Neural Memory And Recall Through Systemic Functional Linguistics

Edelman (1992: 102):

To clarify the issue, let us agree that, whatever form it takes, memory is the ability to repeat a performance. The kind of performance depends on the structure of the system in which the memory is manifest, for memory is a system property. As such, memory in the nervous system is a dynamic property of populations of neuronal groups. … 

The TNGS proposes … that memory is the specific enhancement of a previously established ability to categorise. This kind of memory emerges as a population property from continual dynamic changes in the synaptic populations within global mappings — changes that allow a categorisation to occur in the first place. Alterations in the synaptic strengths of groups in a global mapping provide the biochemical basis of memory. …

In such a system, recall is not stereotypic. Under the influence of continually changing contexts, it changes, as the structure and dynamics of the neural populations involved in the original categorisation also change. Recall involves the activation of some, but not necessarily all, of the previously facilitated portions of global mappings. It can result in a categorisation response similar to a previous one, but at different times the elements contributing to that response are different, and in general they are likely to have been altered by ongoing behaviour.

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From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic theory, memory is the ability to instantiate previously encoded meaning potential, and recall is the process of instantiating previously encoded meaning potential.