern authors
- Subject index
Summary
MEMORY IN THE BRAIN
The single most well-known person in the history of the neuroscientific study of memory was not a scholar but a patient: Henry Gustav Molaison (1926–2008), known from the literature as H.M. (Carey 2008; Eichenbaum 2012: 87–92; Squire & Kandel 1999: 11–4). In 1953, in an attempt to relieve his severe epilepsy, a part of H.M.'s brain was removed, including his hip-pocampus (Figure 4.1). From the day of his operation, H.M. forgot new events as soon as they happened. Whenever psychologist Brenda Miller entered his room for the forty years during which they worked together, H.M. failed to recognize her. As years went on, he could not recognize himself on a photo, because he was not able to make memories of his own changing appearance. At the same time, he did not lose his memories from the time well before the operation and retained his cognitive abilities. In order to remember new pieces of information (such as numbers or words) he performed various mental manipulations, but he eventually forgot them after a few minutes. His favorite pastime was to solve difficult crossword puzzles. Remarkably, although he was unable to memorize events or faces, he was able to learn new skills, such as drawing a figure by looking at its reflection in a mirror.
Cognitive psychologists traditionally distinguish three stages involved in learning and memory: encoding, storage, and retrieval (Eysenck 2004: 291).
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- Mind, Morality and MagicCognitive Science Approaches in Biblical Studies, pp. 43 - 61Publisher: Acumen PublishingPrint publication year: 2013