TTC VIDEO - Memory and the Human Lifespan - Steve Joordens
Language: English
AVI | 1641kbps | 640 x 480 29.97fps | MP3 128kbps | 8.30 GB
Genre: E-Learning

If all of these memories were gone, would "self" even have a meaning?

The truth is that while you may think of human memory as a capacity—a way to call up important facts or episodes from your past—it is much, much more.

Your various memory systems, in fact, provide the continuity of consciousness that allows the concept of "you" to make sense, creating the ongoing narrative that makes your life truly yours. Without those systems and the overall experience of memory they make possible, you would have no context for the most crucial decisions of your life. You would have to make—without the benefit of experience and knowledge—the decisions that determine not only your quality of life, but your very survival. And your ability to learn, or even to form the personality that makes you unique, would similarly be set adrift.

In Memory and the Human Lifespan, Professor Steve Joordens of the University of Toronto Scarborough, who has been repeatedly honored as both teacher and researcher, leads you on a startling voyage into the human mind, explaining not only how the various aspects of your memory operate, but the impact memory has on your daily experience of life.

His 24 riveting lectures carefully explain
the different kinds of systems that come together to make memory possible;
how those systems work together to build and access memories of specific events, solve problems, learn basic tasks like
brushing your teeth, or acquire the skills to play a musical instrument;
the kinds of memory deficits that result when various parts of the brain are damaged or deteriorate;
how memory shapes not only your experience of the past but also of the present, as well as your expectations of the future;
how your memory systems develop throughout your life; and much more.

Moreover, by understanding how the brain organizes and encodes information, you can better harness its extraordinary powers to fine-tune how it works for you and use this information to help reshape your very experience of being alive.

Stand on the Threshold of Great Discoveries

While attempts to grasp and facilitate memory date back at least to classical Greece, only now can we truly begin to understand how memory works, thanks to the advantages of science and technology that have been developing for over a century.

Working with the latest findings from memory research, Professor Joordens takes you inside the human mind, from infancy to advanced age, with a special emphasis on the variety of experiences that are characteristic of the adult mind. You'll learn
how your brain encodes, stores, and retrieves memories;
the specialized roles played by your different memory systems, including semantic, episodic, procedural, and implicit memory;
how research into the workings of the brain—once dependent on studying the deficits visited on brain-damaged patients—has made extraordinary leaps, with new technologies like functional magnetic resonance imaging allowing doctors to observe the brain at work, with no harm or discomfort to the patient.

Such scientific advances have given doctors an unprecedented understanding of those deficits. And Professor Joordens makes certain in describing that underlying science that we never lose sight of the human beings who must live with the consequences of their conditions. In an especially poignant portrait, for example, he relates the story of British musician, conductor, and singer Clive Wearing. You learn how a brain infection damaged Wearing's hippocampus, a region deep within the brain that provides, among other things, a gateway from immediate working memory to long-term memory.

Discover Startling Revelations about Human Memory

Each lecture of Memory and the Human Lifespan startles you with surprising revelations about the extraordinary subject of memory. These include
the different aspects of memory that taxi drivers must call on to do their job, as well as the difficulty of mastering the knowledge needed to pass the qualifying exam in London—a task for which two to four years of study are recommended;
the evidence of often-astonishing memory capabilities in animals, including the remarkable feats of a lobster-stealing octopus in Miami;
how the principle of perceptual fluency influences your behavior by creating subtle feelings of warm familiarity in many situations in which you aren't even aware it is operating, from writing a story to shopping to making a choice in the voting booth; and
what the latest research about so-called "recovered memories" and "false memories" may reveal about the accuracy of episodic memory itself, with implications we would do well to consider in many areas of life—including the courtroom.

While Professor Joordens has built these lectures around the latest scientific findings, he has gone to great lengths to make each one absolutely accessible. Every point is clearly explained, and every lecture is enriched with illustrative analogies and vivid anecdotes and examples. It's this same approach that has won him numerous awards and accolades for his teaching, including the President's Teaching Award—the University of Toronto's highest honor—and the Leadership in Faculty Teaching Award.

Just as important, the science is never allowed to overshadow the idea of memory as central to our very humanity. No matter how deeply into research results a lecture may go to explore the construction or retrieval of a memory, Memory and the Human Lifespan always presents the subject as a human experience—a fascinating, multilayered exploration of yourself that you'll never forget.

About Your Professor

Dr. Steve Joordens is Professor of Psychology at the University of Toronto Scarborough, where he has taught since 1995. He earned a doctorate in cognitive psychology from the University of Waterloo.

Honored repeatedly as both teacher and researcher, Professor Joordens is on the cutting edge of the emerging field of cognitive prosthetics to assist both learning-disabled patients as well as patients with Alzheimer's disease. He is a frequent speaker at professional conferences, where he consistently earns "best in session" honors.

In addition to publishing many articles on human memory, consciousness, and attention in empirical and theoretical psychology journals, Professor Joordens earned both the Premier's Research Excellence Award and the National Technology Innovation Award—the latter for the creation of an Internet-based educational platform that supports the development of critical thinking and clear communication skills in any size classroom. His teaching skills have also earned him repeated honors, including the President's Teaching Award, his university's highest teaching honor; the Scarborough College Students' Union Best Professor Award; a provincially sponsored Leadership in Faculty Teaching Award; and four nominations for Television Ontario's Best Lecturer Competition, which include two Top 10 finishes.

Lectures

01. Memory Is a Party
02. The Ancient “Art of Memory”
03. Rote Memorization and a Science of Forgetting
04. Sensory Memory—Brief Traces of the Past
05. The Conveyor Belt of Working Memory
06. Encoding—Our Gateway into Long-Term Memory
07. Episodic and Semantic Long-Term Memory
08. The Secret Passage—Implicit Memory
09. From Procedural Memory to Habit
10. When Memory Systems Battle—Habits vs. Goals
11. Sleep and the Consolidation of Memories
12. Infant and Early Childhood Memory
13. Animal Cognition and Memory
14. Mapping Memory in the Brain
15. Neural Network Models
16. Learning from Brain Damage and Amnesias
17. The Many Challenges of Alzheimer’s Disease
18. That Powerful Glow of Warm Familiarity
19. Deja Vu and the Illusion of Memory
20. Recovered Memories or False Memories?
21. Mind the Gaps! Memory as Reconstruction
22. How We Choose What's Important to Remember
23. Aging, Memory, and Cognitive Transition
24. The Monster at the End of the Book