Memory

Remember is to recall knowledge and information from your memory. To keep in mind for attention or consideration. To recall knowledge from memory and to have a recollection. To keep in mind for attention or consideration. To have a recollection or summon to return a memory. To recapture the past and indulge in memories. To have in mind or be able to bring to one's mind an awareness of someone or something that one has seen, known, or experienced in the past. To do something that one has undertaken and to do what is necessary or advisable. A memory used to emphasize the importance of something or someone. The process of recovering information by mental effort. The cognitive processes whereby past experience is remembered. The power of retaining and recalling past experiences. To exercise or to have the power of memory. To have the power of memory and to exercise it. To go back to something earlier to be remembered.



Memory is the faculty or the ability of the brain by which information is encoded, stored, and retrieved when needed. A process often known as Learning. A memory is something that is remembered. The cognitive processes of retaining and recalling past experiences. Memorize is to commit something to memory or learn something by heart. Memory serves a vital function, enabling us to learn from new experiences and update existing knowledge. We learn both from individual experiences and from connecting them to draw new conclusions about the world. This way, we can make inferences about things that we don't necessarily have direct experience of. This is called memory integration and makes learning quick and flexible.

Memory Types - Long Term Memory - Improving Memory Techniques - Flaws in Memory - Memory Proteins - Hippocampus

Machine Code - Genetic Memory - Thinking - Knowledge Management - Sleep Learning

If you don't remember the things that matter, than having a good memory doesn't matter. So if you don't learn the things that matter, then learning will not matter. If you use most of your memory just to remember insignificant details, then you will fail to remember the most important things in life. But in order to do that you first have to learn everything that is valuable that would increase your understanding of yourself and the world around you. You have to strengthen the most important information that you have stored in your memories, and you also have to keep adding to your knowledge base by continually adding more valuable knowledge and information that you can find. Remember to count the things that matter. Forgetting only becomes bad when you forgot the things that matter. Memories is not just about remembering our experiences, but memory is remembering all the words and symbols in a language that gives you the ability to describe those memories and past experiences. Though you don't need a language to recall pain or to remember pleasure, you do need a language to explain what pain is and what pleasure is. Language gives our memories a place to live, language gives our lives meaning. Language defines us, language is life. Songs about Remembering.

If you don't have a good memory, you will struggle, but if you stop learning, you will struggle even more. The less you know, the less you remember. If you learn more, you will remember more, and you will understand more of what you remember. The power of knowledge is much greater than you think. You experienced and felt the power of knowledge your whole life in brief moments called epiphanies. Everyone has had an epiphany. Now just imagine the energy of epiphany happening all the time. The great awakening is not spontaneous, but a slow growing star.

Consideration is the process of giving careful thought to something. Information that should be kept in mind when making a decision. Kind and considerate regard for others. A considerate and thoughtful act.

Thoughtfulness is kind and considerate regard for others. The trait of thinking carefully before acting. A considerate and thoughtful act.

Remembering is part of your awareness. You have to recall information from your past in order to understand the moment that you are in. All that you see is what you have learned to see. Some people learn to see more. So what would happen if you looked at the world with no memory?

Remember versus Know Judgments suggests that different processes are involved in remembering something versus knowing whether it is familiar. It appears that remembering and knowing represent relatively different characteristics of memory as well as reflect different ways of using memory.

A strong memory is information that is either unusual, emotional, repetitive or associative.

Does understanding something help you to remember that something? Information that is organized and makes sense to you is easier to memorize. If you find that you don't understand the something, spend some time on understanding it before trying to memorize it. When we fully understand information on all cognitive levels, we are better able to remember that information. By using elaboration strategies such as summarizing, questioning, and using visual organizers, we deep process information in a way that assists and insures understanding. When something is meaningfully understood, it is retained much longer, and can be built upon to acquire further understanding. This is usually very versatile in the situations and ways it can be used, and facilitates creativity. When you don't understand something, then remembering it can be diminished. But understanding alone does not equal memory because it's possible to forget something even when you have once understood it. Bias.

One of the failures of rote learning is garbage in, garbage out. The dangerous part of forcing students to memorize irrelevant and unimportant information, is that it tricks the student into thinking that this information is important, which much of it is not, at least not at this time in their life. So now the student doesn't know what's important, which is a kind of forced brain damage, and the unsuspecting student has no idea how ignorant they truly are. And they are also fooled into believing that learning is boring and irrelevant, which it is not. The average person can recall 5,000 faces in their lifetime.

A study published in the journal Psychological Science found that people on a museum tour actually remembered fewer details if they took photos of an object as a whole. However, when people zoomed in on a specific part of the object, taking photos did not impair their memory. Try to capture those sensory cues through your image and fill the frame with the most important details, and take a mental picture with your mind.

Our memory gives us incredible abilities. But if your memory is not used properly, or if you don't understand your ability to remember, you will never experience the memories true power, which is to continually develop a person into being more intelligent each day as their life progresses. So it's not how much you can remember, it's knowing how to extract the most important information and knowledge from your experiences, and remembering those details, so that they are correctly applied to future moments in time. So how do you choose what to remember? Information Literacy, define what's important.

Memory Types

Explicit Memory or Declarative Memory is one of the two main types of long-term human memory. It is the conscious, intentional recollection of factual information, previous experiences and concepts. Explicit memory can be divided into two categories: episodic memory, which stores specific personal experiences, and semantic memory, which stores factual information.  Explicit memories are of a person’s own life and general facts about the world. This is knowledge you are very aware of and can talk about. The other type of memory, non-declarative, is commonly called Implicit Memory. This is information that’s difficult to verbalize but enables someone to ride a bike or to bow a viola or apply skilled brushstrokes.

Autobiographical Memory - Sensory Memory - Body Memory - Memory Processes (wiki)

Implicit Memory is one of the two main types of Long-Term Human Memory. It is acquired and used unconsciously, and can affect thoughts and behaviors. One of its most common forms is Procedural Memory, which helps people performing certain tasks without conscious awareness of these previous experiences.

Semantic Memory is a type of long-term memory involving the capacity to recall words, concepts, or numbers, which is essential for the use and understanding of language. A recollection of a word, concept, or number. Semantic memory refers to general world knowledge that humans have accumulated throughout their lives. This general knowledge (word meanings, concepts, facts, and ideas) is intertwined in experience and dependent on culture. New concepts are learned by applying knowledge learned from things in the past. Semantic Memory is one of the two types of declarative memory or explicit memory, which is our memory of facts or events that is explicitly stored and retrieved. Semantic memory refers to general world knowledge that we have accumulated throughout our lives. This general knowledge of facts, ideas, meaning and concepts is intertwined in experience and dependent on culture. Semantic memory is distinct from episodic memory, which is our memory of experiences and specific events that occur during our lives, from which we can recreate at any given point. For instance, semantic memory might contain information about what a cat is, whereas episodic memory might contain a specific memory of petting a particular cat. We can learn about new concepts by applying our knowledge learned from things in the past. The counterpart to declarative, or explicit memory, is procedural memory, or implicit memory. Synesthesia.

Episodic Memory is the memory of autobiographical events that can be explicitly stated. It is the collection of past personal experiences that occurred at a particular time and place, along with associated emotions and other contextual who, what, when, where, why knowledge. For example, if one remembers the party on his or her 6th birthday, this is an episodic memory. They allow an individual to figuratively travel back in time to remember the event that took place at that particular time and place. Episodic memory allows previous experiences to be relived or rehearsed once resources are available so it can be reanalyzed with new knowledge or additional experiences. Episodic Memory is defined as the ability to recall and mentally re-experience specific episodes from one's personal past and is contrasted with semantic memory that includes memory for generic, context-free knowledge.

Visualizing - Spatial Reasoning - Hippocampus - Autonoetic Consciousness

Retrospective Memory is the memory of people, words, and events encountered or experienced in the past. It includes all other types of memory including episodic, semantic and procedural. It can be either implicit or explicit. In contrast, prospective memory involves remembering something or remembering to do something after a delay, such as buying groceries on the way home from work. However, it is very closely linked to retrospective memory, since certain aspects of retrospective memory are required for prospective memory. Old Memories.

Prospective Memory is a form of memory that involves remembering to perform a planned action or intention at some future point in time. Prospective memory tasks are common in daily life and range from the relatively simple to extreme life-or-death situations. Examples of simple tasks include remembering to put the toothpaste cap back on, remembering to reply to an email, or remembering to return a rented movie. Examples of highly important situations include a patient remembering to take medication or a pilot remembering to perform specific safety procedures during a flight. Training - Awareness.

Humans have the ability to creatively combine their memories to solve problems and draw new insights, a process that depends on memories for specific events known as episodic memory.

Metamemory a type of metacognition, is both the introspective knowledge of one’s own memory capabilities (and strategies that can aid memory) and the processes involved in memory self-monitoring. This self-awareness of memory has important implications for how people learn and use memories, like judgments of learning. Reflecting on Memories Improves Memory Quality. Being able to assess our own memories helps us to avoid errors and prompts us to collect more information to fill the gaps. The ability to assess memory quality appears in children. A brain knows when it can't remember.

Introspective is examining your own sensory and perceptual experiences or spending time examining ones own thoughts and feelings. Mindful.

Affective Emotional Memory requires actors to call on the memory of details from a similar situation (or more recently a situation with similar emotional) and import those feelings to those of their characters.

Recognition Memory is a subcategory of declarative memory. Essentially, recognition memory is the ability to recognize previously encountered events, objects, or people. When the previously experienced event is re-experienced, this environmental content is matched to stored memory representations, eliciting matching signals.

Location-Updating Effect - Attention - Focus

Visual Memory is the ability to recollect information from things that you have seen. Auditory Memory is the ability to recollect information that you have heard. Tactile Memory is the ability to recollect information from things that you held or touched.

How the Brain forms Sensory Memories. A new study identifies a region of the thalamus as a key source of signals encoding past experiences in the neocortex. The brain encodes information collected by our senses. However, to perceive our environment and to constructively interact with it, these sensory signals need to be interpreted in the context of our previous experiences and current aims.

Short-Term Memory is the capacity for holding, but not manipulating, a small amount of information in mind in an active, readily available state for a short period of time. The duration of short-term memory (when rehearsal or active maintenance is prevented) is believed to be in the order of seconds. The Magic number 7 plus or minus two provides evidence for the capacity of short term memory. Most adults can store between 5 and 9 items in their short-term memory. Volatile Memory.

Working Memory is information that can be quickly recalled, "always on your mind" - "off the top of my head". Working Memory is the system responsible for the transient holding and processing of new and already-stored information, recalling past experiences and knowledge from memory. To Keep in mind for attention or consideration. This is an important process for reasoning, comprehension, learning and memory updating. Thinking, Processing, Output. Working memory is a theoretical framework that refers to structures and processes used for temporarily storing and manipulating information. What information do we have? What information are we receiving? What is the appropriate action? Most of the time people are in automatic mode, and rarely use the processing power of the human brain. That's because not enough people are teaching this skill or learning this skill. Memory Consolidation is when existing memories are recalled and modified with new knowledge. Working Memory (PDF) - Rebooting - Consolidate.

Random Access Memory or RAM is the “working memory” of technical devices which include computer technology. As in the human brain, the working memory is a short-term memory in which the operating system of a device temporarily stores all data of running programs and processes.

Holding information in mind may mean storing it among synapses. Comparing models of working memory with real-world data, researchers found that information resides not in persistent neural activity, but in the pattern of their connections. Most people think that working memory 'happens' in neurons -- persistent neural activity gives rise to persistent thoughts. However, this view has come under recent scrutiny because it does not really agree with the data. Using artificial neural networks with short-term synaptic plasticity, we show that synaptic activity instead of neural activity can be a substrate for working memory. These plastic neural network models are more brain-like, in a quantitative sense, and also have additional functional benefits in terms of robustness.

Cache is a hardware or software component that stores data so that future requests for that data can be served faster. The data stored in a cache might be the result of an earlier computation or a copy of data stored elsewhere. Clearing the cache simply clears temporary files. It won't erase login credentials, downloaded files, or custom settings. It is a good idea to clear your browser cache because it prevents you from using old forms and also protects your personal information, and helps our applications run better on your computer.

Computational model reveals how the brain manages short-term memories. Scientists have developed a new computational model showing how the brain maintains information short-term using specific types of neurons. Their findings could help shed light on why working memory is impaired in a broad range of neuropsychiatric disorders, including schizophrenia, as well as in normal aging.

Remembrance Agent are a set of applications that watch over a user’s shoulder and suggest information relevant to the current situation. While query-based memory aids help with direct recall, remembrance agents are an augmented associative memory. For example, the word-processor version of the RA continuously updates a list of documents relevant to what’s being typed or read in an emacs buffer. These suggested documents can be any text files that might be relevant to what you are currently writing or reading. They might be old emails related to the mail you are currently reading, or abstracts from papers and newspaper articles that discuss the topic of your writing.

Researchers use machine learning tools to reveal how memories are coded in the brain. These findings indicate that stable short-term memory information exists within a population of neurons with dynamic activity. In the human brain, the frontal lobe plays an important role in processing short-term memories. Short-term memory has a low capacity to retain information. "It can usually only hold six to eight items. Think for example about our ability to remember a phone number for a few seconds -- that uses short-term memory. Researchers studied how the frontal lobe represents short-term memory information by measuring the activity of many neurons. Previous results from the researchers had shown that if a distraction was presented during the memory maintenance period, it changed the code used by frontal lobe neurons that encode the memory. Researchers showed that stable information can be found within the changing neural population code. This means that the NUS team demonstrated that memory information can be read out from a population of neurons that morphs their code after a distractor is presented.

Long-Term Memory - Storage of Memories

Researchers identify new coding mechanism that transfers information from perception to memory. Researchers identified a neural coding mechanism that allows the transfer of information back and forth between perceptual regions to memory areas of the brain. The team identified an opposing push-pull like coding mechanism, which governs the interaction between perceptual and memory areas in the brain. Our memories are rich in detail: we can vividly recall the color of our home, the layout of our kitchen, or the front of our favorite cafe . How the brain encodes this information has long puzzled neuroscientists.

Involuntary Memory also known as involuntary explicit memory, involuntary conscious memory, involuntary aware memory, and most commonly, involuntary autobiographical memory, is a subcomponent of memory that occurs when cues encountered in everyday life evoke recollections of the past without conscious effort. Voluntary memory, its binary opposite, is characterized by a deliberate effort to recall the past.

Muscle Memory doesn’t rely on the Hippocampus, it's stored in a separate place or in a separate way. Skill-related knowledge is a possible subcategory of declarative knowledge.

Memory Consolidation - Sleep Learning

Sensory Memory - Spatial Intelligence (understanding 3 dimensional spaces)

Research team discovers new role of cerebellum in coordinating the brain network essential for social recognition memory. Alzheimer's

Social Recognition Memory reflects the ability of the social animals to recognize and remember familiar individuals of the same species. The unique ability for mammals to recognize conspecifics is essential and beneficial when animals conduct daily social activities.

Body Memory - Body Smart (understanding how your body moves) - Human Operating System

Loss of Brain Synchrony may explain Working Memory Limits and Working Memory Capacity. The total number of images a person can hold in working memory at the same time – varies between individuals but averages about seven. New study tries to understand what causes the memory to have this intrinsic limit. The researchers found that trying to retain too much information in our working memory leads to a communication breakdown between parts of the brain responsible for maintaining it. Using sophisticated mathematical techniques, they found that the regions essentially work as a committee, without much hierarchy, to keep working memory going. They also found changes as working memory approached and then exceeded capacity. In particular, the researchers found that above capacity the PFC’s coupling to the FEF and LIP at low frequency stopped. Prefrontal Cortex (PFC), Frontal Eye Fields (FEF), Lateral Intraparietal Area (LIP). As previous studies have suggested that the PFC’s role might be to employ low-frequency waves to provide the feedback the keeps the working memory system in sync, the researchers suggest that when that signal breaks down, the whole enterprise may as well. This observation may also explain why memory capacity has a finite limit.

Baddeley proposed a model of working memory in 1974, in an attempt to describe a more accurate model of short-term memory.

