ABSTRACT
In the consolidation experiments… we followed what might he called a “frontal assault” on the problem of memory formation. Our experiments were predicated largely upon traditional behavioristic concepts of learning and memory and relied exclusively upon conventional neuropsychological research methods. We have gradually come to the view that our frontal assault failed to attain its intended objective because we knew neither how our treatments actually affect the nervous system nor what neural mechanisms are actually involved in memory trace initiation. Furthermore, we have learned enough about the problem to realize that all similar efforts, aimed at identifying specific morphological or functional changes in the mammalian brain in relation to “experience, ” are likewise bound to remain unsuccessful to the extent that they continue to be based solely upon the narrow conceptual foundations of operational neobehaviorism.”
