CHAPTER X
DISORDERS OF MEMORY
Many patients suffering from various nervous symptoms insist that they are losing their memory or that it is becoming notably deficient in some ways. If they are a little on in years they are sure that their memory is not as good as it used to be and that they now forget many things that were formerly remembered without difficulty. Especially are they likely to assert that the names of people and certain words will not come to them when they want them, that they often have to seek for facts and dates that should be quite familiar, that they fail to remember acquaintances and the like. These symptoms of which they complain are often sources of considerable worry and serve to emphasize in them the idea that there is something serious the matter with their general health, or some pathological condition developing in their brain. They have heard much of loss of memory as a sign of degenerative nervous diseases and they are prone to think that their own special loss of memory, be it real or imaginary, must be a forerunner, or perhaps even an early symptom, of some important organic lesion.
This idea of progressive memory disturbance as a preliminary of nervous breakdown often becomes so firmly fixed as to be of itself a profound source of anxiety to patients, and an almost unspeakable dread. So it is important to make them understand what the real nature of their condition is and what their loss of memory, supposed or real, is due to. As a matter of fact, what many of these patients need is not treatment for a diseased memory, but reassurance from what we know about the psychology of memory, that their troubles are only quite natural incidents in the life history of their particular memory [{679}] faculty. Many a man who is worrying about his supposed loss of memory or, at least, impairment of it in some way, is not suffering from a true pathological condition, but is usually the victim only of some functional disturbance of the nervous system with the neurotic anxiety and heightened introspection that accompanies such a condition.
Reasons for Memory Difficulties.—Nervous patients particularly complain that they do not remember what they wish to as easily as they used to a few years before. They say that it is much more difficult for them to impress things upon their memories and, in addition, that it is much easier for them to forget. There are three quite natural reasons for these phenomena as far as they actually exist, which should be pointed out to these patients. The first and most important is that they are incapable of that concentration of mind which they had in earlier years and which enabled them to give themselves up so completely to the consideration of a particular subject that it could not help but be impressed on their minds. They are now so much occupied with many other things, and, above all, most of these patients are so preoccupied with themselves that they cannot hope to have the concentration of mind that was comparatively easy when they were younger and is now impaired, but which is so necessary for the enduring remembrance of things. Secondly, their over-anxiety to remember things sometimes acts as an inhibitory motive in securing that deep, impression that will enable them to remember details very well. Thirdly, their supposed impairment of memory is due to a false judgment with regard to themselves. They are not comparing their power of memory now with what they used to have, but owing to anxiety about themselves they have taken to comparing themselves with others and, after all, the faculty of memory acts very differently for different people and it is well known that what one man remembers with ease another recalls with difficulty, or only because of special attention.
Attention and Memory.—The first of these causes for supposed impairment deserves to be discussed further. It is often said that as we grow older our memory is not so retentive as it used to be, and that while we remember the events of boyhood and the things we learned in the early years of school life, our recollection of recent events and things learned in later years is much less vivid. This is all very true, but the reason usually given, that in the meantime our memories have failed in power is inconclusive. What we learned in early childhood came to us with the surprise of novelty and for this reason we paid close attention, it was new and impressed us with its importance, it was dwelt upon for long periods and often, because there was little else to think about, has been frequently recalled since and, of course, is indelibly impressed upon our memories. The same thing is true with regard to early acquaintances. We got to know them so well that, of course, we cannot forget them. What we have learned in later life, however, has come in the midst of many other things, has not been dwelt on very long, has not been often recalled and, of course, occupies much less place in the memory than the things of earlier life. That is not, however, because of any defect in memory, but because of lack of attention and repetition that means so much for memory.
Age and Memory.—It is often said that people do not learn so readily when they get older. This is, of course, a truth of common experience, but [{680}] it is not because of dullness of the faculty of memory, but failure to concentrate the attention sufficiently for memorizing. I have known old men who could learn things just as well as any young man and indeed better than most of them. They were men who had been accustomed all their lives to concentrate attention on the subject they had in hand and who did not allow the cares and worries of life to intrude on their studies. Cato learning Greek at eighty is often quoted as an exceptional example, but I have had some dear old friends who could learn things quite as readily as younger men and whose minds were just as bright and clear. Whenever they devoted as much attention to anything that they wanted to remember as they did when they were younger men, I am sure that they remembered quite as well. It is a question of attention and not of any loss of faculty that makes the difference between the memory of the young and the old until, of course, senile impairment actually comes.