Memories create 'Fingerprints' that reveal how the Brain is Organized. While the broad architecture and organization of the human brain is universal, new research shows how the differences between how people reimagine common scenarios can be observed in brain activity and quantified. These unique neurological signatures could ultimately be used to understand, study, and even improve treatment of disorders such as Alzheimer's disease.

Women are better at finding words and remembering words, but is this really a fact? Women are thought to fare better in verbal abilities, especially in verbal-fluency and verbal-memory tasks. However, the last meta-analysis on sex/gender differences in verbal fluency dates from 1988. Although verbal memory has only recently been investigated meta-analytically, a comprehensive meta-analysis is lacking that focuses on verbal memory as it is typically assessed, for example, in neuropsychological settings. Women are better, the present study demonstrated. The female advantage is consistent across time and lifetime, but it is also relatively small. The results are relevant in at least two ways. First, they help to clarify whether the female advantage is real. Second, knowing about this sex/gender difference is important for interpreting the results of diagnostic assessments, in which those abilities are frequently tested.

Emotions and Memories - Memories linked with Strong Emotions

Emotion and Memory. Emotion can have a powerful effect on humans and animals. Numerous studies have shown that the most vivid autobiographical memories tend to be of emotional events, which are likely to be recalled more often and with more clarity and detail than neutral events. The activity of emotionally enhanced memory retention can be linked to human evolution; during early development, responsive behavior to environmental events would have progressed as a process of trial and error. Survival depended on behavioral patterns that were repeated or reinforced through life and death situations. Through evolution, this process of learning became genetically embedded in humans and all animal species in what is known as flight or fight instinct. Artificially inducing this instinct through traumatic physical or emotional stimuli essentially creates the same physiological condition that heightens memory retention by exciting neuro-chemical activity affecting areas of the brain responsible for encoding and recalling memory. This memory-enhancing effect of emotion has been demonstrated in many laboratory studies, using stimuli ranging from words to pictures to narrated slide shows, as well as autobiographical memory studies. However, as described below, emotion does not always enhance memory. One of the most common frameworks in the emotions field proposes that affective experiences are best characterized by two main dimensions: arousal and valence. The dimension of valence ranges from highly positive to highly negative, whereas the dimension of arousal ranges from calming or soothing to exciting or agitating. With selectivity of attention, cue utilization theory predicted that high levels of arousal will lead to attention narrowing, defined as a decrease in the range of cues from the stimulus and its environment to which the organism is sensitive. According to this hypothesis, attention will be focused primarily on the arousing details (cues) of the stimulus, so that information central to the source of the emotional arousal will be encoded while peripheral details will not. With prioritized processing, emotional items also appear more likely to be processed when attention is limited, suggesting a facilitated or prioritized processing of emotional information. This effect was demonstrated using the attentional blink paradigm in which 2 target items are presented in close temporal proximity within a stream of rapidly presented stimuli. With emotion and storage, in addition to its effects during the encoding phase, emotional arousal appears to increase the likelihood of memory consolidation during the retention (storage) stage of memory (the process of creating a permanent record of the encoded information). A number of studies show that over time, memories for neutral stimuli decrease but memories for arousing stimuli remain the same or improve. Others have discovered that memory enhancements for emotional information tend to be greater after longer delays than after relatively short ones. This delayed effect is consistent with the proposal that emotionally arousing memories are more likely to be converted into a relatively permanent trace, whereas memories for nonarousing events are more vulnerable to disruption. With emotion and elaboration, the processes involved in this enhancement may be distinct from those mediating the enhanced memory for arousing items. It has been suggested that in contrast to the relatively automatic attentional modulation of memory for arousing information, memory for non-arousing positive or negative stimuli may benefit instead from conscious encoding strategies, such as elaboration. This elaborative processing can be autobiographical or semantic. Autobiographical elaboration is known to benefit memory by creating links between the processed stimuli, and the self, for example, deciding whether a word would describe the personal self. Memory formed through autobiographical elaboration is enhanced as compared to items processed for meaning, but not in relation to the self. Since words such as "sorrow" or "comfort" may be more likely to be associated with autobiographical experiences or self-introspection than neutral words such as "shadow", autobiographical elaboration may explain the memory enhancement of non-arousing positive or negative items. Studies have shown that dividing attention at encoding decreases an individual's ability to utilize controlled encoding processes, such as autobiographical or semantic elaboration. With emotion and retrieval, retrieval is a process of reconstructing past experiences; this phenomenon of reconstruction is influenced by a number of different variables, such as Trade-off between details. Emotional memories may include increased emotional details often with the trade-off of excluding background information. Contextual effects of emotion on memory occur as a result of the degree of similarity between the encoding context and the retrieval context of an emotional dimension. The main findings are that the current mood we are in affects what is attended, encoded and ultimately retrieved, as reflected in two similar but subtly different effects: the mood congruence effect and mood-state dependent retrieval. Positive encoding contexts have been connected to activity in the right fusiform gyrus. Negative encoding contexts have been correlated to activity in the right amygdala. Amygdala boosts memory encoding by enhancing attention and perception, and can help memory retention by triggering the release of stress hormones, such as adrenaline and cortisol, to boost arousal.

Mood-Dependent Memory is the facilitation of memory when mood at retrieval is identical to the mood at encoding. When one encodes a memory, they not only record sensory data (such as visual or auditory data), they also store their mood and emotional states. An individual's present mood thus affects the memories that are most easily available to them, such that when they are in a good mood they recall good memories (and vice versa). The associative nature of memory also means that one tends to store happy memories in a linked set. Unlike mood-congruent memory, mood-dependent memory occurs when one's current mood resembles their mood at the time of memory storage, which helps to recall the memory. Thus, the likelihood of remembering an event is higher when encoding and recall moods match up. However, it seems that only authentic moods have the power to produce these mood-dependent effects.

Context-Dependent Memory is the improved recall of specific episodes or information when the context present at encoding and retrieval are the same. In a simpler manner, "when events are represented in memory, contextual information is stored along with memory targets; the context can therefore cue memories containing that contextual information. One particularly common example of context-dependence at work occurs when an individual has lost an item (e.g. lost car keys) in an unknown location. Typically, people try to systematically "retrace their steps" to determine all of the possible places where the item might be located. Based on the role that context plays in determining recall, it is not at all surprising that individuals often quite easily discover the lost item upon returning to the correct context. This concept is heavily related to the encoding specificity principle.

Sensory Memory. During every moment of an organism's life, sensory information is being taken in by sensory receptors and processed by the nervous system. Sensory information is stored in sensory memory just long enough to be transferred to short-term memory. Humans have five traditional senses: sight, hearing, taste, smell, touch. Sensory memory (SM) allows individuals to retain impressions of sensory information after the original stimulus has ceased. A common demonstration of SM is a child's ability to write letters and make circles by twirling a sparkler at night. When the sparkler is spun fast enough, it appears to leave a trail which forms a continuous image. This "light trail" is the image that is represented in the visual sensory store known as iconic memory. The other two types of SM that have been most extensively studied are echoic memory, and haptic memory; however, it is reasonable to assume that each physiological sense has a corresponding memory store. Children for example have been shown to remember specific "sweet" tastes during incidental learning trials but the nature of this gustatory store is still unclear. However, sensory memories might be related to a region of the thalamus, which serves as a source of signals encoding past experiences in the neocortex.

Visual Memory describes the relationship between perceptual processing and the encoding, storage and retrieval of the resulting neural representations. Aphantasia is the inability to visualize mental images.

State-Dependent Memory or state-dependent learning is the phenomenon where people remember more information if their physical or mental state is the same at time of encoding and time of recall. Cue-dependent forgetting, or retrieval failure, is the failure to recall information without memory cues. The term either pertains to semantic cues, state-dependent cues or context-dependent cues.

Somatic Theories of Emotion claim that bodily responses are essential to emotions, rather than judgments. Based on discoveries made through neural mapping of the limbic system, the neurobiological explanation of human emotion is that emotion is a pleasant or unpleasant mental state organized in the limbic system of the mammalian brain. Dopamine, noradrenaline, and serotonin) step-up or step-down the brain's activity level, as visible in body movements, gestures, and postures. This hypothesis that synaptic plasticity is an important part of the neural mechanisms underlying learning and memory is now widely accepted. In cognitive psychology, the human mind is seen to be a structured system for handling information. Several theories argue that cognitive activities such as judgments, evaluations, or thoughts are necessary for an emotion to occur. Internal events occur in the human mind. These occurrences of cognition are visible only to the person who experiences them. External events are physical occurrences experienced in a human's environment, such as receiving a gift or encountering a friend. External events affect the mood of an individual depending on how he or she perceives the action. Some evidence suggests that internal events, such as imagination and reasoning, are less likely than external events to be remembered after a mood shift. Events are generated through internal processes that are more connected to one's mood than to external processes. Although the source of an event seems to play a part in the occurrence of mood dependent memory, it is not the only relevant factor. The strength and stability of moods that impair memory must meet two conditions: the mood shift must be substantial, and the mood at the start must be the same when it ends in encoding or retrieval. The relationship between mood and arousal is also important: if mood is dependent on arousal, then mood corresponds to a subjective state which describes mood dependent memory.

Mood Congruence is the consistency between a person's emotional state with the broader situations and circumstances being experienced by the persons at that time. By contrast, mood incongruence occurs when the individual's reactions or emotional state appear to be in conflict with the situation. In the context of psychosis, hallucinations and delusions may be considered mood congruent (such as feelings of personal inadequacy, guilt, or worthlessness during a bipolar disorder depressive episode) or incongruent. An important consideration to the difference between mood congruence and mood dependent (or state-dependent) memory is the determination that one cannot make accurate assumptions about the emotional state of a memory during the encoding process. Therefore, the memory that is recalled is not dependent on the affective state during encoding. Another important difference is that there are multiple memories that can be recalled while in particular mood states that go across contexts and cues that may or may not recall only one specific memory. Cognitive therapy pays special attention to mood congruence due to the use of mood repair strategies, which are meant to shift an individual from a negative mood to a positive one. Congruent mood—smiling while feeling happy. Non-congruent mood—smiling while feeling anxious. Inappropriate affect—laughing while describing a loved one's funeral, for instance. Mood Congruency is strongest when people try to recall personally meaningful episodes, because such events were most likely to be colored by their moods

Mood Repair Strategies offer techniques that an individual can use to shift their mood from general sadness or clinical depression to a state of greater contentment or happiness. A mood repair strategy is a cognitive, behavioral, and interpersonal psychological tool used to affect the mood regulation of an individual. Various mood repair strategies are most commonly used in cognitive therapy. Retrieving positive memories. Sometimes known as distraction or Mood Incongruent Recollection, this is one of the most common mood repair strategies. Normally people engage in thoughts of mood congruence, which are ones that are in harmony with their mood. Mood incongruent recollection is usually the forced consideration of memories not related to the current mood. The theory behind this thinking is that when the mind is engaged in a track of negative mood, the forced recall of positive memories will break the cycle and force the brain to reorient into a more positive state. There are two ways to recall these memories, abstractly and concretely. An abstract recollection of memories consists of a kind of comparison between an individual's memory and their current situation. This can sometimes be helpful unless the individual suffers from depression. A concrete recollection is when a memory is recalled especially vividly and the individual experiences the phenomenology of this memory more acutely. This has been used extensively even among those suffering with clinical depression. Music is often used for two different reasons in mood repair strategies. The first is to allow the listener to identify themselves with the current music and to allow for some ventilation or mood attenuation. The other is a form of mood-repair strategy which allows the listener to take action to achieve their desired mood. These two approaches are considered the mood-congruent listening approach and the mood-incongruent listening approach, respectively. Listening to music in a mood-congruent state with those who are experiencing negative mood states such as dysphoria, or sadness, can allow for those individuals to be more likely to identify with the music that shares their current mood. This mood-congruency effect can allow for individuals engaging in the listening of mood-congruent music to become increasingly aware of their own mood. It is theorized that with a heightened sense of mood recognition, an individual is capable of being empowered by recognizing that the current mood is their own, and they are in control of their mood. With a greater sense of empowerment over one’s emotional state, individuals can take steps in which to take their control and change their current unwanted mood. The acknowledgment of a person’s mood is a critical precursor in attempts made to regulate moods. Relaxation techniques are often used as mood-repair strategies to help an individual achieve a level of calm and reduce the stress or tension that can come from negative moods. These techniques are often very methodical in their approach and can be actively engaged by willing participants who are aware of how to enact them. Meditation and conscious control of breathing are two common examples. Exercise is used to help an individual alleviate unwanted moods by physically engaging the body to activate endorphins. These endorphins bring about a sense of euphoria and can alleviate undesirable moods by participants that focus on engaging this euphoria. Exercise can also serve to distract individuals by allowing their focus to be on a specific task, such as focusing on lifting weights, or getting across the finish line, allowing less room for rumination on negative thoughts. Stress management activities are used for mood repair strategies and the stress that is typically accompanied by them. By coping with stress through a variety of techniques individuals are able to learn how to manage their day-to-day lives and the stimuli that can be known to cause stress. Sex is a form of direct tension reduction, which puts it in the same category as things like the consumption of drugs and alcohol. Generally engaging in sexual intercourse is a much safer and less destructive alternative to the other direct tension reducing measures. To those in a healthy, committed relationship it can prove to be a very beneficial mood repair strategy. Sexual intercourse’s main purpose in mood repair is the releasing of tension. It activates the release of oxytocin in the brain that serves to calm nerves, relax muscles, and induce brief euphoria. These results each have a positive effect on unwanted moods and in combination they present a powerful reaction. The second major reason that sex constitutes as a mood repair strategy is because of the feelings of closeness it creates between the two people engaging in the action. The intimacy involved in sex serves as an important counter to the feelings of loneliness and isolation that often contribute to sadness or depression. Humor is also a known mood-repair strategy. Humor is able to bring about a sense of attenuation and allow for individuals to engage in pleasurable activities. Engaging in activities that can evoke a humorous response can often lead individuals to laughter. Laughter is able to increase serotonin levels which are known to bring about a greater level of contentment.

The more I deliberately educate myself about being human, the more resilient I am in stressful moments. And another benefit of self education is my memories of stressful moments are also less traumatic. How you perceive something or interpret something effects how you feel about it. So I can have a memory and either feel sad or happy, depending on the context in which I remember that moment.

Storage of Information - Long Term Memory

Storage in memory is the ability of the mind to store and recall information that was previously acquired. Memory is processed through three fundamental processing stages: storage, encoding, and retrieval. Storing refers to the process of placing newly acquired information into memory, which is modified in the brain for easier storage. Encoding this information makes the process of retrieval easier for the brain where it can be recalled and brought into conscious thinking. Modern memory psychology differentiates between the two distinct types of memory storage: short-term memory and long-term memory. In addition, different memory models have suggested variations of existing short and long-term memory to account for different ways of storing memory.

Storage is the act of storing something. A depository for goods or depositing in a warehouse.

Storing is to keep or to lay aside for future use. To find a place for something and to put away for storage.

Store is a supply of something available for future use.

Long Term Storage of Physical Information and Knowledge.

Depository is a facility where things can be deposited for storage or safekeeping.

Stockpile - Investment - Savings Account - Organizing - Autobiographical

Storage is not hoarding and is not holding onto bad memories.

Human Brain Memory Capacity

Encoding in memory is the ability to encode, store and recall information. Memories give an organism the capability to learn and adapt from previous experiences as well as build relationships. Encoding allows the perceived item of use or interest to be converted into a construct that can be stored within the brain and recalled later from short-term or long-term memory. Working memory stores information for immediate use or manipulation which is aided through hooking onto previously archived items already present in the long-term memory of an individual.

Spaced Repetition - Memory Consolidation - Memorization - Brain Information Storage Capacity - Knowledge Preservation

Memory Management is a form of resource management applied to computer memory. The essential requirement of memory management is to provide ways to dynamically allocate portions of memory to programs at their request, and free it for reuse when no longer needed. This is critical to any advanced computer system where more than a single process might be underway at any time. Several methods have been devised that increase the effectiveness of memory management. Virtual memory systems separate the memory addresses used by a process from actual physical addresses, allowing separation of processes and increasing the size of the virtual address space beyond the available amount of RAM using paging or swapping to secondary storage. The quality of the virtual memory manager can have an extensive effect on overall system performance.

