Neuroscience
From today's New York Times:
Forgetting May Be Part of the Process of Remembering
By BENEDICT CAREY
June 5, 2007
Whether drawing a mental blank on a new A.T.M. password, a favorite recipe or an old boyfriend, people have ample opportunity every day to curse their own forgetfulness. But forgetting is also a blessing, and researchers reported on Sunday that the ability to block certain memories reduces the demands on the brain when it is trying to recall something important.
The study, appearing in the journal Nature Neuroscience, is the first to record visual images of people’s brains as they suppress distracting memories. The more efficiently that study participants were tuning out irrelevant words during a word-memorization test, the sharper the drop in activity in areas of their brains involved in recollection. Accurate remembering became easier, in terms of the energy required.
Blocking out a distracting memory is something like ignoring an old (and perhaps distracting) acquaintance, experts say: it makes it that much harder to reconnect the next time around. But recent studies suggest that the brain plays favorites with memories in exactly this way, snubbing some to better capture others. A lightning memory, in short, is not so much a matter of capacity as it is of ruthless pruning — and the new study catches the trace of this process at it happens.
[ ... Read the full article ... ]
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- Repression Debunked
Psychologists in Denmark have hammered another nail into the coffin containing 'repression' - the idea, made popular by psychoanalysis, that negative, emotional memories are particularly prone to be being locked up out of conscious reach. Simon...
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When it comes to psychologists identifying people's earliest memories, the approach they take matters a lot. That's according to New Zealand psychologists Fiona Jack and Harlene Hayne who say their finding helps explain some of the mixed opinion...
- Olfaction, Memory, And Sleep
From today's New York Times: Scent Activates Memory During Sleep, Study Says By BENEDICT CAREY The New York Times Published: March 8, 2007 Scientists studying how sleep affects memory have found that the whiff of a familiar scent can help a slumbering...
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Neuroscience
The Fine Points of Forgetfulness
From today's New York Times:
Forgetting May Be Part of the Process of Remembering
By BENEDICT CAREY
June 5, 2007
Whether drawing a mental blank on a new A.T.M. password, a favorite recipe or an old boyfriend, people have ample opportunity every day to curse their own forgetfulness. But forgetting is also a blessing, and researchers reported on Sunday that the ability to block certain memories reduces the demands on the brain when it is trying to recall something important.
The study, appearing in the journal Nature Neuroscience, is the first to record visual images of people’s brains as they suppress distracting memories. The more efficiently that study participants were tuning out irrelevant words during a word-memorization test, the sharper the drop in activity in areas of their brains involved in recollection. Accurate remembering became easier, in terms of the energy required.
Blocking out a distracting memory is something like ignoring an old (and perhaps distracting) acquaintance, experts say: it makes it that much harder to reconnect the next time around. But recent studies suggest that the brain plays favorites with memories in exactly this way, snubbing some to better capture others. A lightning memory, in short, is not so much a matter of capacity as it is of ruthless pruning — and the new study catches the trace of this process at it happens.
[ ... Read the full article ... ]
- How Thinking About The Future Can Cause Us To Forget The Past
We routinely envision future events, whether that be fantasising about next month’s beach retreat, or planning whether to hit the gym this afternoon before or after picking up the dry cleaning. New research supports the idea that we are able to conjure...
- Repression Debunked
Psychologists in Denmark have hammered another nail into the coffin containing 'repression' - the idea, made popular by psychoanalysis, that negative, emotional memories are particularly prone to be being locked up out of conscious reach. Simon...
- Tapping Into People's Earliest Memories
When it comes to psychologists identifying people's earliest memories, the approach they take matters a lot. That's according to New Zealand psychologists Fiona Jack and Harlene Hayne who say their finding helps explain some of the mixed opinion...
- Olfaction, Memory, And Sleep
From today's New York Times: Scent Activates Memory During Sleep, Study Says By BENEDICT CAREY The New York Times Published: March 8, 2007 Scientists studying how sleep affects memory have found that the whiff of a familiar scent can help a slumbering...
- Amnestic Syndromes: The Play's The Thing ...
From today's New York Times: January 23, 2007 Amnesiacs May Be Cut Off From Past and Future Alike By BENEDICT CAREY The New York Times In the movies amnesia is bizarre, and thrilling. The star is usually a former assassin or government agent whose...