If a Smoker Lost Their Memory, Could They Quit Smoking? ... The Unexpected Answer [According to Science View]

[Financial News] Could a person who cannot even remember the face of a beloved family member still feel the urge to smoke? Even after developing amnesia, responses linked to habits repeated over a long period, such as smoking or drinking, or to powerful emotions may remain relatively intact. This is because "what one remembers" and "what the body and emotions remember" operate differently.
On the 22nd, the science YouTube channel Science View reported that losing one's memory does not mean all memories disappear at once. The degree of impairment varies depending on the type of memory.
One interesting example is the addictive urge formed through repeated behavior, such as smoking or drinking. Unless the memory impairment is severe, a person may forget specific experiences, such as when and where they smoked, while still retaining the urge to smoke or behaviors ingrained over many years.
The same applies to emotions. A person may forget having met someone or who that person was, yet retain an emotional response—such as a sense of comfort or discomfort—associated with being around them.
This is because memories linked to powerful emotions, such as intense happiness or anger, may be retained relatively longer. When memory is impaired by Alzheimer's disease (AD), for example, a person may be unable to remember a family member's face or name. However, the emotional response formed when interacting with that person does not necessarily disappear as well.
Why does this happen? The "memory" we commonly think of as a single thing is actually divided into several types.
Memory of when, where and what one experienced is called episodic memory. By contrast, memory for general facts and knowledge, such as the fact that Seoul is the capital of the Republic of Korea, is classified as semantic memory. Memories related to actions or skills learned through repetition also operate separately.
In cases of amnesia, episodic memory related to one's own experiences may be impaired. As a result, a person may be unable to remember smoking a cigarette the previous day while still being able to carry out the act of smoking itself.
The situation may be different when extensive memory systems, including semantic memory, are severely damaged. If knowledge of what objects are and how to use them is also affected, a person may not even know how to smoke.


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