Long-Term Memory is the stage of the dual memory model, and informative knowledge can be stored for long periods of time. While short-term and working memory persist for only about 18 to 30 seconds, informative knowledge can remain as long-term memory indefinitely. Long-term memory is commonly labeled as explicit memory (declarative), as well as episodic memory, semantic memory, autobiographical memory, and implicit memory (procedural memory). Long term memories creates new structures with proteins and MRNA and different types of memories are stored in different places.

When you organize things in your house it makes it easier to find things. If you organize memories in your mind then you will make it easier to remember things. Associations.

How epigenetics influence memory formation. In an important study for understanding how memories are made, scientists show that the flexibility of chromatin -- packaged DNA inside the cell -- plays a crucial role in 'deciding' which neurons are involved in forming a specific memory. When we form a new memory, the brain undergoes physical and functional changes known collectively as a "memory trace." A memory trace represents the specific patterns of activity and structural modifications of neurons that occur when a memory is formed and later recalled.

Memory Trace is a hypothetical permanent change in the nervous system brought about by memorizing something.

Engram in neuropsychology are theorized to be means by which memories are stored as biophysical or biochemical changes in the brain (and other neural tissue) in response to external stimuli. Engram Cells - Memory engrams: Recalling the past and imagining the future

Long-Term Potentiation is a persistent strengthening of synapses based on recent patterns of activity. These are patterns of synaptic activity that produce a long-lasting increase in signal transmission between two neurons. The opposite of LTP is long-term depression, which produces a long-lasting decrease in synaptic strength. Plasticity - Old Memories.

The transfer of memories from the hippocampus to the neo-cortex for long-term storage is thought to be enabled by synchronization of these parts of the brain during sleep. A natural process of overnight reactivation or neural replay to improve memory with a closed-loop transcranial alternating current stimulation system matching the phase and frequency of ongoing slow-wave oscillations during sleep. Computer Memory.

Neuroscientists identify mechanism for long term memory storage. While working to understand how memories are formed and stored in the brain, the team identified a novel protein folding mechanism in the endoplasmic reticulum that is essential for long term memory storage. The team also used gene therapy to reactivate the chaperone protein in a mouse model and found that the memory deficit was reversed, confirming that the protein folding machinery acts as a molecular switch for memory.

How do our memories last a lifetime? New study offers a biological explanation. Ground-breaking research uncovers 'molecular glue' that helps ensure memory formation and stabilization. It's been long-established that neurons store information in memory as the pattern of strong synapses and weak synapses, which determines the connectivity and function of neural networks. However, the molecules in synapses are unstable, continually moving around in the neurons, and wearing out and being replaced in hours to days, thereby raising the question: How, then, can memories be stable for years to decades? In a study using laboratory mice, the scientists focused on the role of KIBRA, or kidney and brain expressed protein, the human genetic variants of which are associated with both good and poor memory. They focused on KIBRA's interactions with other molecules crucial to memory formation -- in this case, protein kinase Mzeta (PKMzeta). This enzyme is the most crucial molecule for strengthening normal mammalian synapses that is known, but it degrades after a few days. More specifically, their experiments in the Science Advances paper show that breaking the KIBRA-PKMzeta bond erases old memory.

What makes a memory last? The human brain filters through a flood of experiences to create specific memories. Why do some of the experiences in this deluge of sensory information become 'memorable,' while most are discarded by the brain?

How long-lasting memories form in the brain. Some aspects of the cellular basis of memory were already known. They're made by neurons or nerve cells and stored in a brain region called the hippocampus. They form when repeated neural stimulation strengthens synapses -- the connections between nerve cells. Proteins are needed to stabilize the long-lasting synaptic connections required for long-term memories. The blueprints for those proteins are molecules of messenger RNA (mRNA) that, in turn, are transcribed (copied) from memory-associated genes.

Endoplasmic Reticulum is the transportation system of the eukaryotic cell, and has many other important functions such as protein folding. The rough endoplasmic reticulum is key in multiple functions: Manufacture of lysosomal enzymes with a mannose-6-phosphate marker added in the cis-Golgi network. Manufacture of secreted proteins, either secreted constitutively with no tag or secreted in a regulatory manner involving clathrin and paired basic amino acids in the signal peptide. Integral membrane proteins that stay embedded in the membrane as vesicles exit and bind to new membranes. Rab proteins are key in targeting the membrane; SNAP and SNARE proteins are key in the fusion event. Initial glycosylation as assembly continues. This is N-linked (O-linking occurs in the Golgi). N-linked glycosylation: If the protein is properly folded, oligosaccharyltransferase recognizes the AA sequence NXS or NXT (with the S/T residue phosphorylated) and adds a 14-sugar backbone (2-N-acetylglucosamine, 9-branching mannose, and 3-glucose at the end) to the side-chain nitrogen of Asn.

Long-term memory controlled by protein synthesis in inhibitory cells. There are at least two distinct processes taking place in two different brain networks -- the excitatory and inhibitory networks. The excitatory neurons are involved in creating a memory trace, and the inhibitory neurons block out background noise and allow long-term learning to take place. EIF2A protein is pivotal for both neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative diseases. Proteins.

Recall - Remembering

Memory Retrieval is the process of remembering information stored in long-term memory. Some theorists suggests that there are three stores of memory: sensory memory, long-term memory (LTM), and short-term memory (STM). Only data that is processed through STM and encoded into LTM can later be retrieved. Songs about Remembering.

Recall refers to the mental process of retrieval of information from the past. Along with encoding and storage, it is one of the three core processes of memory. There are three main types of recall: free recall, cued recall and serial recall. Psychologists test these forms of recall as a way to study the memory processes of humans and animals. Two main theories of the process of recall are the Two-Stage Theory and the theory of Encoding Specificity.

Spaced Repetition - Location Effect

Memory Span is the longest list of items that a person can repeat back in correct order immediately after presentation on 50% of all trials. Items may include words, numbers, or letters. The task is known as digit span when numbers are used. Memory span is a common measure of short-term memory. It is also a component of cognitive ability tests such as the WAIS. Backward memory span is a more challenging variation which involves recalling items in reverse order. Attention.

10,000 Hour Rule - Rote Learning - Deleting (pruning) - Forgetting

Procedural Memory is a type of implicit memory and unconscious memory and long-term memory which aids the performance of particular types of tasks without conscious awareness of these previous experiences.

Theta Phase Synchronization is the glue that binds Human Associative Memory. Firing occurs with different timing relative to other brain activity when memories are being retrieved. This slight difference in timing, called “phase offset,” has not been reported in humans before. Together, these results explain how the brain can “re-experience” an event, but also keep track of whether the memory is something new or something previously encoded.A study identified 103 memory-sensitive neurons in the brain’s hippocampus and entorhinal cortex that increase their rate of activity when memory encoding is successful The same pattern of activity returned when patients attempted to recall these same memories, especially highly detailed memories. Continuous Phase Modulation or CPM is a method for modulation of data commonly used in wireless modems.

Remembering Everyday of your Life, but not Everything

Autobiographical Memory is the ability to remember almost everyday of your life along with the exact dates when things happened. It's a memory system consisting of episodes recollected from an individual's life, based on a combination of episodic memory or personal experiences and specific objects, people and events experienced at particular time and place, and semantic memory or general knowledge and facts about the world.. It is thus a type of explicit memory. Autobiographical memories only comes with the power of speech. Language helps provide a structure, or organization, for our memories that is a narrative. By creating a story, the experience becomes more organized, and therefore easier to remember over time. The visual cortex is the key to having a good memory, especially when remembering numbers. Some blind people are great with math because they use the visual cortex. Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory.

Autobiographical Memory shows that human memory has enormous capacity for information. People seem to have a a direct path to the brains memory storage, and they also know how to effectively use a date or number file system. But there seems to be a lack of processing or the lack of examination of information. "Now that I have collected all this information, what does this information mean? And how can I best explain this information?" "I don't remember every day of my life, but I do remember a lot of the good days and a lot of the bad days. But of course I remember the good days a lot more then the bad days. But when I do remember the bad days, It makes remembering the good days that much better. Remembering the bad days also helps you to appreciate the good days a lot more. So it's good to remember, even if some of those memories aren't so good."

Mind Maps - Imagery - First Memories - Memory Types - Long Term Memories - Remembering What Counts

Hyperthymesia is the condition of possessing an extremely detailed autobiographical memory. Hyperthymestics remember an abnormally vast number of their life experiences. Not total recall, but close. Aphantasia is the inability to visualize mental images.

Iconic Memory is the visual sensory memory register pertaining to the visual domain and a fast-decaying store of visual information.

Mind's Eye refers to the human ability for visualization or the mental faculty of conceiving imaginary or recollected scenes. Third Eye.

Visual Memory describes the relationship between perceptual processing and the encoding, storage and retrieval of the resulting neural representations. Blind Mathematicians (PDF)

Eidetic Memory or Photographic Memory is an ability to vividly recall images from memory after only seeing it once, with high precision for a brief time after exposure, without using a mnemonic device. Although the terms eidetic memory and photographic memory may be used interchangeably, they are also distinguished, with eidetic memory referring to the ability to view memories like photographs for a few minutes, and photographic memory referring to the ability to recall page or text numbers, or similar, in great detail. In the case of distinguishing the concepts, eidetic memory has been documented while photographic memory has mostly been seen in people like Kim Peek or Daniel Tammet or Stephen Wiltshire who can draw detailed accurate depictions of cityscapes after seeing it only once or twice. Savant is a condition in which someone with certain mental limitations can also demonstrate exceptional abilities that are far beyond the average person. The skills at which savants excel are generally related to memory. This may include rapid calculation, artistic ability, map making, or musical ability. Usually just one special skill is present. Memory Sports.

Calendrical Calculation is the ability to calculate Calendar Dates far into the past and far into the future just using the mind.

The Boy Who Can't Forget (Medical Documentary) - Real Stories (youtube)

Memoir is a collection of memories that an individual writes about moments or events, both public or private, that took place in the subject's life. The assertions made in the work are understood to be factual. Truth - Memorization.

Memory helps us evaluate situations on the fly, not just recall the past. Widely known as crucial for long-term memory, hippocampus also supports short-term memory. Scientists have long known the brain's hippocampus is crucial for long-term memory. Now a new study has found the hippocampus also plays a role in short-term memory and helps guide decision-making. The findings shed light on how the hippocampus contributes to memory and exploration, potentially leading to therapies that restore hippocampal function, which is impacted in memory-related aging and neurodegenerative diseases such as dementia.

How a 5-Ounce Bird Stores 10,000 Maps in its Head. The clark’s nutcracker can store up to 20,000 treasure maps in its 5-ounce birdbrain. And the maps are accurate, detailed, and instantly retrievable. Clark’s Nutcrackers cache tens of thousands of seeds (often more than 30,000 each) and can relocate them as long as nine months after the original burial. The birds will hide seeds as far as 20 miles away from their source trees. In doing so, they help trees expand the trees territory. When December comes the trees go bare and it’s time to switch from hide to seek mode. Nobody knows exactly how the birds manage this, but the best guess is that when a nutcracker digs its hole, it will notice two or three permanent objects at the site: an irregular rock, a bush, a tree stump. The objects, or markers, will be at different angles from the hiding place. Triangulation is a method of determining distance or placement of a point by measuring angles to it from known points. Here’s a triangulation network that nicely highlights known points, unknown points, and measured angles. Clark’s nutcracker starts in high summer, when whitebark pine trees produce seeds in their cones—ripe for plucking. Nutcrackers dash from tree to tree, inspect, and, with their sharp beaks, tear into the cones, pulling seeds out one by one. They work fast. One study clocked a nutcracker harvesting “32 seeds per minute.” These seeds are not for eating. They’re for hiding. Like a squirrel or chipmunk, the nutcracker clumps them into pouches located, in the bird’s case, under the tongue. Next, they land. Sometimes they peck little holes in the topsoil or under the leaf litter. Sometimes they leave seeds in nooks high up on trees. Most deposits have two or three seeds, so that by the time November comes around, a single bird has created 5,000 to 20,000 hiding places. They don’t stop until it gets too cold. The bird is mainly found in mountains at altitudes of 900–3,900 metres (3,000–12,900 ft) in conifer forest.

Areas of the Brain used in Memory

Hippocampus is a major component of the brain of humans and other vertebrates. Humans have two hippocampi, one in each side of the brain. It belongs to the limbic system and plays important roles in the consolidation of information from short-term memory to long-term memory and spatial navigation. The hippocampus is located under the cerebral cortex. Hippocampus is responsible for making new memories. Activities we do while awake produce short-term memories that are subsequently consolidated into long-term storage within a brain structure called the hippocampus. This process has been linked to distinctive brain wave patterns known as sharp-wave ripple activity in the CA1 region of the hippocampus, which triggers selective reactivation of neural circuits associated with recent experiences. The hippocampal CA2 area of the brain displays unique properties and connectivity that may be linked to disease. CA2 pyramidal neurons play a crucial role in the formation of social memory. Silencing of CA2 decreases the temporal precision of SWRs and neuronal spiking. CA1 spiking is more synchronous during replay in the absence of CA2. CA2 influences the informational and temporal precision of neuronal reactivation. Hippocampus Proper and the dentate gyrus are two main interlocking parts also called Ammon's Horn or curling ram horns.

Hippocampus Anatomy (wiki) - The Hippocampus and Episodic Memory (youtube) - Episodic Memory - Time Cells - Random Access Memory - Amygdala - Limbic System - Neuro-Regeneration

First evidence for necessary role of human Hippocampus in planning - Body Smart

Most Detailed Map of Brain’s Memory Hub Finds Connectivity Puzzle. The hippocampus is a complex structure that resembles a seahorse and is tucked deep within the brain. As a vital component of the brain, it is important for memory formation and plays a key role in the transfer of memories from short-term to long-term storage. But it also plays a part in navigation, imagining fictitious or future experiences, creating mental imagery of scenes in the mind’s eye, and even in visual perception and decision making.

Place Cells are neurons located within the hippocampus which are triggered in response to an animal entering specific places in its local environment.

New study reveals role of hippocampus in two functions of memory, one that remembers associations between time, place and what one did, and another that allows one to predict or plan future actions based on past experiences.

Mechanism found to determine which memories last. A new study proposes a mechanism that determines which memories are tagged as important enough to linger in the brain until sleep makes them permanent. The study revolves around brain cells called neurons that "fire" -- or bring about swings in the balance of their positive and negative charges -- to transmit electrical signals that encode memories. Large groups of neurons in a brain region called the hippocampus fire together in rhythmic cycles, creating sequences of signals within milliseconds of each other that can encode complex information.

Researchers have discovered the brain circuit that controls our ability to recall information and memories. This area is called the “Claustrum complex” and is located deep within the brain in each hemisphere.

New mnemonic networks discovered in the brain. It is known that different brain functions are anchored in different areas and structures of the brain. For example, we know that certain areas of the cerebral cortex are responsible for perception of the outer world, imagining our future, and thinking about other people. However, little is knowing about connection of the brain regions supporting these important cognitive functions with the human memory system. The human memory system is seated in the medial temporal lobe. Broadly, it contains the hippocampus, parahippocampal cortex, perirhinal cortex, and entorhinal cortex. Mnemonics.

New complexity of traveling brain waves in memory circuits. Researchers have observed a new feature of neural activity in the hippocampus - the brain's memory hub - that may explain how this vital brain region combines a diverse range of inputs into a multi-layered memories that can later be recalled.

Brain Waves Travel in One Direction when memories are made, and travel in the opposite direction when memories are recalled. The direction of theta and alpha travelling waves modulates human memory processing.

Perirhinal Cortex in managing this learning process. Researchers observed that the perirhinal cortex was serving as a waystation between the nearby hippocampus, which processes place and context, and the outer layer of the cortex. The perirhinal cortex happens to be at the very top of the hierarchy of processing of information in the cortex.

Pattern Separation - Pattern Recognition

Can a single brain region encode familiarity and recollection? The human brain has the extraordinary ability to rapidly discern a stranger from someone familiar, even as it can simultaneously remember details about someone across decades of encounters. Now, in mouse studies, scientists have revealed how the brain elegantly performs both tasks.