Solicitude and Memory.—Everyone who has had to depend much on his memory knows that over-anxiety with regard to the recollection of anything may seriously inhibit the power to recall it. Public speakers know that to hesitate is to be lost. If they want a particular name or word which they know often escapes them, they must with confidence begin the sentence in which it is to occur, though perhaps wondering all the time whether the word will be on hand or not for them to use it. Occasionally it will not come, but as a rule it turns up just in time. If they allow themselves to be disturbed by the thought that the word or expression may not come, then they know the hopeless vacant blank that stares them in the face when they want it. They have to make a circumlocution in the hope that it may turn up. Some let it go at that, but many start another sentence in the hope to tempt it to come and often it will eventually come, but sometimes it persistently refuses to come. That is not a loss of memory but a failure of neuron connections. There are some of us who know that certain words will always do that with us. Archimedes has bothered me for years and his name will often not come when I want it. Then there are certain words with regard to which transposition is likely to take place. We involuntarily and unconsciously substitute one word for another. We call one man by another's name. We have done it before and we know that we are likely to do it again. Somehow the connections in memory exist along these wrong lines and are constantly mismade. The name of something a man has written comes up instead of his name. This heterophemia is often noted in men of excellent memory.
Peculiarities of Memory.—Memory is an illusive and elusive function at best. All of us have had the sensation of having a word, and particularly a name, on the tip of our tongues. We often know the first letter and sometimes the first syllable of it. What memory brings to us, however, may not always be the first syllable of a word or name, though we are prone to think it must be, and we may go looking for it in the dictionary of names only to discover after a time that we are many letters away from its beginning. Very often we have to give up seeking in sheer inability to get a hint of it and then of itself it will come a little later. Sometimes it will come when we no longer want it. As a rule, words that have escaped us once in this way are prone to do so again. Over and over again the experience will be that [{681}] a particular word or group of words escapes our memory, or at least fails to be at our command, as most other things are. Those of us who are not much given to introspection take no notice of these difficulties which are common-place experiences enough, but the man or the woman who is looking for symptoms, who is prone to believe for some reason or other that his or her memory is failing, will take these hints of the more or less natural fallacy of memory as confirmations, strong as direct proof of the fact that memory is seriously deteriorating.
Such pauses and lapses of memory are much more likely to occur if we are nervous and over-anxious about possible loss of memory. I was once asked to attend for a few hours before the time fixed for his oration one of the greatest orators of this country, who was about to talk at a university commencement. What surprised me was that this practiced speaker, who had often appeared before very large audiences, took a very light meal in considerable trepidation, immediately after asked to have certain books brought to him and certain facts looked up for him, took notes in a hurried, feverish way and generally displayed all the over-excitement of the schoolboy about to make his first oration. He was a magnificent occasional speaker, often called upon, yet he assured me that it was always thus with him and that the reason for it was that in spite of previous preparation—and the finish of his orations made it clear that he had devoted much thought to them beforehand—certain of his facts and names and dates had the habit of slipping from him in the midst of the development of his theme, unless he had refreshed his memory with regard to them immediately before, and that he feared that sometime he would find himself in the midst of an address with an absolute blank before him and that he would be compelled to sit down in disgrace. He had never done so and never did in the many years that he, lived afterwards, though always with this dread, never trusting his memory as most people do.
Name Memory.—There are certain circumstances in which memory may fail and yet no significance of a pathological nature can be attributed to the fact. All of us probably have had the disturbing experience of undertaking to introduce two friends whom we had known for many years and yet having to ask at least one of them for his name before we could make the introduction. It is not that we did not know the name, but at the moment we were utterly unable to recall it. After this has happened once or twice it is prone to happen again, because when we set about introducing people the thought of the previous unfortunate occurrences of this kind comes to our mind and acts as an inhibition of memory, making it impossible for us to recall names. Not infrequently if we are brought to the pass of having to ask one of the parties for his name we have to ask the other, though it was on the tip of our tongue a moment before, because in the meantime the disturbance of mind incident to having to ask has interfered with the train of recollection. Men have been known to forget their own names under circumstances of great excitement and such a forgetting is not pathological, but only a physiological disturbance of function because of secondary trains of association set to work in the brain which disturb ordinary recollection. Of course, some people have an excellent memory for names and never have such experiences, but they are very rare, though practice in recalling names does much to keep [{682}] people from such embarrassing situations. On the other hand, there are some people especially gifted with name memories. Napoleon could recall all his soldiers' names.