On Memory - IV Instincts

A memory is an event or object stored in your brain.  Memories are neither perceptive nor conceptive as these are more-or-less contemporary events.  Objects of the memory are therefore objects of the past.   The principle two types of memory are the acts of remembering and of recollection.  Recollection can be regarded as imperfect memory that singles out similarities with perhaps a large group of memories each having some commonality to the presence of event at hand.   In this note, we expand the idea of memory beyond remembering and recalling.  These are the more subtle memories we need and which allow us to survive and thrive.

Instincts.  First, consider a new approach to instinct.  It is differentiated from the hard-wired instincts (discussed below).  It is discussed here as a aspect of possible forgotten memory.  It forms a type of memory in the sense that when an event occurs, there can result an “instinctive” reaction without the benefit of either recall or remembering.  The actual memory can be long gone, but when there is a similar presentation at hand, the brain offers up a response – sometimes an emotion and sometimes a state of mind.  This resembles relational recall but yet is very much different.   It is important to understand these new types of instincts should not be classified as learned responses, but they are a response due to some long ago and forgotten memory.   Such memories are not learned in the sense of cognizant learning associated with both remembering and recollection.   These instincts provide us with early warning systems, rapid response system, and other mental states requiring a sudden response. 

Mind States.  Second, consider an event the result of which doesn’t trigger an action, but rather it stimulates a state of mind.  This means that one enters a zone whereby there results a mind-altering state.  Such events can engender a sense of peace, or panic, or energized toward a particular activity.  Again, with this state there is no particular associated memory, remembered or recalled, though there is certainly some distant event likely forgotten that triggers this state.  It could be church music, reverence, passion, a library, a passage of reading, some aphorism, or perhaps even the architecture of a building’s interior.   Often a sense-stimulus provides the trigger.

Phobias.  Phobias have been well studied.  They are a type of anxiety disorder, defined as a persistent fear and avoided intently.   It is often asymmetrical to the actual danger of the object feared.  There seem to be three origins of phobias:  (i) classical conditioning, i.e. of the Pavlovian nature, (ii) cicarious fear acquisition, i.e. learning a fear from someone else such as a child from a parent, and (iii) informational fear acquisitions – i.e. a fear derived from the study of a particular object.  Of course, with books written on phobias and specialists to treat them clinically, they are substantially classified.  Thankfully,  the classifications are sensible and brief.  There are three principle types: (i) social phobias – a fear of people or social situations, (ii) specific phobias such ad of snakes or spiders, and (iii) agoraphobia – a broad phobic class specifically related to the fear of leaving a safe place.    The important point here is that phobias are fears that are set by specific events or stimuli, but are of an intense nature.  Instincts, as developed above, are a far broader class of reactions to events not particularly with an accompanying fear. 

Phobias and probably instincts of this new type, seem to have their biochemistry rooted deep in the brain within the amygdala and with the hippocampus involved in fixing them to memory.  Like instincts, there origin may not be remembered.    Indeed, using terms from computing, instincts may be lodged in something like inaccessible memory, meaning its origin may not be discovered by any means.  Alternatively, they may be a form of residual memory, i.e. a trace only. 

The Classification.  Let’s consider the list below.  Assume some event takes place in the form of a situation of almost any type.  The mind sees the presentation of this event.  First mental possible responses include:

A.    Remembering – the mind generates a past (remembered) presentation, usually similar to the event.

B.     Recollection – the quick recall of something related but using a mental process that uses a coarse scan of similar presentations.  It moves from past situation until another until a sufficiency is obtained.

C.     State of mind – the event engenders something of a change of the state of mind allowing it to function on a plane other than normal.

D.    Instinct – A strong rapid response toward some action in consequence.

E.     Intuition – A particular feeling about the event leading to recourse of action – sometime associated with vague recollections.

F.      Phobia – a disproportional fear anxiety to a learned or unlearned event in one’s past.

If the event is a problem to be solved, there are other mechanisms at play, including D and E.  We have reported on this previously.  For our purposes, we should suppose this event is not a problem.   For problems, the brain uses an entire array of alternative tools.

This note expands the concept of instinct.   The MacMillan dictionary definition reads, “a natural tendency to behave in a particular way that people and animals are born with and that they obey without knowing why.”  The Collins dictionary definition gives two versions, “the innate capacity of an animal to respond to a given stimulus in a relatively fixed way, and inborn intuitive power.  Both imply that instincts are more-or-less hard-wired into the brain.   The interesting article in Wikipedia clarifies instincts only as hard-wired as “Any behavior is instinctive if it is performed without being based upon prior experience (that is, in the absence of learning), and is therefore an expression of innate biological factors.”  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instinct)

One author claims there are but three human instincts, those of worship [Wade, 2009] procreation, and toward survival, the last two constituting a working kit for the species continuation.  Another author (http://news.discovery.com/adventure/survival/6-types-of-natural-instincts.htm) gives six basic instincts:  fear, anxiety, anger/frustration, depression, loneliness/boredom, and guilt. These might be terms the psychological six.     Other authors claim an indeterminate number.  Of the claims are instincts of, courage, hope, hunger, thirst, sleep, sex, blushing, emotional contagion, yawning, jealousy, and even language [Pinker, 1994].  There is something of a comprehensive list of thirty eight possible instincts at http://www.cs.indiana.edu/~port/teach/205/instinct.list.html.

The 1961 book  Instinct: An Enduring Problem in Psychology,b y Robert C. Birney, Richard C. Teevan posits criteria for instinctual behavior as follows.   Such a behavior must:  a) be automatic, b) be irresistible, c) occur at some point in development, d) be triggered by some event in the environment, e) occur in every member of the species, f) be unmodifiable, and g) govern behavior for which the organism needs no training (although the organism may profit from experience and to that degree the behavior is modifiable).  Whether all seven criteria must be satisfied simultaneously is unclear, likely not.  Instincts are in many cases modifiable over time, and vary throughout the species.  To require (e) above, is quite a strong condition nearly implying “hard-wiring.”

Conclusion. What we have done here is use the term instinct for a different type of memory – a rather deep personal memory with no associated or remembered events but yet functions very much within the scope of regular instincts. It applies to many circumstances and even problem solving when there is scarcely any substance to work with.   In the animal kingdom, such instincts may be the dominant form of memory.  Among humans, it is one more of many mental systems available.

References

Anderson, Norman H. (1997). Functional MemoryVersus Reproductive Memory. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 20 (1):19-20.

Aristotle, On Memory and Reminiscence.

Bergson, Henri,  (1991/2004). Matter and Memory. MIT Press.

Birney, Robert C. and Richard C. Teevan (1961). Instinct: An Enduring Problem in Psychology, van Nostrand. 

Gersley, Erin, (2001) Phobias: Causes and Treatments, AllPsych Journal.

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition

Pinker, S. (1994) The Language Instinct. New York: Harper Perennial Modern Classics.

Wade, N. (2009). The faith instinct: How religion evolved and why it endures. New York: Penguin Press.
Wood, Samuel E. & Ellen Green Wood. (1999). The World of Psychology: 3rd Edition      Needham Heights: Viacom.

Other parts of this Memory series
On Memory – I Basics, http://used-ideas.blogspot.com/2012/11/on-memory-part-i-basics.html

On Memory – II Relational Recall, http://used-ideas.blogspot.com/2012/12/on-memory-ii-relational-recall.html

On Memory - Part III The Schools, http://used-ideas.blogspot.com/2012/12/on-memory-part-iii-schools.html