Precuneus is involved with episodic memory, visuospatial processing, reflections upon self, and aspects of consciousness. The mental imagery concerning the self has been located in the forward part of the precuneus with posterior areas being involved with episodic memory. Another area has been linked to visuospatial imagery. The precuneus is the portion of the superior parietal lobule on the medial surface of each brain hemisphere. It is located in front of the cuneus (the upper portion of the occipital lobe). The precuneus is bounded in front by the marginal branch of the cingulate sulcus, at the rear by the parieto-occipital sulcus, and underneath by the subparietal sulcus. Dreams.

Dentate Gyrus is part of the hippocampus and/or hippocampal formation, as some texts include the latter structure in the former or vice versa. The dentate gyrus is thought to contribute to the formation of new episodic memories, the spontaneous exploration of novel environments, and other functions. It is notable as being one of a select few brain structures currently known to have high rates of neurogenesis in adult rats (other sites include the olfactory bulb and cerebellum).

Neuroanatomy of Memory encompasses a wide variety of anatomical structures in the brain.

Why are only particular neurons involved in forming a memory?

Researchers discover the source of New Neurons in Brain's Hippocampus. It was once believed that mammals were born with the entire supply of neurons they would have for a lifetime. However, over the past few decades, neuroscientists have found that at least two brain regions -- the centers of the sense of smell and the hippocampus, the seat of learning and memory -- grow new neurons throughout life.

Protein Complex NCOR1/2 regulates memory and has revealed an unexpected connection between the lateral hypothalamus and the hippocampus.

Protein p53 regulates learning, memory, sociability in mice. Researchers have established the protein p53 as critical for regulating sociability, repetitive behavior, and hippocampus-related learning and memory in mice. They observed that the decreased p53 levels: Promoted repetitive behavior in mice. Reduced sociability in mice. Impaired hippocampus-dependent learning and memory, especially in male mice. The researchers also observed that p53 levels were elevated after a period of active communication between hippocampal neurons called long-term potentiation. Flexible neuron firing -- known as plasticity -- is related to positive learning and memory outcomes.

Researchers discover new classes of RNA for learning and memory. Researchers have discovered a new way ribonucleic acid (RNA) impacts fear-related learning and memory. Researchers demonstrated that a noncoding RNA known as Gas5 coordinates the trafficking and clustering of RNA molecules inside the long processes of neurons, and orchestrating neuronal excitability in real time that contributes to learning and memory. This study builds on earlier findings this year which identified a separate population of learning-related RNAs that accumulate near the synapse -- the junction between neurons that allow them to communicate. In that paper, published in the Journal of Neuroscience, they uncovered several new synapse-specific RNA that harbour a specific chemical tag called N6-methyladenosine (m6A).

Long-suspected turbocharger for memory found in brain cells of mice. Floods of calcium inside neurons can influence learning. Scientists have long known that learning requires the flow of calcium into and out of brain cells. But researchers have now discovered that floods of calcium originating from within neurons can also boost learning. The finding emerged from studies of how mice remember new places they explore. In neurons calcium plays a dual role as a charge carrier and an intracellular messenger. Calcium signals regulate various developmental processes and have a key role in apoptosis, neurotransmitter release and membrane excitability.

Key brain mechanisms for organizing memories in time. Using experiments and a deep machine learning data analysis approach, scientists uncovered the fundamental workings of the hippocampus region of the brain as it organizes memories into time sequences.

Validating the role of inhibitory interneurons in memory. To expand the understanding of memory, a research team has developed a technology called LCD-eGRASP (local circuit dual-eGRASP) that can label synapses of neural circuits within a specific brain region. The team applied this new technology to identify the local synaptic connections between inhibitory interneurons and engram cells, shedding light on the role of inhibitory interneurons in memory expression.

Memory formation influenced by how brain networks develop during youth. The study focused on communication between two regions of the brain that play a key role in supporting memory formation. The medial temporal lobe and prefrontal cortex. The precise ways by which two key memory regions in the brain communicate make us better at forming lasting memories.

Astrocyte are characteristic star-shaped glia cells in the brain and spinal cord. They perform many functions, including biochemical support of endothelial cells that form the blood–brain barrier, provision of nutrients to the nervous tissue, maintenance of extracellular ion balance and a role in the repair and scarring process of the brain and spinal cord following traumatic injuries. The proportion of astrocytes in the brain is not well defined; depending on the counting technique used, studies have found that the astrocyte proportion varies by region and ranges from 20% to 40% of all glia. Research since the mid-1990s has shown that astrocytes propagate intercellular Ca2+ waves over long distances in response to stimulation, and, similar to neurons, release transmitters (called gliotransmitters) in a Ca2+-dependent manner. Data suggest that astrocytes also signal to neurons through Ca2+-dependent release of glutamate. Such discoveries have made astrocytes an important area of research within the field of neuroscience. Adult astrocytes are key to learning and memory. Researchers have discovered that astrocytes, the most abundant cells in the brain, play a direct role in the regulation of adult neuronal circuits involved in learning and memory.

Acetylcholine is a neurotransmitter that plays a role in memory, learning, attention, arousal and involuntary muscle movement. Medical conditions associated with low acetylcholine levels include Alzheimer's disease and myasthenia gravis. Acetylcholine is an organic chemical that functions in the brain and body of many types of animals, including humans, as a neurotransmitter—a chemical released by nerve cells to send signals to other cells. Its name is derived from its chemical structure: it is an ester of acetic acid and choline. Parts in the body that use or are affected by acetylcholine are referred to as cholinergic. Substances that interfere with acetylcholine activity are called Anticholinergics, which is a substance that blocks the neurotransmitter acetylcholine in the central and the peripheral nervous system. Anticholinergics inhibit parasympathetic nerve impulses by selectively blocking the binding of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine to its receptor in nerve cells. The nerve fibers of the parasympathetic system are responsible for the involuntary movement of smooth muscles present in the gastrointestinal tract, urinary tract, lungs, and many other parts of the body. Anticholinergics are divided into three categories in accordance with their specific targets in the central and/or peripheral nervous system: antimuscarinic agents, ganglionic blockers, and neuromuscular blockers.

Long-suspected turbocharger for memory found in brain cells of mice. Floods of calcium inside neurons can influence learning. Scientists have long known that learning requires the flow of calcium into and out of brain cells. But researchers have now discovered that floods of calcium originating from within neurons can also boost learning. The finding emerged from studies of how mice remember new places they explore.

The mechanisms for pattern completion and pattern separation in the hippocampus CA3 region weighs the evidence and the whole region comes to a decision and then sends the decision out to the rest of the brain.

Region I of Hippocampus Proper refers to the actual structure of the hippocampus which is made up of four regions or subfields. The subfields CA1, CA2, CA3, and CA4 use the initials of cornu Ammonis, an earlier name of the hippocampus.

Uncinate Fasciculus is a white matter tract in the human brain that connects parts of the limbic system such as the hippocampus and amygdala in the temporal lobe with frontal ones such as the orbitofrontal cortex.

Parahippocampal Gyrus is a grey matter cortical region of the brain that surrounds the hippocampus and is part of the limbic system. This region plays an important role in memory encoding and retrieval. It has been involved in some cases of hippocampal sclerosis.

Neocortex - Brain Knowledge - Neurons (brain)

Amygdala are two almond-shaped groups of nuclei located deep and medially within the temporal lobes of the brain in complex vertebrates, including humans. Shown in research to perform a primary role in the processing of memory, decision-making, and emotional reactions, the amygdalae are considered part of the limbic system. Gaze Detection - Oxytocin.

Serotonin helps to speed Learning. And around 90% of serotonin is in the gut. You are what you eat.

Temporal Lobe is one of the four major lobes of the cerebral cortex in the brain of mammals. The temporal lobe is located beneath the lateral fissure on both cerebral hemispheres of the mammalian brain. The temporal lobe is involved in processing sensory input into derived meanings for the appropriate retention of visual memory, language comprehension, and emotion association.

Rhythm of Memory. Inhibited neurons set the tempo for memory processes. Researchers have suspected for a long time that frequencies over 30 Hertz coordinate the synchronous cooperation of various cell networks of the brain. But how do these signals, which are known as gamma waves, occur in several places simultaneously? When they are roused from their rest, the surrounding cells are receptive to certain information. Then they are stimulated to develop a common potential for action, so that a signal can be transmitted to other neurons. This in turn can be measured electrophysiologically as a discharge of gamma waves. The interesting aspect of this is that the micro-circuits do not interfere with one another, but can store or access various information in parallel, such as the attribute form and color of an object. This allows simultaneous, parallel processing and the storage of information. The more we know about the billions of nerve cells in the brain, the less their interaction appears spontaneous and random. Posterior Cingulate Cortex.

Synchronized Brain Waves: Old Brains Come Uncoupled in Sleep: Slow Wave-Spindle Synchrony, Brain Atrophy, and Forgetting. During deep sleep, some people could have less coordination between two brain waves that are important to saving new memories. When those two brain waves were perfectly coinciding, that's when you seem to get this fantastic transfer of memory within the brain from short term vulnerable storage sites to these more permanent, safe, long-term storage sites. If it's 50 milliseconds too early, or 50 milliseconds too late, this storing mechanism actually doesn't work. People with more atrophy, the area of the brain involved in producing deep sleep, had less rhythm in the brain.

Neural Network (ai)

Neuroscientists Construct First Whole-brain Map Showing Electrical Connections Key to Forming Memories. Alignment between brain regions tends to strengthen with slow waves of activity but weaken at higher frequencies. Low-frequency connectivity of a brain region was associated with increased neural activity at that site. This suggests that, for someone to form new memories, two functions must happen simultaneously: brain regions must individually process a stimulus, and then those regions must communicate with each other at low frequencies.

Tickling the Brain with Electrical Stimulation Improves Memory. Low-intensity electrical stimulation on the brain's lateral temporal cortex in the regions on the sides of the head by the temples and ears, can improve verbal short-term memory. (Temporal Lobe).

Cognitive Load (working memory)

A Brain wide Chemical Signal that Enhances Memory

Specific Neurons that map memories now identified in the human brain. Neuroengineers have found the first evidence that individual neurons in the human brain target specific memories during recall. Columbia biomedical engineers correlate neuronal activity in the human entorhinal cortex.

Protein Kinase B or AKT, is a serine/threonine-specific protein kinase that plays a key role in multiple cellular processes such as glucose metabolism, apoptosis, cell proliferation, transcription and cell migration. Akt1 is involved in cellular survival pathways, by inhibiting apoptotic processes. Akt1 is also able to induce protein synthesis pathways, and is therefore a key signaling protein in the cellular pathways that lead to skeletal muscle hypertrophy, and general tissue growth. Akt2 is an important signaling molecule in the insulin signaling pathway. It is required to induce glucose transport. The role of Akt3 is less clear, though it appears to be predominantly expressed in the brain. AKT has more recently been identified as a key player in promoting "synaptic plasticity," the brain's ability to strengthen cellular connections in response to experience. DNA.

Protein Kinase C Zeta Type is thought to be responsible for maintaining long-term memories in the brain.

Long-Lasting Brain Proteins offer clues to how Memories Last a Lifetime. In the tiny brain space where two nerve cells meet, chemical and electric signals shuttle back and forth, a messaging system that ebbs and flows in those synaptic spaces, sometimes in ways that scientists believe aid and abet learning and memory. But because most of the proteins found in those synapses die and renew themselves so rapidly, scientists have had a hard time pinning down how synapses are stable enough to explain the kind of learning and memory that lasts a lifetime. 164 proteins within synapses in mice that outlast neighboring proteins by weeks and months. These stable proteins, they say, may be part of the molecular machinery that governs long-term memory and learning -- as well as loss of memory. Computer Memory - Machine Code.

Shootin1a - The missing link underlying learning and memory. Researchers have found that dendritic spine structural plasticity, a key process underlying learning and memory, requires the linkage of cell adhesion molecules and polymerizing actin by shootin1a. Their findings suggest that the disruption of this coupling may be a causative factor in many neurological disorders, such as autism spectrum disorder and Alzheimer's disease, and might lead to the identification of new drug targets for these disorders.

Changes to RNA aid the process of Learning and Memory. When the researchers injected knockout mice with a virus carrying Ythdf1, their performance on memory and learning tasks improved dramatically. RNA carries pieces of instructions encoded in DNA to coordinate the production of proteins that will carry out the work to be done in a cell. But the process isn't always straightforward. Chemical modifications to DNA or RNA can alter the way genes are expressed without changing the actual genetic sequences. These epigenetic or epitranscriptome changes can affect many biological processes such as immune system response, nervous system development, various human cancers and even obesity. Most of these changes happen through methylation, a process in which chemical molecules called methyl groups are added to a DNA or RNA molecule. Proteins that add a methyl group are known as "writers," and proteins that can remove the methyl groups are "erasers." For the methylation to have a biological effect, there must be "reader" proteins that can identify the change and bind to it. The most common modification on messenger RNA in mammals is called N6-methyladenosine (m6A). It is widespread in the nervous system. It helps coordinate several neural functions, working through reader proteins in the YTH family of proteins. Ythdf1 is a member of the YTH family that specifically recognizes m6A, it plays an important role in the process of learning and memory formation. Using CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing tools to knock out Ythdf1in mice, they demonstrated how it promotes translation of m6A-modified messenger RNA (mRNA) in response to learning activities and direct nerve cell stimulus.

Using Virtual Reality to Identify Brain Areas Involved in Memory. Different areas of the hippocampus are activated for different types of memories.

Engram - Memory Trace - Levels of Processing

Neurons in Brain regions that store memory can form networks in the absence of Synaptic Activity. Results imply that assembly of neural circuits in areas required for cognition is largely controlled by intrinsic genetic programs that operate independently of the external world.

Biologists 'transfer' a memory through RNA injection

Reading Transforms Brain Networks (words and thoughts)

Bodily-Kinesthetic Intelligence (Body Smart) - Spatial intelligence (3D Space Smart)

CREB is a cellular transcription factor. It binds to certain DNA sequences called cAMP response elements (CRE), thereby increasing or decreasing the transcription of the genes. CREB was first described in 1987 as a cAMP-responsive transcription factor regulating the somatostatin gene.

CAMP Response Element is the response element for CREB which contains the highly conserved nucleotide sequence, 5'-TGACGTCA-3’. CRE sites are typically found upstream of genes, within the promoter or enhancer regions. There are approximately 750,000 palindromic and half-site CREs in the human genome. However, the majority of these sites remain unbound due to cytosine methylation which physically obstructs protein binding.

Transcription Factor is a protein that controls the rate of transcription of genetic information from DNA to messenger RNA, by binding to a specific DNA sequence. The function of TFs is to regulate - turn on and off - genes in order to make sure that they are expressed in the right cell at the right time and in the right amount throughout the life of the cell and the organism. Groups of TFs function in a coordinated fashion to direct cell division, cell growth, and cell death throughout life; cell migration and organization (body plan) during embryonic development; and intermittently in response to signals from outside the cell, such as a hormone. There are up to 2600 TFs in the human genome. TFs work alone or with other proteins in a complex, by promoting (as an activator), or blocking (as a repressor) the recruitment of RNA polymerase (the enzyme that performs the transcription of genetic information from DNA to RNA) to specific genes.

Activator is a protein (transcription factor) that increases gene transcription of a gene or set of genes. Most activators are DNA-binding proteins that bind to enhancers or promoter-proximal elements. Most activators function by binding sequence-specifically to a DNA site located in or near a promoter and making protein–protein interactions with the general transcription machinery (RNA polymerase and general transcription factors), thereby facilitating the binding of the general transcription machinery to the promoter. The DNA site bound by the activator is referred to as an "activator site". The part of the activator that makes protein–protein interactions with the general transcription machinery is referred to as an "activating region". The part of the general transcription machinery that makes protein–protein interactions with the activator is referred to as an "activation target".

Repressor is a DNA- or RNA-binding protein that inhibits the expression of one or more genes by binding to the operator or associated silencers. A DNA-binding repressor blocks the attachment of RNA polymerase to the promoter, thus preventing transcription of the genes into messenger RNA. An RNA-binding repressor binds to the mRNA and prevents translation of the mRNA into protein. This blocking of expression is called repression.

