Article Questions for "The Abyss" by Oliver Sacks

Article questions
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1. Explain the “aloneness, fear and bewilderment” experienced by Clive Wearing after his sickness.
The aloneness, fear, and bewilderment experienced by Clive relates to his lack of remembering anything. He knew something was wrong but could not remember or identify whatever was wrong. In people with amnesia, such aloneness and fear can be explained by the facts they only see themselves in the environment without any memories of childhood or future.
2. How can a patients use confabulations to deal with amnesia.
People with amnesia have memory gaps because they have problems with short-term memory. However, through confabulation, their mind covers up for memory that has been lost by fabricating or imagining things which they believe to be true even though they are not.
Confabulations do not imply that the patient is lying because they are usually confident in the truth of their fabricated memories.
3.How did Clive imagine the future?
Although Clive lost his memory, he retained basic skills and semantic memory. When experiencing what the memoir calls “seven second memory” he seemed to project into the future, create sentences, and even plan for new ones. However, in some instances, he just imagined through confabulations.
4. How was Clive able to maintain a conversation?
Although Clive could not remember people or time, he used his cheerfulness and friendliness to maintain conversations. For instance, when he was the dedication page of Deborah’s memoir, he hugged and thanked her even though he had no ideas who she was. Similarly, when he saw the memoir that Sacks had, he congratulated him and started a conversation.
5. What is the abyss over which Clive hovers?
Clive hovers in a void where he cannot remember his past memories and comprehend present activities or location. He seems to think that he is dead, especially when Deborah is not around, because his former life was over.
6. What are implicit memories?
Implicit memories refer to things that people cannot deliberately remember. They are not verbally articulated but are non-conscious. They focus on step-by-step procedures that perform before accomplishing a task.
7. Why do we need both episodic and semantic memory?
We need both episodic and semantic memories because they are information processing systems. The semantic memory is essential in the use of language while episodic memory receives and stores information for short episodes. The two memories depend on ea...