Multiple Trace Theory
Multiple Trace Theory (MTT) is a memory consolidation model advanced as an alternative model to strength theory. It posits that each time some information is presented to a person, it is neurally encoded in a unique memory trace composed of a combination of its attributes. Further support for this theory came in the 1960s from empirical findings that people could remember specific attributes about an object without remembering the object itself. The mode in which the information is presented and subsequently encoded can be flexibly incorporated into the model. This memory trace is unique from all others resembling it due to differences in some aspects of the item's attributes, and all memory traces incorporated since birth are combined into a multiple-trace representation in the brain. In memory research, a mathematical formulation of this theory can successfully explain empirical phenomena observed in recognition and recall tasks.
Read more about Multiple Trace Theory: Attributes, Mathematical Formulation, Shortcomings of Multiple Trace Theory
Famous quotes containing the words multiple, trace and/or theory:
“... the generation of the 20’s was truly secular in that it still knew its theology and its varieties of religious experience. We are post-secular, inventing new faiths, without any sense of organizing truths. The truths we accept are so multiple that honesty becomes little more than a strategy by which you manage your tendencies toward duplicity.”
—Ann Douglas (b. 1942)
“The land of shadows wilt thou trace
And look nor know each other’s face
The present mixed with reasons gone
And past and present all as one
Say maiden can thy life be led
To join the living with the dead
Then trace thy footsteps on with me
We’re wed to one eternity”
—John Clare (1793–1864)
“Many people have an oversimplified picture of bonding that could be called the “epoxy” theory of relationships...if you don’t get properly “glued” to your babies at exactly the right time, which only occurs very soon after birth, then you will have missed your chance.”
—Pamela Patrick Novotny (20th century)