Are memories stored as protein signatures? Is the Nogo Receptor-1 (NgR1) in brain regions linked to memory formation, storage, and the formation of lasting memories?

Memory reconsolidation and extinction have distinct temporal and biochemical signatures. J Neurosci. 2004 May 19;24(20):4787-95. Suzuki A1, Josselyn SA, Frankland PW, Masushige S, Silva AJ, Kida S.

Signal coupling between neuron-glia super-network may lead to improved memory formation. Scientists have revealed glial cells act as amplifiers for synaptic signals and artificial control of the glial state can potentially be used for enhanced memory function of the brain.

How does oxygen depletion disrupt memory formation in the brain? Scientists identify a positive molecular feedback loop which could explain stroke-induced memory loss. When we learn something new, our brain cells or neurons communicate with each other through electrical and chemical signals. If the same group of neurons communicate together often, the connections between them get stronger. This process helps our brains learn and remember things and is known as long-term potentiation or LTP. Another type of LTP occurs when the brain is deprived of oxygen temporarily -- anoxia-induced long-term potentiationor aLTP. aLTP blocks the former process, thereby impairing learning and memory. Therefore, some scientists think that aLTP might be involved in memory problems seen in conditions like stroke. Notably, the cellular processes that support aLTP are shared by those involved in memory strengthening and learning (LTP). When aLTP is present, it hijacks molecular activities required for LTP and removing aLTP can rescue these memory enhancing mechanisms. This suggests that long-lasting aLTP may obstruct memory formation, possibly explaining why some patients have memory loss after a short stroke.

New study reveals where memories of familiar places are stored in the brain. Researchers reveal three brain areas that bridge the brain's perception and memory systems. Each of the brain areas involved in visual processing are paired with a place-memory counterpart. When you look at the location of the brain areas that process visual scenes and those that process spatial memories, these place-memory areas literally form a bridge between the two systems. Each of the brain areas involved in visual processing are paired with a place-memory counterpart. The three regions of the brain in the posterior cerebral cortex, call "place-memory areas," form a link between the brain's perceptual and memory systems. As we navigate our surroundings, information enters the visual cortex and somehow ends up as knowledge of where we are -- the question is where this transformation into spatial knowledge occurs. We think that the place-memory areas might be where this happens.

Memory Improving Skills - Memory Tips - Good Memory Techniques

Mnemonic is a way of aiding the memory and recall using initials or letters, or memorable phrases, rhymes, acronyms, numbers, colors, or other forms of information that makes remembering easier. Mnemonics make use of elaborative encoding, retrieval cues, and imagery as specific tools to encode any given information in a way that allows for efficient storage and retrieval. Mnemonics aid original information in becoming associated with something more accessible or meaningful—which, in turn, provides better retention of the information. Mnemonics can be used for other types of information and in visual or kinesthetic forms. Their use is based on the observation that the human mind more easily remembers spatial, personal, surprising, physical, sexual, humorous, or otherwise "relatable" information, rather than more abstract or impersonal forms of information. Mnemonics is any learning technique that aids information retention in the human memory. Brain Areas.

"There should be a memory trick for remembering memory tricks."

Brain Maintenance - Learning Styles - Mantra - Word Games - Memorization - Location Effect - Listening - Memory Flaws

Acronyms is a word or name formed as an abbreviation from the initial components in a phrase or a word, usually individual letters. EGBDF Every Good Boy Does Fine, Every Good Boy Deserves Favour or Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge.

Acrostics is a poem or other form of writing in which the first letter or syllable, or word of each line or paragraph, or other recurring feature in the text, spells out a word, message or the alphabet. Acrostics.

One Key to Remembering Someone's Name is making a connection or visual association between their name and something that you can easily remember. To get an individual's name to go hand in hand with their face is to say their name aloud in conversation. Another way of remembering peoples names is to visualizing their names written across their foreheads after being introduced.

Chunking in psychology is a process by which individual pieces of information are bound together into a meaningful whole. Break things down into more Manageable Chunks.

Loci is a method of memory enhancement which uses visualizations with the use of spatial memory, familiar information about one's environment, to quickly and efficiently recall information. Imagine yourself walking through your Memory Palace and telling a Story as you go from room to room or go from place to place, with each area you visit having a unique memory.

Mnemonic Peg System is a memory aid that works by creating mental associations between two concrete objects in a one-to-one fashion that will later be applied to to-be-remembered information. Typically this involves linking nouns to numbers and it is common practice to choose a noun that rhymes with the number it is associated with. These will be the pegs of the system. These associations have to be memorized one time and can be applied repeatedly to new information that needs to be memorize.

Imagining an action-consequence relationship can boost memory. The next time you hear about the possibility of rain on the weather forecast, try imagining the umbrella tip being lodged in your home's door lock, blocking you from locking it. This mental exercise could prevent you from leaving home without an umbrella.

Best way to memorize stuff can depend on what you're trying to remember. Researchers found that spaced learning benefited item memory, but they also found that memory was better for the items that had been paired with different scenes compared with those shown with the same scene each time. For example, if you want to remember a new person's name, repeating the name but associating it with different information about the person can actually be helpful.

Encoding allows the perceived item of use or interest to be converted into a construct that can be stored within the brain and recalled later from short-term or long-term memory. Working memory stores information for immediate use or manipulation which is aided through hooking onto previously archived items already present in the long-term memory of an individual. Encoding Strategies: Segmentation or chunking, is the act of breaking information down into manageable segments and delivering them in short bursts. Mnemonic Devices. Peg Word System And Method Of Loci. Self-Referencing And The Teaching Effect. Priming. Context. State-Dependent Memory.

Generation Effect is a phenomenon where information is better remembered if it is generated from one's own mind rather than simply read. Generation Effect is actively producing material during encoding acts to improve later memory performance. Researchers have struggled to account for why the generated information is better recalled than read information, but no single explanation has been sufficient. Comprehension.

Memory Improvement Resources: Memory Techniques - Methods for improving Memory - Memory Improvement Tips - Memorizing like the Pros - Memoryzine - Memory Key - Memory Techniques - Memory Improvement Course - Memory Improvement (amazon) - Cognitive Fun

How To Improve Your Memory (youtube)

Joshua Foer: Feats of Memory anyone can do (youtube) - Memory Tips (PDF)

Phonics (reading) - Sleep Learning

Retrieval Practice - Long Term Memory

Visual Cortex - Sight - Spatial Intelligence - Information Visualization - Mind Maps

Free Recall is a common task in the psychological study of memory. In this task, participants study a list of items on each trial, and then are prompted to recall the items in any order. Items are usually presented one at a time for a short duration, and can be any of a number of nameable materials, although traditionally, words from a larger set are chosen. The recall period typically lasts a few minutes, and can involve spoken or written recall. The standard test involves the recall period starting immediately after the final list item; this can be referred to as immediate free recall (IFR) to distinguish it from delayed free recall (DFR). In delayed free recall, there is a short distraction period between the final list item and the start of the recall period. Both IFR and DFR have been used to test certain effects that appear during recall tests, such as the primacy effect and recency effect.

Simple fragrance method produces major memory boost. Research into aromas while sleeping sparks 226% cognitive increase. When a fragrance wafted through the bedrooms of older adults for two hours every night for six months, memories skyrocketed. Participants in this study reaped a 226% increase in cognitive capacity compared to the control group. The researchers say the finding transforms the long-known tie between smell and memory into an easy, non-invasive technique for strengthening memory and potentially deterring dementia. Imaging revealed better integrity in the brain pathway called the left uncinate fasciculus. This pathway, which connects the medial temporal lobe to the decision-making prefrontal cortex, becomes less robust with age. Participants also reported sleeping more soundly. Scientists have long known that the loss of olfactory capacity, or ability to smell, can predict development of nearly 70 neurological and psychiatric diseases. Researchers have previously found that exposing people with moderate dementia to up to 40 different odors twice a day over a period of time boosted their memories and language skills, eased depression and improved their olfactory capacities. Aroma-Therapy.

Sleep improves ability to recall complex events. Sleep helps consolidate our memory of complex associations, thus supporting the ability to complete memories of whole events.

Sense of purpose associated with better memory. A new study showed a link between an individual's sense of purpose and their ability to recall vivid details. The researchers found that while both a sense of purpose and cognitive function made memories easier to recall, only a sense of purpose bestowed the benefits of vividness and coherence.

As we age, some memory functions, such as vocabulary and long-term memory, continually sharpen, just as long as you stay mentally active.

Forgetting is natural, but learning how to learn can slow it down. After reviewing more than 100 years of research on learning, authors of a new paper say combining two strategies -- spacing and retrieval practice -- is key to success.

Mnemonist refers to an individual with the ability to remember and recall unusually long lists of data, such as unfamiliar names, lists of numbers, entries in books, etc.

A robot that helps people with mild cognitive impairment. CARMEN teaches strategies to help improve memory and executive function. CARMEN is short for Cognitively Assistive Robot for Motivation and Neurorehabilitation -- a small, tabletop robot designed to help people with mild cognitive impairment learn skills to improve memory, attention, and executive functioning at home.

Young cerebrospinal fluid improves memory in old mice. The infusion of spinal fluid from young mice reversed the memory loss typically seen in aging animals.

Memory Consolidation

Memory Consolidation is a category of processes that stabilize a memory trace after its initial acquisition. Consolidation is distinguished into two specific processes, synaptic consolidation, which is synonymous with late-phase long-term potentiation and occurs within the first few hours after learning, and systems consolidation, where hippocampus-dependent memories become independent of the hippocampus over a period of weeks to years. Recently, a third process has become the focus of research, reconsolidation, in which previously-consolidated memories can be made labile again through reactivation of the memory trace. Organize.

The brain creates three copies for a single memory. A new study reveals that the memory for a specific experience is stored in multiple parallel 'copies'. These are preserved for varying durations, modified to certain degrees, and sometimes deleted over time. The ability to turn experiences into memories allows us to learn from the past and use what we learned as a model to respond appropriately to new situations. For this reason, as the world around us changes, this memory model cannot simply be a fixed archive of the good old days. Rather, it must be dynamic, changing over time and adapting to new circumstances to better help us predict the future and select the best course of action. How the brain could regulate a memory's dynamics was a mystery -- until multiple memory copies were discovered.

Memorization is the process of committing something to memory. Mental process undertaken in order to store in memory for later recall items such as experiences, names, appointments, addresses, telephone numbers, lists, stories, poems, pictures, maps, diagrams, facts, music or other visual, auditory, or tactical information. Memorizing is to commit something to memory or to learn something by heart. Beauty.

Mnemonic Major System is a mnemonic technique used to aid in memorizing numbers. The system works by converting numbers into consonant sounds, then into words by adding vowels. The system works on the principle that images can be remembered more easily than numbers. Number Associations.

Memory Champion Teaches You How to Memorize Anything (youtube)

The Molecular Biology of Memory Storage: A Dialogue Between Genes and Synapses - Hypnosis

The Great Forgetting

To Refresh My Memory or to Refresh Someone else's Memory is to help someone remember a moment in time by giving them the details of the event in order to help Jog their Memory and help them to recall the event more clearly.

Spaced Repetition

Always review what you have learned 10 minutes after learning, 1 day after learning, 1 week after learning, 1 month after learning and 6 months after learning. People who are given information and then tell someone about it immediately, recall the details better and longer by telling someone the particulars of what they have learned, as opposed to just simply re-reading the textbook or class notes and studying it again later. Reviewing and replaying what you have learned strengthens memories. Writing out some questions for yourself about the information, then later answering them yourself, you are more likely to remember the information. Visual cue's also improve memories. Routines - Retrieval Based Learning.

Spaced Repetition is a learning technique that incorporates increasing intervals of time between subsequent review of previously learned material in order to exploit the psychological spacing effect. Alternative names include spaced rehearsal, expanding rehearsal, graduated intervals, repetition spacing, repetition scheduling, spaced retrieval and expanded retrieval. Episodic Memory - Forgetting.

Spacing Effect is the phenomenon whereby learning is greater when studying is spread out over time, as opposed to studying the same amount of content in a single session. That is, it is better to use spaced presentation rather than massed presentation. Practically, this effect suggests that "cramming" (intense, last-minute studying) the night before an exam is not likely to be as effective as studying at intervals in a longer time frame. Important to note, however, is that the benefit of spaced presentations does not appear at short retention intervals, in which massed presentations tend to lead to better memory performance. This effect is a desirable difficulty; it challenges the learner but leads to better learning in the long-run.

Remember more by taking breaks. Longer breaks during learning lead to more stable activation patterns in the brain. We remember things longer if we take breaks during learning, referred to as the spacing effect. Scientists gained deeper insight into the neuronal basis for this phenomenon in mice. With longer intervals between learning repetitions, mice reuse more of the same neurons as before -- instead of activating different ones. Possibly, this allows the neuronal connections to strengthen with each learning event, such that knowledge is stored for a longer time.

N-Back task is a continuous performance task that is commonly used as an assessment in cognitive neuroscience to measure a part of working memory and working memory capacity. The subject is presented with a sequence of stimuli, and the task consists of indicating when the current stimulus matches the one from n steps earlier in the sequence. The load factor n can be adjusted to make the task more or less difficult. To clarify, the visual n-back test is similar to the classic memory game of "Concentration". However, instead of different items that are in a fixed location on the game board, there is only one item, that appears in different positions on the game board during each turn. "1-N" means that you have to remember the position of the item, one turn back. "2-N" means that you have to remember the position of the item two turns back, and so on.

Dual n-Back dual-task paradigm is when two independent sequences are presented simultaneously, typically using different modalities of stimuli, such as one auditory and one visual. The "dual n-back" is a memory sequence test in which people must remember a constantly updating sequence of visual and auditory stimuli. but instead of just recalling sounds and colors, you have to remember the current sequence and the one a few rounds back.

Dual-Task Paradigm is a procedure in experimental (neuro) psychology that requires an individual to perform two tasks simultaneously, in order to compare performance with single-task conditions. When performance scores on one and/or both tasks are lower when they are done simultaneously compared to separately, these two tasks interfere with each other, and it is assumed that both tasks compete for the same class of information processing resources in the brain. For instance, reciting poetry while riding a bike are two tasks that can be performed just as well separately as simultaneously. However, reciting poetry while writing an essay should deteriorate performance on at least one of these two tasks, because they interfere with each other. The interpretation of dual-task paradigms follows the view that human processing resources are limited and shareable and that they can be subdivided into several classes.

Eideticapp - Graduated Interval Recall (youtube) 

Practice is to Perform an activity or exercise a Skill repeatedly or regularly in order to improve or maintain one's Proficiency.

10,000 Hour Rule - Rote Learning - Ear Worms (music)

Memorizing pi doesn’t have to be done through numbers—it can also be done through words. This sentence "How I wish I could calculate pi" gives you pi to seven places. Just count the number of letters in each word—3, 1, 4, 1, 5…—and you get 3.141592. World record holder Chao Lu has recited it to 67,890 digits without an error. Sasha Volokh composed a passage that takes pi out to 167 digits. Mike Keith’s Cadaeic Cadenza takes it out to nearly 4000 digits (the last line is “I end, whispering ad infinitums").

Super-Sized Memory is Trainable and Long Lasting. The ability to perform astonishing feats of memory, such as remembering lists of several dozen words, can be learned, researchers report. After 40 days using a strategic memory improvement technique, individuals who had typical memory skills at the start and no previous memory training more than doubled their memory capacity, going from recalling an average of 26 words from a list of 72 to remembering 62. Four months later, recall performance remained high.

Training and Plasticity of Working Memory. Working memory (WM) capacity predicts performance in a wide range of cognitive tasks. Although WM capacity has been viewed as a constant trait, recent studies suggest that it can be improved by adaptive and extended training. This training is associated with changes in brain activity in frontal and parietal cortex and basal ganglia, as well as changes in dopamine receptor density. Transfer of the training effects to non-trained WM tasks is consistent with the notion of training-induced plasticity in a common neural network for WM. The observed training effects suggest that WM training could be used as a remediating intervention for individuals for whom low WM capacity is a limiting factor for academic performance or in everyday life.

