Neuroscience
Moving your eyes from side to side can help improve the accuracy of your memory. That's according to psychologists Andrew Parker and Neil Dagnall, who say the beneficial effect could be related to sideways eye movements increasing interactive neural activity across the front of the two brain hemispheres.
One hundred and two participants listened to 150 words, organised into ten themes (e.g. types of vehicle), read by a male voice. Next, 34 of these participants moved their eyes left and right in time with a horizontal target for thirty seconds (saccadic eye movements); 34 participants moved their eyes up and down in time with a vertical target; the remaining participants stared straight ahead, focussed on a stationary target.
After the eye movements, all the participants listened to a mixture of words: 40 they'd heard before, 40 completely unrelated new words, and 10 words that were new but which matched one of the original themes. In each case the participants had to say which words they'd heard before, and which were new.
The participants who'd performed sideways eye movements performed better in all respects than the others: they correctly recognised more of the old words as old, and more of the new words as new. Crucially, they were fooled less often by the new words whose meaning matched one of the original themes - that is they correctly recognised more of them as new. This is important because mistakenly identifying one of these 'lures' as an old word is taken as a laboratory measure of false memory. The performance of the participants who moved their eyes vertically, or who stared ahead, did not differ from each other.
“Bilateral eye movements appear to enhance true memory and decrease the extent to which subjects rely or make use of gist based false memory”, the researchers said. These findings for recognition memory build on earlier work showing sideways eye movements improve the accuracy of recall.
There is actually a type of therapy for trauma - eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing - which some people believe works via the connection between eye movements and memory, although this is controversial.
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Parker, A. & Dagnall, N. (2007). Effects of bilateral eye movements on gist based false recognition in the DRM paradigm. Brain and Cognition, 63, 221-225.
Post written by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.
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- Neuropsychology Abstract Of The Day: Aphasia
Baldo JV, Klostermann EC, & Dronkers NF. It's either a cook or a baker: Patients with conduction aphasia get the gist but lose the trace. Brain and Language. 2008 Feb 1 [Epub ahead of print] VA Northern California Health Care System, Center for Aphasia...
Neuroscience
Improve your memory: wiggle your eyes back and forth
Moving your eyes from side to side can help improve the accuracy of your memory. That's according to psychologists Andrew Parker and Neil Dagnall, who say the beneficial effect could be related to sideways eye movements increasing interactive neural activity across the front of the two brain hemispheres.One hundred and two participants listened to 150 words, organised into ten themes (e.g. types of vehicle), read by a male voice. Next, 34 of these participants moved their eyes left and right in time with a horizontal target for thirty seconds (saccadic eye movements); 34 participants moved their eyes up and down in time with a vertical target; the remaining participants stared straight ahead, focussed on a stationary target.
After the eye movements, all the participants listened to a mixture of words: 40 they'd heard before, 40 completely unrelated new words, and 10 words that were new but which matched one of the original themes. In each case the participants had to say which words they'd heard before, and which were new.
The participants who'd performed sideways eye movements performed better in all respects than the others: they correctly recognised more of the old words as old, and more of the new words as new. Crucially, they were fooled less often by the new words whose meaning matched one of the original themes - that is they correctly recognised more of them as new. This is important because mistakenly identifying one of these 'lures' as an old word is taken as a laboratory measure of false memory. The performance of the participants who moved their eyes vertically, or who stared ahead, did not differ from each other.
“Bilateral eye movements appear to enhance true memory and decrease the extent to which subjects rely or make use of gist based false memory”, the researchers said. These findings for recognition memory build on earlier work showing sideways eye movements improve the accuracy of recall.
There is actually a type of therapy for trauma - eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing - which some people believe works via the connection between eye movements and memory, although this is controversial.
_________________________________
Parker, A. & Dagnall, N. (2007). Effects of bilateral eye movements on gist based false recognition in the DRM paradigm. Brain and Cognition, 63, 221-225.
Post written by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.
- Performing Horizontal Eye Movement Exercises Can Boost Your Creativity
There have been prior clues that creativity benefits from ample cross-talk between the brain hemispheres. For example, patients who've had a commissurotomy - the severing of the thick bundle of nerve fibres that joins the two hemispheres - show deficits...
- What Is It About Eye Wiggling That Helps People Recover From Trauma?
A controversial treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder involves the traumatised person holding a painful memory in mind while simultaneously following with their eyes the horizontal movements of their therapist's finger. Known as Eye Movement...
- Magic Trick Fools Us But Not Our Eyes
The magician throws the ball twice into the air and catches it, then he throws it a third time and it vanishes! Of course, he’s really secreted the ball in the palm of his hand, so why do so many observers believe they’ve seen the ball vanish mid-flight?...
- Electric Stimulation Boosts Beneficial Effect Of Sleep On Memory
Having a nap is a great way to consolidate your memory for what you’ve just learned. Now it appears researchers have found a way to boost this beneficial effect. A control condition confirmed the benefits of sleep: 13 participants remembered 37.42 words...
- Neuropsychology Abstract Of The Day: Aphasia
Baldo JV, Klostermann EC, & Dronkers NF. It's either a cook or a baker: Patients with conduction aphasia get the gist but lose the trace. Brain and Language. 2008 Feb 1 [Epub ahead of print] VA Northern California Health Care System, Center for Aphasia...