Keeping Your Memory Sharp (youtube) - Hermann Ebbinghaus (wiki)

One-month worth of memory training results in 30 minutes. A new study shows that when participants are taught an effective strategy for a working memory training task, they quickly improve their performance in the same way as those who have undergone typical working memory training without strategy instructions for a month or longer. The significance of strategies was evident also in the controls who did not receive any strategy advice: use of self-generated strategies was associated with better working memory task performance at post-test.

Attention Restoration Theory (focus) - Flash Cards - Contests

If you are going to do memory building exercises and memory tests then use things that are relevant to you and your life. Use relevant numbers and make a puzzle that means something. Brain Games (education toys)

Testing Effect is the finding that long-term memory is increased when some of the learning period is devoted to retrieving the to-be-remembered information through testing with proper feedback. The effect is also sometimes referred to as retrieval practice, practice testing, or test-enhanced learning.

Memory Improvement Tips - Processing Speed.

Quizzes improve academic performance. Students who are quizzed over class material at least once a week tend to perform better on midterm and final exams compared to students who did not take quizzes, according to a new meta-analysis. The researchers found in addition to frequency, immediate feedback from instructors also seemed to positively impact student performance.

Location Effect - State-Dependent Memory

Location Effect is when you sometimes have to return to the room where you were thinking of something in order to remember what your were thinking about. Walking through a doorway sometimes causes forgetting. Doorway Effect is the way our memory sometimes changes when we enter a new room. Sometimes our memories can be tied to a particular place and time. Memories can come flooding back when we visit places from your past.

Recognition Memory is a subcategory of declarative memory. Essentially, recognition memory is the ability to recognize previously encountered events, objects, or people. When the previously experienced event is re-experienced, this environmental content is matched to stored memory representations, eliciting matching signals.

Cue-Dependent Forgetting is the failure to recall information without memory cues. The term either pertains to semantic cues, state-dependent cues or context-dependent cues. Triggers.

Memory Cue is any type of stimulus that helps to jog your memory or help you recall information that is stored in your memory.

Semantic Cues refer to the meaning in language that assists in comprehending texts, including words, speech, signs, symbols, and other meaning-bearing forms. Semantic cues involve the learners' prior knowledge of language, text, and visual media, and their prior life experiences.

State-Dependent Cues are governed by the state of mind and being at the time of encoding. The emotional or mental state of the person, such as being inebriated, drugged, upset, anxious or happy are key cues.

Context-Dependent Memory is the phenomenon of the environmental reinstatement effect. This effect occurs when the reinstatement or revisiting of an environmental context acts as a cues for past memories related to that particular environmental context.

Context-Dependent Memory is the improved recall of specific episodes or information when the context present at encoding and retrieval are the same.

Reinstatement effects refers to a better memory when the learning environment is reinstated during a test, than when testing occurs in a different environment.

Encoding Specificity Principle is the general principle that matching the encoding contexts of information at recall assists in the retrieval of episodic memories. It provides a framework for understanding how the conditions present while encoding information relate to memory and recall of that information.

Recency Effect is the tendency to remember the most recently presented information best. For example, if you are trying to memorize a list of items, the recency effect means you are more likely to recall the items from the list that you studied last.

The Influence of Location and Visual Features on Visual Object Memory.

Sensory Cues is a statistic or signal that can be extracted from the sensory input by a perceiver, that indicates the state of some property of the world that the perceiver is interested in perceiving.

Cicero is a mnemonic technique, based off of the method of loci, which allows memorization of sequential information.

State-Dependent Memory is the phenomenon through which memory retrieval is most efficient when an individual is in the same state of consciousness as they were when the memory was formed. The term is often used to describe memory retrieval while in states of consciousness produced by psychoactive drugs – most commonly, alcohol, but has implications for mood or non-substance induced states of consciousness as well.

When remembering the details of an event, some people remember more details when they close their eyes.

Shower Effect is when ideas and memories are triggered by an event, like when taking a warm shower, exercising or driving. Things that make us feel good and relaxed can give us an increased dopamine flow, which can increase the chances of having good ideas. Breathing.

Events serve as 'stepping stones' en route to retrieved memories. Lost your keys again? You might retrace your steps by scanning your memory using certain event boundaries -- when one event ends (say, walking in the door with your keys) and another begins (checking your phone, turning on the TV). One solution to this frustratingly common scenario is to retrace your steps. This can be done by physically moving through the space where you suspect your elusive keychain is hiding or, as explored in recent research in Psychological Science, scanning your memory to find them. Humans structure memories of these kinds of continuous experiences using event boundaries.

Artists showed lower activity in part of their frontal lobes called the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex during improvisation, and increased activity in another area, called the medial prefrontal cortex. The areas that were found to be ‘deactivated’ are associated with regulating other brain functions.

Sleeping and Memory

Sleep and Memory is the cognitive process whereby experiences, learning and recognition are recalled. Memory "formation" is a product of brain plasticity, the structural changes within synapses that create associations between stimuli. Stimuli are encoded within milliseconds; however, the long-term maintenance of memories can take additional minutes, days, or even years to fully consolidate and become a stable memory (more resistant to change or interference). Therefore, the formation of a specific memory occurs rapidly, but the evolution of a memory is often an ongoing process. Memory processes have been shown to be stabilized and enhanced (sped up and/or integrated) by nocturnal sleep and even daytime naps. Certain sleep stages are noted to improve an individual's memory, although this is task specific. Generally, declarative memories are enhanced by slow-wave sleep, while non-declarative memories are enhanced by rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, although there are some inconsistencies among experimental results. Sleep progresses in a cyclical fashion through five stages. Four of these stages are collectively referred to as non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep whereas the last cycle is a rapid eye movement period. A cycle takes approximately 90–110 minutes to complete. Wakefulness is found through EEG measures to be characterized by beta waves which are the highest in frequency and lowest in amplitude and tend to move inconsistently due to the vast amount of stimuli a person encounters while awake. Pre-sleep is the period of decreased perceptual awareness where brain activity is characterized by alpha waves which are more rhythmic, higher in amplitude and lower in frequency compared to beta waves. Stage one is characterized by light sleep and lasts roughly 10 minutes. Brain waves gradually transition to theta waves. Stage two also contains theta waves; however, random short bursts of increased frequency called sleep spindles are a defining characteristic of this stage. Stage three and four are very similar and together are considered to be "deep sleep". In these stages brain activity transitions to delta waves which are the lowest in frequency and highest in amplitude. These two stages combined are also called Slow wave sleep (SWS). Stage five, REM sleep, is one of the most interesting stages as brain wave patterns are similar to those seen in relaxed wakefulness. This is referred to as "active sleep" and is the period when most dreaming occurs. REM sleep is also thought to play a role in the cognitive development of infants and children as they spend much more of their sleep in REM periods opposed to adults. During the first half of the night, the largest portion of sleep is spent as SWS, but as the night progresses SWS stages decrease in length while REM stages increase. Stabilization vs. enhancement. Stabilization of a memory is the anchoring of a memory in place, in which a weak connection is established. Stabilization of procedural memories can even occur during waking hours, suggesting that specific non-declarative tasks are enhanced in the absence of sleep. When memories are said to be enhanced, however, the connection is strengthened by rehearsal as well as connecting it to other related memories thereby making the retrieval more efficient. Whereas stabilization of non-declarative memories can be seen to occur during a wakeful state, enhancement of these sensory and motor memories has most been found to occur during nocturnal sleep. Brain activity that occurs during sleep is assessed in two ways: Use-dependency, and Experience-dependency. Use-dependent brain activity is a result of the neuronal usage that occurred during the previous waking hours. Essentially it is neuronal regeneration, activity that occurs whether you have learnt anything new or not. Experience-dependent brain activity is a result of a new situation, environment, or learned task or fact that has taken place in the pre-sleep period. This is the type of brain activity that denotes memory consolidation/enhancement. Methods of measuring memory. Behavioral measures. A self-ordered pointing task is a task of memory where a participant is presented with a number of images (or words) which are arranged on a display. Several trials are presented, each with a different arrangement and containing some of the previous words or images. The task for the participant is to point to a word or image they had not previously pointed to in other trials. In a recency discrimination task participants are shown two trials of image presentation and then a third trial containing a mixture of images from the first and second trial. Their task is to determine whether the image was from the most recent presentation or the previous one. In a route retrieval task spatial learning occurs where a participant virtual tours a particular place (such as a town or maze). Participants are asked to virtually tour the same thing at a later time while brain imaging is used to measure activity. A paired word associative task consists of two phases. During the first phase (acquisition), the responses of the paired-associate task are learned and become recallable. In the second phase (associative phase), the subject learns to pair each response to a separate stimulus. For example, a visual cue would provide information as to what words must be recalled after the stimulus and words are removed. In a mirror tracing task participants are asked to trace several figures as fast and as accurately as possible which they can only see in a mirror. Speed is recorded as well as how much they deviate from the original image (accuracy). In the Morris water maze task rats are used to test their spatial learning in two kinds of conditions: spatial and nonspatial. In the spatial condition, a platform is hidden by using murky water and in the nonspatial condition, the platform is visible. The spatial condition the rat must rely on their spatial memory to find the platform whereas the nonspatial condition is used for comparison purposes. A rat undergoing a Morris water navigation test. The serial reaction time task (SRT task) is a task whereby subjects face a computer screen where several markers are displayed that are spatially related to relevant markers on their keyboard. The subjects are asked to react as fast and accurately as possible to the appearance of a stimulus below one of the markers. Subjects can be trained on the task with either explicit instructions (e.g. there are colour sequences presented which must be learned) or implicit ones (e.g. the experimentor does not mention colour sequences, thus leaving the subjects to believe that they are taking place in a speed test). When this task is used in sleep studies, after a time delay, subjects are tested for retention. In the reach-to-grasp task rodents learned a skilled forelimb task. Sleep improved movement speed with preservation of accuracy. These offline improvements were linked to both replay of task-related ensembles during non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep and temporal shifts that more tightly bound motor cortical ensembles to movements. In a neuroprosthetic task rodents trained to perform a simple brain–machine interface task in which the activity of a set of motor cortical units was used to control a mechanical arm attached to a feeding spout. After successful learning, task-related units specifically experienced increased locking and coherency to slow-wave activity (SWA) during sleep. The time spent in SWA predicted the performance gains upon awakening. In a block tapping task participants are asked to type a sequence of five numbers with their dominant or non-dominant hand (specified in experiment), for an allotted period of time, followed by a rest period. A number of these trials occur and the computer records the number of sequences completed to assess speed and the error rate to assess accuracy. A finger tapping test is commonly used when a pure motor task is needed. A finger tapping test requires subjects to continuously press four keys (typically numerical keys) on a keypad with their nondominant hand in a sequence, such as 4-3-1-2-4, for a given amount of time. Testing is done by determining the number of errors made. Temporal memory. Temporal memory consists of remembering when a specific memory has occurred. Measure the brain's response to verbal learning following sleep deprivation. An fMRI recorded brain activity during a verbal learning task of participants either having a normal night of sleep or those deprived of 34.7 (± 1.2) hours of sleep. The task alternated between a baseline condition of determining whether nouns were upper or lower case and an experimental condition of memorizing a list of nouns. The results of the study indicate that performance is significantly worse on free recall of the list of nouns when sleep deprived (an average of 2.8 ± 2 words) compared to having a normal night of sleep (4.7 ± 4 words). In terms of brain regions activated, the left prefrontal cortex, premotor cortex, and temporal lobes were found to be activated during the task in the rested state and discrete regions of the prefrontal cortex were even more activated during the task in the sleep deprived state. As well, the bilateral parietal lobe, left middle frontal gyrus, and right interior frontal gyrus were found to be activated for those sleep deprived. The implication of these findings are that the brain can initially compensate for the effects of sleep deprivation while maintaining partially intact performance, which declines with an increasing time-on-task. This initial compensation may be found in the bilateral regions of both frontal and parietal lobes and the activation of the prefrontal cortex is significantly correlated with sleepiness. Cognitive performance. Cerebral activation during performance on three cognitive tasks (verbal learning, arithmetic, and divided attention) were compared after both normal sleep and 35 hours of total sleep deprivation (TSD) in a study by Drummond and Brown. Use of fMRI measured these differences in the brain. Slow wave sleep (SWS) has been often associated with successful performance in declarative memory recall tasks. For example, declarative and procedural memory recall tasks applied over early and late nocturnal sleep, as well as wakefulness controlled conditions, have been shown that declarative memory improves more during early sleep (dominated by SWS) while procedural memory during late sleep (dominated by REM sleep). Based on targeted memory reactivation (TMR) that use associated memory cues for triggering memory traces during sleep, recent studies have been reassuring the importance of nocturnal SWS for the formation of persistent memories in neocortical networks, as well as highlighting the possibility of increasing people’s memory performance at declarative recalls. Increased slow activity and sleep time spent in SWS have been also related to better performance in implicit learning. The brain is an ever-changing, plastic, model of information sharing and processing. In order for the brain to incorporate new experiences into a refined schema it has to undergo specific modifications to consolidate and assimilate all new information. Synaptic plasticity can be described as the changing in strength between two related neurons. Neuroplasticity is most clearly seen in the instances of REM sleep deprivation during brain maturation. Regional brain measurements in neo-natal REM sleep deprived rats displayed a significant size reduction in areas such as the cerebral cortex and the brain stem. The rats were deprived during critical periods after birth and thus anatomical size reduction is observed. Using a pursuit task (used to test visuomotor capabilities) in combination with an fMRI, Maquet et al., 2003, found that increases in activation were seen in the supplementary eye field and right dentate nucleus of subjects who were allowed to sleep as compared to sleep deprived individuals. The right superior temporal sulcus was also noticed to have higher activation levels. When functional connectivity was analyzed it was found that the dentate nucleus was more closely involved with the functions of the superior temporal sulcus. The results suggest that performance on the pursuit task relies on the subject's ability to comprehend appropriate movement patterns in order for recreation of the optimal movements. Sleep deprivation was found to interrupt the slow processes that lead to learning of this procedural skill and alter connectivity changes that would have normally been seen after a night of rest. Neuroplasticity has been thoroughly researched over the past few decades and results have shown that significant changes that occur in our cortical processing areas have the power to modulate neuronal firing to both new and previously experienced stimuli. Neurotransmitter regulation. The changes in quantity of a certain neurotransmitter as well as how the post-synaptic terminal responds to this change are underlying mechanisms of brain plasticity. During sleep there are remarkable changes in modulatory neurotransmitters throughout the brain. Acetylcholine is an excitatory neurotransmitter that is seen to increase to near waking levels during REM sleep while compared to lower levels during slow-wave sleep. Evidence has shown that functioning of the hippocampus dependent memory system (episodic memory and autobiographical memory) is directly affected by cholinergic changes throughout the wake-sleep cycle. High levels of ACh would promote information attained during wakefulness to be stored in the hippocampus. This is accomplished by suppressing previous excitatory connections while facilitating encoding without interference from previously stored information. During NREM sleep, and especially slow-wave sleep, low levels of Ach would cause the release of this suppression and allow for spontaneous recovery of hippocampal neurons resulting in the facilitation of memory consolidation. Gene expression. Recently, approximately one hundred genes whose brain expression is increased during periods of sleep have been found. A similar number of genes were found to promote gene expression during wakefulness. These sets of genes are related to different functional groups which may promote different cellular processes. The genes expressed during wakefulness may perform numerous duties including energy allocation, synaptic excitatory neurotransmission, high transcriptional activity and synaptic potentiation in learning of new information. There was a sleep related increase in processes that involve the synthesis and maintenance of the synapse. Such processes include membrane trafficking, synaptic vesicle recycling, myelin structural protein formation, and cholesterol and protein synthesis. In a different study it was found that there was a sleep related increase in calmodulin-dependent protein kinase IV that has been specifically involved in synaptic depression and in the consolidation of long-term memory. These findings encourage an association between sleep and different aspects of neural plasticity. Much like motor skills learning, verbal skills learning increased after a daytime nap period. Shift workers who work throughout the night have been known to have far more accidents as opposed to daytime workers. The positive correlation between sleep and memory breaks down with aging. In general, older adults suffer from decreased sleep efficiency. The amount of time and density of REM sleep and SWS decreases with age. Consequently, it is common that the elderly receive no increase in memory after a period of rest. Patients with Alzheimer's disease experience more sleep disruption than the healthy elderly. Studies have shown that in patients with Alzheimer's disease, there is a decrease in fast spindles. It has also been reported that spindle density the night before a memory test correlate positively with accuracy on an immediate recall task. A positive correlation between time spent in SWS and next day autobiographical memory recall has also been reported in Alzheimer's patients.

Physical Exercise Improves Memory - Brain Foods - Smart Drugs

Sleeping (Knowledge) - Awareness (perception) - Theories and Processes

Memory Vulnerabilities (false memories) - Information Overload

Learning Methods - 10,000 Hours

Evidence that human brains replay our waking experiences while we sleep. When we fall asleep, our brains are not merely offline, they're busy organizing new memories -- and now, scientists have gotten a glimpse of the process. Researchers report the first direct evidence that human brains replay waking experiences while asleep, seen in the brains of two participants who had been implanted with microelectrode arrays as part of a brain-computer interface pilot clinical trial.

Sleep Learning

Sleep-Learning is an attempt to convey information to a sleeping person, typically by playing a sound recording to them while they sleep.

Sleeping is important to Learning - Learning Styles - Mantras before Sleep - Hypnosis - Memory Consolidation

Sometimes if you learn something right before go to sleep, you can improve your memory of that particular information. So there might be a particular phase of sleep that will allow you to take in certain auditory information.

Learning New Vocabulary during Deep Sleep. Researchers showed that we can acquire the vocabulary of a new language during distinct phases of slow-wave sleep and that the sleep-learned vocabulary could be retrieved unconsciously following waking. Memory formation appeared to be mediated by the same brain structures that also mediate wake vocabulary learning. Wake-learned information undergoing a recapitulation by replay in the sleeping brain. The replay during sleep strengthens the still fragile memory traces und embeds the newly acquired information in the preexisting store of knowledge. Not all memory formation requires consciousness. Learning Styles.

How do we learn? Neuroscientists pinpoint how memories are likely to be stored in the brain. What is the mechanism that allows our brains to incorporate new information about the world, and form memories? New work by a team of neuroscientists shows that learning occurs through the continuous formation of new connectivity patterns between specific engram cells in different regions of the brain. Memory engram cells are groups of brain cells that, activated by specific experiences, change themselves to incorporate and thereby hold information in our brain. Reactivation of these 'building blocks' of memories triggers the recall of the specific experiences associated to them.

Studies uncover the critical role of sleep in the formation of memories. Sleep -- or a lack thereof -- has a dramatic effect on neurons in the hippocampus. A lack of sleep can make it extraordinarily difficult to retain information. Two new studies uncover why this is and what is happening inside the brain during sleep and sleep deprivation to help or harm the formation of memories.

Sound Stimulation at low intensities during Slow-Wave Sleep, synchronized to the rhythm of the slow brain oscillations of people who are Sleeping, enhances and boosts their memory. Meditation.

Sound waves boost older adults' memory, deep sleep. Pink Noise synced to brain waves deepens sleep and triples memory scores in older adults. Pink Noise is a signal or process with a frequency spectrum such that the power spectral density (energy or power per frequency interval) is inversely proportional to the frequency of the signal. In pink noise, each octave (halving/doubling in frequency) carries an equal amount of noise energy. The name arises from the pink appearance of visible light with this power spectrum. Within the scientific literature the term pink noise is sometimes used a little more loosely to refer to any noise with a power spectral density of the form where f is frequency, and 0 < α < 2, with exponent α usually close to 1. These pink-like noises occur widely in nature and are a source of considerable interest in many fields. The distinction between the noises with α near 1 and those with a broad range of α approximately corresponds to a much more basic distinction. The former (narrow sense) generally come from condensed-matter systems in quasi-equilibrium, as discussed below. The latter (broader sense) generally correspond to a wide range of non-equilibrium driven dynamical systems. The term flicker noise is sometimes used to refer to pink noise, although this is more properly applied only to its occurrence in electronic devices. Mandelbrot and Van Ness proposed the name fractional noise (sometimes since called fractal noise) to emphasize that the exponent of the power spectrum could take non-integer values and be closely related to fractional Brownian motion, but the term is very rarely used. Hypnagogia - Learning and Sleep.

Auditory Closed-Loop Stimulation of the Sleep Slow Oscillation Enhances Memory.

Can chewing the same flavored gum while studying for an exam, and then while taking the exam, increase memory performance?

Superior Memory and Higher Cortical Volumes in Unusually Successful Cognitive Aging - The Brain

UNF Researchers Show Running Barefoot Improves Working Memory - Memory Techniques

Brain Maintenance (maintaining your internal memory bank) - Brain Food

External Memory Devices (off loading)

Senstone records your thoughts on the go. Just tap, speak and your ideas turn into organized text notes.

Memory Contests

World Memory Championships is an organized competition of memory sports in which competitors memorize as much information as possible within a given period of time. Memory Contest - Memory Challenge.

Memory Sport is sometimes referred to as competitive memory or the mind sport of memory, refers to competitions in which participants attempt to memorize then recall different forms of information, under certain guidelines. The sport has been formally developed since 1991 and features national and international championships. The primary worldwide organizational bodies are the IAM (International Association of Memory) and WMSC (World Memory Sports Council). Memory Sports.

Recall Test is a test of memory in which participants are presented with stimuli and then, after a delay, are asked to remember as many of the stimuli as possible. Memory performance can be indicated by measuring the percentage of stimuli the participant was able to recall. An example of this would be studying a list of 10 words and later recalling 5 of them. This is a 50 percent recall. Participants' responses also may be analyzed to determine if there is a pattern in the way items are being recalled from memory. For example, if participants are given a list consisting of types of vegetables and types of fruit, their recall can be assessed to determine whether they grouped vegetables together and fruits together. Recall is also involved when a person is asked to recollect life events, such as graduating high school, or to recall facts they have learned, such as the capital of Florida.

Concentration Game is a card game in which all of the cards are laid face down on a surface and two cards are flipped face up over each turn. The object of the game is to turn over pairs of matching cards. Concentration can be played with any number of players or as solitaire. It is a particularly good game for young children, though adults may find it challenging and stimulating as well. The scheme is often used in quiz shows and can be employed as an educational game.

Superior memorizers employ different neural networks for encoding and recall.

Learning Games - Word Recall Games - Testing - Photographic Memory

"If your memory is not making you smarter each day, then you're remembering insignificant details, or, insignificant details where force on you by some educational institution, or by the media, or by another person, which of course includes you."

"Just because you remember something does not mean that you learned something, why?"

"When I see kids memorizing presidents names and countries, it's like child abuse. I would rather see kids use their memory to remember the most important things, things that will make their lives richer, fuller and more meaningful."

Scrabble Champ Wins French Tournament After Memorizing French Dictionary, but he can't speak French.

If you don't fully understand what information and knowledge is to a human, then you will never be effective enough when teaching. You have to Learn the right things in the right order, and at the right time. So what are the right things? And how should you remember them? This is exactly what I'm working on, and so should you. The more people who try to answer this question the better. We can then compare notes and learn even more. Self Directed Learning.

Everything that you learn will require a good Memory. It is extremely important that you learn how to use your memory and know exactly how the human brain stores, retains, and retrieves memories, information and knowledge. Everything that you are and everything that you will become is closely related to ' what you remember, why you remember it, how you remember it, and when you remember it '. Understanding is often the best way to remember but memorization does not always mean that you will understand, or does it mean that you will remember the right things at the right time.

"Even with so much to remember and so much to make sense, It's choosing what to remember that will always make a difference. Our memory is so important, we need to use it every day, Never take it for granted, for there's always a price to pay." Poem about Memory.

Memory Vulnerabilities - Memory Errors

False Memory describes a condition in which a person's identity and relationships are affected by memories that are factually incorrect, but that they strongly believe. Every time that you recall a memory, you may change that memory a little. So don't lie. False Memory is a psychological phenomenon in which a person recalls a memory that did not actually occur. Mandela Effect are the false memories that can be shared by multiple people, such as with mass hysteria or when learning misinformation.

False History - False Education - Conspiracies - Propaganda - Cognitive Bias - Memory Biases - Recall Bias - Cognition Errors - Amnesia - Highway Hypnosis - Misleading Questions - Alzheimer's

Memory Error refers to the incorrect recall, or complete loss, of information in the memory system for a specific detail and/or event. Memory errors may include remembering events that never occurred, or remembering them differently from the way they actually happened. These errors or gaps can occur due to a number of different reasons, including the emotional involvement in the situation, expectations and environmental changes. As the retention interval between encoding and retrieval of the memory lengthens, there is an increase in both the amount that is forgotten, and the likelihood of a memory error occurring.

Conformity - History Misconceptions - Lying - Psychosis - Fallacies - Beliefs - Self Deception - Illusions - Denial - Dunning Kruger Effect

Reconstructive Memory is a theory of memory recall, in which the act of remembering is influenced by various other cognitive processes including perception, imagination, motivation, semantic memory and beliefs, amongst others. People view their memories as being a coherent and truthful account of episodic memory and believe that their perspective is free from an error during recall. However, the reconstructive process of memory recall is subject to distortion by other intervening cognitive functions such as individual perceptions, social influences, and world knowledge, all of which can lead to errors during reconstruction.

Misinformation Effect happens when a person's recall of episodic memories becomes less accurate because of post-event information, like propaganda.

New study finds false memories can be reversed. Rich false memories of autobiographical events can be planted - and then reversed, a new paper has found. Learning.

Individuals can tell if their memories are trustworthy. New research shows we have a good awareness of when we are recalling events accurately -- and when our brain is filling in gaps with general knowledge. Memories are a blend of recalled details and 'prototypical' information, but when prototypes appear more prominent, we become less confident in the recollection. Prototypical means representing the usual or quintessential version of something.

Confabulation is a memory error defined as the production of fabricated, distorted, or misinterpreted memories about oneself or the world. People who confabulate present incorrect memories ranging from "subtle alterations to bizarre fabrications", and are generally very confident about their recollections, despite contradictory evidence. Confabulation is a symptom of various memory disorders in which made-up stories fill in any gaps in memory. Confabulation in psychiatry is a plausible but imagined memory that fills in gaps in what is remembered. Confabulation is a disturbance of memory, defined as the production of fabricated, distorted or misinterpreted memories about oneself or the world, without the conscious intention to deceive.

Tip of the Tongue is the phenomenon of failing to retrieve a word or term from memory, combined with partial recall and the feeling that retrieval is imminent. The phenomenon's name comes from the saying, "It's on the tip of my tongue." The tip of the tongue phenomenon reveals that lexical access occurs in stages.

Most Life Experiences are Fabricated from Memories. We may not be able to change recent events in our lives, but how well we remember them plays a key role in how our brains model what's happening in the present and predict what is likely to occur in the future. Event Memory Retrieval and Comparison Theory proposes that current event features cue retrieval of recent related event representations. Both those representations and ongoing perceptual information inform predictions about upcoming event features. Changed features in upcoming events lead to prediction error and event model updating, whereas repeated features tend to lead to maintaining stable event models.

Things that decrease memory abilities

Brain's 'updating mechanisms' may create false memories. The brain can update or 'edit' poorly formed memories with the wrong information.

Source-Monitoring Error is a type of memory error where the source of a memory is incorrectly attributed to some specific recollected experience. For example, individuals may learn about a current event from a friend, but later report having learned about it on the local news, thus reflecting an incorrect source attribution. This error occurs when normal perceptual and reflective processes are disrupted, either by limited encoding of source information or by disruption to the judgment processes used in source-monitoring. Depression, high stress levels and damage to relevant brain areas are examples of factors that can cause such disruption and hence source-monitoring errors.

Why you sometimes can't remember dreams or recall certain details of dreams, and why the memories of dreams can fade.

Remember versus Know Judgments. There is evidence suggesting that different processes are involved in remembering something versus knowing whether it is familiar. It appears that "remembering" and "knowing" represent relatively different characteristics of memory as well as reflect different ways of using memory. To remember is the conscious recollection of many vivid contextual details, such as "when" and "how" the information was learned. Remembering utilizes episodic memory and requires a deeper level of processing (e.g. undivided attention) than knowing. Errors in recollection may be due to source-monitoring errors that prevent an individual from remembering where exactly a piece of information was received. On the other hand, source monitoring may be very effective in aiding the retrieval of episodic memories. Remembering is a knowledge-based and conceptually-driven form of processing that can be influenced by many things. It is relevant to note that under this view both kinds of judgments are characteristics of individuals and thus any distinctions between the two are correlational, not causal, events. To know is a feeling (unconscious) of familiarity. It is the sensation that the item has been seen before, but not being able to pin down the reason why. Knowing simply reflects the familiarity of an item without recollection. Knowing utilizes semantic memory that requires perceptually based, data-driven processing. Knowing is the result of shallow maintenance rehearsal that can be influenced by many of the same aspects as semantic memory. Remember and know responses are quite often differentiated by their functional correlates in specific areas in the brain. For instance, during "remember" situations it is found that there is greater EEG activity than "knowing", specifically, due to an interaction between frontal and posterior regions of the brain. It is also found that the hippocampus is differently activated during recall of "remembered" (vs. familiar) stimuli. On the other hand, items that are only "known", or seem familiar, are associated with activity in the rhinal cortex.

Researchers found participants who engaged in artistic hobbies such as painting, drawing or sculpture in both middle and old age were 73 percent less likely to develop mild cognitive impairment than those who didn't.

Does being over-reliant on computers and search engines and cell phones that we use to help us remember things, also weaken people's memories? That depends on what you are using your working memory for. You don't want to memorize useless information or irrelevant details, but you do want to memorize the important knowledge and skills that provide you with the best control and awareness. If you don't need to be technology dependent, then you should be brain dependent, and use technology to expand your abilities, and not use technologies to lower your abilities.

Does digital amnesia come from technology abuse, or for other reasons?

Artificial Memory. Memory is coded by patterns of neural activity in distinct circuits. Therefore, it should be possible to reverse engineer a memory by artificially creating these patterns of activity in the absence of a sensory experience. In olfactory conditioning, an odor conditioned stimulus (CS) is paired with an unconditioned stimulus (US; for example, a footshock), and the resulting CS–US association guides future behavior. Here we replaced the odor CS with optogenetic stimulation of a specific olfactory glomerulus and the US with optogenetic stimulation of distinct inputs into the ventral tegmental area that mediate either aversion or reward. In doing so, we created a fully artificial memory in mice. Similarly to a natural memory, this artificial memory depended on CS–US contingency during training, and the conditioned response was specific to the CS and reflected the US valence. Moreover, both real and implanted memories engaged overlapping brain circuits and depended on basolat-eral amygdala activity for expression. Experience and memory are inexorably linked, or at least they seemed to be before a recent report on the formation of completely artificial memories. Using laboratory animals, investigators reverse engineered a specific natural memory by mapped the brain circuits underlying its formation. They then “trained” another animal by stimulating brain cells in the pattern of the natural memory. Doing so created an artificial memory that was retained and recalled in a manner indistinguishable from a natural one. Earlier studies had shown that specific nerve pathways leading to a structure known as the ventral tegmental area (VTA) were important for the aversive nature of the foot shock. To create a truly artificial memory, the researchers needed to stimulate the VTA in the same way as they stimulated the olfactory sensory nerves, but the transgenic animals only made the light-sensitive proteins in those nerves. In order to use optogenetic stimulation, they stimulated the olfactory nerves in the same genetically engineered mice , and they employed a virus to place light-sensitive proteins in the VTA as well. They stimulated the olfactory receptors with light to simulate the odor of cherry blossoms, then stimulated the VTA to mimic the aversive foot shock. The animals recalled the artificial memory, responding to an odor they had never encountered by avoiding a shock they had never received.

Memory Bias is a cognitive bias that either enhances or impairs the recall of a memory (either the chances that the memory will be recalled at all, or the amount of time it takes for it to be recalled, or both), or that alters the content of a reported memory. There are many different types of memory biases. Boundary extension is remembering the background of an image as being larger or more expansive than the foreground. Childhood amnesia is the retention of few memories from before the age of four. Choice-supportive bias is remembering chosen options as having been better than rejected options (Mather, Shafir & Johnson, 2000). Confirmation bias the tendency to search for, interpret, or recall information in a way that confirms one's beliefs or hypotheses. Conservatism or Regressive bias is tendency to remember high values and high likelihoods/probabilities/frequencies lower than they actually were and low ones higher than they actually were. Based on the evidence, memories are not extreme enough. Consistency bias is incorrectly remembering one's past attitudes and behaviour as resembling present attitudes and behaviour. Context effect is that cognition and memory are dependent on context, such that out-of-context memories are more difficult to retrieve than in-context memories (e.g., recall time and accuracy for a work-related memory will be lower at home, and vice versa). Cryptomnesi is a form of misattribution where a memory is mistaken for imagination, because there is no subjective experience of it being a memory. Egocentric bias is recalling the past in a self-serving manner, e.g., remembering one's exam grades as being better than they were, or remembering a caught fish as bigger than it really was. Fading affect bias is a bias in which the emotion associated with unpleasant memories fades more quickly than the emotion associated with positive events. Generation effect or Self-generation effect is that self-generated information is remembered best. For instance, people are better able to recall memories of statements that they have generated than similar statements generated by others. Gender differences in eyewitness memory is the tendency for a witness to remember more details about someone of the same gender. Hindsight bias is the inclination to see past events as being predictable; also called the "I-knew-it-all-along" effect. Humor effect is that humorous items are more easily remembered than non-humorous ones, which might be explained by the distinctiveness of humor, the increased cognitive processing time to understand the humor, or the emotional arousal caused by the humor. Illusion-of-truth effect is that people are more likely to identify as true statements those they have previously heard (even if they cannot consciously remember having heard them), regardless of the actual validity of the statement. In other words, a person is more likely to believe a familiar statement than an unfamiliar one. Illusory correlation is inaccurately seeing a relationship between two events related by coincidence. Lag effect is see spacing effect. Leveling and sharpening are memory distortions introduced by the loss of details in a recollection over time, often concurrent with sharpening or selective recollection of certain details that take on exaggerated significance in relation to the details or aspects of the experience lost through leveling. Both biases may be reinforced over time, and by repeated recollection or re-telling of a memory. Levels-of-processing effect is that different methods of encoding information into memory have different levels of effectiveness (Craik & Lockhart, 1972). List-length effect is a smaller percentage of items are remembered in a longer list, but as the length of the list increases, the absolute number of items remembered increases as well. Memory inhibition is when being shown some items from a list makes it harder to retrieve the other items (e.g., Slamecka, 1968). Misattribution of memory: when information is retained in memory but the source of the memory is forgotten. One of Schacter's (1999) seven sins of memory, misattribution was divided into source confusion, cryptomnesia and false recall/false recognition. Misinformation effect is when misinformation affects people's reports of their own memory. Modality effect is when memory recall is higher for the last items of a list when the list items were received via speech than when they were received via writing. Mood congruent memory bias is the improved recall of information congruent with one's current mood. Next-in-line effect is when a person in a group has diminished recall for the words of others who spoke immediately before or after this person. Peak-end rule is when people seem to perceive not the sum or average of an experience, but how it was at its peak (e.g. pleasant or unpleasant) and how it ended. Persistence is the unwanted recurrence of memories of a traumatic event. Picture superiority effect: that concepts are much more likely to be remembered experientially if they are presented in picture form than if they are presented in word form. Placement bias is tendency to remember ourselves to be better than others at tasks at which we rate ourselves above average (also Illusory superiority or Better-than-average effect) and tendency to remember ourselves to be worse than others at tasks at which we rate ourselves below average (also Worse-than-average effect). Positivity effect is when older adults favor positive over negative information in their memories. Primacy effect, Recency effect & Serial position effect is when items near the end of a list are the easiest to recall, followed by the items at the beginning of a list; items in the middle are the least likely to be remembered. Processing difficulty effect Reminiscence bump is the recalling of more personal events from adolescence and early adulthood than personal events from other lifetime periods (Rubin, Wetzler & Nebes, 1986; Rubin, Rahhal & Poon, 1998). Rosy retrospection is the remembering of the past as having been better than it really was. Saying is Believing effect is communicating a socially tuned message to an audience can lead to a bias of identifying the tuned message as one's own thoughts. Self-reference effect is the phenomena that memories encoded with relation to the self are better recalled than similar information encoded otherwise. Self-serving bias is  perceiving oneself responsible for desirable outcomes but not responsible for undesirable ones. Source confusion is misattributing the source of a memory, e.g. misremembering that one saw an event personally when actually it was seen on television. Spacing effect is that information is better recalled if exposure to it is repeated over a longer span of time. Stereotypical bias is memory distorted towards stereotypes (e.g. racial or gender), e.g. "black-sounding" names being misremembered as names of criminals. Subadditivity effect is the tendency to estimate that the likelihood of a remembered event is less than the sum of its (more than two) mutually exclusive components. Suffix effect is the weakening of the recency effect in the case that an item is appended to the list that the subject is not required to recall (Morton, Crowder & Prussin, 1971). Suggestibility is a form of misattribution where ideas suggested by a questioner are mistaken for memory. Telescoping effect is the tendency to displace recent events backward in time and remote events forward in time, so that recent events appear more remote, and remote events, more recent. Testing effect is that frequent testing of material that has been committed to memory improves memory recall. Tip of the tongue is when a subject is able to recall parts of an item, or related information, but is frustratingly unable to recall the whole item. This is thought to be an instance of "blocking" where multiple similar memories are being recalled and interfere with each other. Verbatim effect is that the "gist" of what someone has said is better remembered than the verbatim wording (Poppenk, Walia, Joanisse, Danckert, & Köhler, 2006). Von Restorff effect is that an item that sticks out is more likely to be remembered than other items (von Restorff, 1933). Zeigarnik effect is that uncompleted or interrupted tasks are remembered better than completed ones.

Memory Retrieval is not a passive phenomenon. Instead, it triggers a number of processes that either reinforce or alter stored information. Retrieval is thought to activate a second memory consolidation cascade (reconsolidation) that requires protein synthesis. Here, we show that the temporal dynamics of memory reconsolidation are dependent on the strength and age of the memory, such that younger and weaker memories are more easily reconsolidated than older and stronger memories. We also report that reconsolidation and extinction, two opposing processes triggered by memory retrieval, have distinct biochemical signatures: pharmacological antagonism of either cannabinoid receptor 1 or L-type voltage-gated calcium channels blocks extinction but not reconsolidation. These studies demonstrate the dynamic nature of memory processing after retrieval and represent a first step toward a molecular dissection of underlying mechanisms.

Henry Molaison was an American memory disorder patient who had a bilateral medial temporal lobectomy to surgically resect the anterior two thirds of his hippocampi, parahippocampal cortices, entorhinal cortices, piriform cortices, and amygdalae in an attempt to cure his epilepsy. He was widely studied from late 1957 until his death in 2008. His case played an important role in the development of theories that explain the link between brain function and memory, and in the development of cognitive neuropsychology, a branch of psychology that aims to understand how the structure and function of the brain relates to specific psychological processes. He resided in a care institute in Windsor Locks, Connecticut, where he was the subject of ongoing investigation.

The Human Brain Recalls Visual Features in Reverse Order Than It Detects Them. Columbia study challenges traditional hierarchy of brain decoding; offers insight into how the brain makes perceptual judgments.

Forgetting

Baker-Baker Paradox explains why people's names slip away from you, while their other details stay embedded in your head. This happens, even if the name and the detail are the same. Not listening, not interested, not effectively using memory.

Forgetting Curve hypothesizes the decline of memory retention in time. This curve shows how information is lost over time when there is no attempt to retain it. A related concept is the strength of memory that refers to the durability that memory traces in the brain. The stronger the memory, the longer period of time that a person is able to recall it. A typical graph of the forgetting curve purports to show that humans tend to halve their memory of newly learned knowledge in a matter of days or weeks unless they consciously review the learned material.

Mnemic Neglect is a term used in social psychology to describe a pattern of selective forgetting in which certain autobiographical memories tend to be recalled more easily if they are consistent with positive self-concept. The mnemic neglect model stipulates that memory is self-protective if the information is negative, self-referent, and concerns central traits.

Forgetting things is not always bad. A new review paper proposes that the goal of memory is not to transmit the most accurate information over time, but to guide and optimize intelligent decision making by only holding on to valuable information. Canadian Institute for Advanced Research.

Autobiographical Memory

Athazagoraphobia is a fear of forgetting someone or something, as well as a fear of being forgotten.

Forward Error Correction is a technique used for controlling Errors in data transmission over unreliable or noisy communication channels. The central idea is the sender encodes the message in a redundant way by using an error-correcting code (ECC).

Learning Methods - Comprehension

Spaced Repetition (recalling what you learned at different times)

Eyewitness Memory is a person's episodic memory for a crime or other dramatic event that he or she has witnessed. Eyewitness testimony is often relied upon in the judicial system. It can also refer to an individual's memory for a face, where they are required to remember the face of their perpetrator, for example. However, the accuracy of eyewitness memories is sometimes questioned because there are many factors that can act during encoding and retrieval of the witnessed event which may adversely affect the creation and maintenance of the memory for the event. Experts have found evidence to suggest that eyewitness memory is fallible. It has long been speculated that mistaken eyewitness identification plays a major role in the wrongful conviction of innocent individuals. A growing body of research now supports this speculation, indicating that mistaken eyewitness identification is responsible for more convictions of the innocent than all other factors combined. The Innocence Project determined that 75% of the 239 DNA exoneration cases had occurred due to inaccurate eyewitness testimony. It is important to inform the public about the flawed nature of eyewitness memory and the difficulties relating to its use in the criminal justice system so that eyewitness accounts are not viewed as the absolute truth.

Researchers urge testing eyewitness memory only once. To prevent wrongful convictions, only the first identification of a suspect should be considered. Psychological scientists and criminologists say our system of jurisprudence needs a simple no-cost reform -- switch to testing eyewitnesses for their memory of suspects only once. One and Done is doing something only once and never again.

New interactive lineup boosts eyewitness accuracy. Allowing eyewitnesses to dynamically explore digital faces using a new interactive procedure can significantly improve identification accuracy compared to the video lineup and photo array procedures used by police worldwide, a new study reveals.

Present Sense Impression is a statement that is spontaneously made while the person was perceiving the event or condition, or immediately thereafter. Their is a belief that a statement is likely reliable and true if there is no time for reflection, distortion, or fabrication. The witness must have personal knowledge of declarant's making of the statement, but need not have personal knowledge of the event or the content of the statement. Of course a person can be wrong in their observation, this is because people make mistakes and don't always understand what they see, and their eyes can play tricks on them, so the truth is debatable. Hearsay.

Recency Effect is the tendency to remember the most recently presented information best.
The regency effect is a cognitive bias in which those items, ideas, or arguments that came last are remembered more clearly than those that came first. The more recently something is heard, the clearer something may exist in someone's memory. Recency is the fact of being recent, of having occurred a relatively short time ago. Recent is of the immediate past or just previous to the present time.

New study identifies how memory of personal interactions declines with age. One of the most upsetting aspects of age-related memory decline is not being able to remember the face that accompanies the name of a person you just talked with hours earlier. While researchers don't understand why this dysfunction occurs, a new study has provided some important new clues.

Excited Utterance is a statement that is spontaneously made while the person was perceiving the event or condition, or immediately thereafter. The subject matter and content of the statement are limited to descriptions or explanations of the event or condition, therefore opinions, inferences, or conclusions about the event or condition are not present sense impressions.

Keeping innocent people out of jail using the science of perception. Scientists devise a new lineup method to help eyewitnesses more accurately identify suspects.

Weapon Focus signifies a witness to a crime diverting his or her attention to the weapon the perpetrator is holding, thus leaving less attention for other details in the scene and leading to memory impairments later for those other details.

Verbal Overshadowing is the phenomenon where giving a verbal description of a face (or other complex stimuli) impairs recognition of that face or stimuli.

Articulatory Suppression is the process of inhibiting memory performance by speaking while being presented with an item to remember.

Elizabeth Loftus: The Fiction of Memory (video)

Eyewitness (pdf) - Expert Witness

Mistaken Identity is a defense in criminal law which claims the actual innocence of the criminal defendant, and attempts to undermine evidence of guilt by asserting that any eyewitness to the crime incorrectly thought that they saw the defendant, when in fact the person seen by the witness was someone else. The defendant may question both the memory of the witness (suggesting, for example, that the identification is the result of a false memory), and the perception of the witness (suggesting, for example, that the witness had poor eyesight, or that the crime occurred in a poorly lit place). Social Scientists have shown that the Reliability of Eyewitness Identifications is much worse than laypersons tend to believe. Supreme Court Releases Eyewitness Identification Criteria for Criminal Cases. Doppelganger - Imposter.

Jury Instructions - Media Literacy

Instant Replay is a great reminder and a great example of human flaws and vulnerabilities. Instant replay is so important because we know that even professionals don't always see things accurately enough the first time they see them happen. We sometimes need to slow things down and take another closer look in order to make things a lot clearer and easier to understand. And seeing something again can also increase our odds of making the best decision possible. But sadly, not all things in life have an instant replay.

Confidence accuracy is the assumption that as one's confidence increases so does their level of accuracy in recall.

Anticipating performance can hinder memory. Anticipating your own performance at work or school may hinder your ability to remember what happened before your presentation. Performance anticipation could weaken memory because people tend to focus on the details of their upcoming presentation instead of paying attention to information that occurs before their performance. People who experience performance anxiety may be particularly likely to experience this phenomenon.

The brain stores more details about certain moments then we are aware of. Can Hypnosis help with recall? - Memory Hypnosis.

Memory Improvement and Recall Skills - Free Hypnosis Session (youtube)

Recovered-Memory Therapy is catch-all psychotherapy term for therapy using one or more method or technique for the purpose of recalling memories.

Past Life Regression is a technique that uses hypnosis to recover what practitioners believe are memories of past lives or incarnations, though others regard them as fantasies or delusions or a type of confabulation.

"I believe that the reason why we don't remember past lives is so that life feels like it's the very first time. You start life over fresh, and you experience life as if it were the very first time that you were ever alive. This is most likely by design, because it just makes sense."

History Distorted - False Memory - Age Regression

Forty percent of people have a fictional first memory. As many of these memories dated before the age of two and younger, the authors suggest that these fictional memories are based on remembered fragments of early experience -- such as a pram, family relationships and feeling sad -- and some facts or knowledge about their own infancy or childhood which may have been derived from photographs or family conversations. As a result, what a rememberer has in mind when recalling these early memories is a mental representation consisting of remembered fragments of early experience and some facts or knowledge about their own childhood, instead of actual memories. Over time, such mental representations come to be recollectively experienced when they come to mind and so for the individual they quite simply are 'memories' with content strongly tied to a particular time. In particular, fictional very early memories were seen to be more common in middle-aged and older adults and about 4 in 10 of this group have fictional memories for infancy.

Anomic Aphasia problems with recalling words or names. Refresh your memory with important information.

Serial Position Effect is the tendency of a person to recall the first and last items in a series best, and the middle items worst.

Interference Theory - Adult Learning

Forgetfulness might depend on time of day. Can't remember something? Try waiting until later in the day. BMAL1is a protein that regulates the expression of many other genes. BMAL1 normally fluctuates between low levels just before waking up and high levels before going to sleep.

ARNTL is a protein that in humans is encoded by the Bmal1 gene. BMAL1 encodes a transcription factor with a basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH) and two PAS domains. The human Arntl gene has a predicted 24 exons and is located on the p15 band of the 11th chromosome. The BMAL1 protein is 626 amino acids long and plays a key role as one of the positive elements in the mammalian auto-regulatory transcription-translation negative feedback loop (TTFL), which is responsible for generating molecular circadian rhythms. Research has revealed that Bmal1 is the only clock gene without which the circadian clock fails to function in humans. Bmal1 has also been identified as a candidate gene for susceptibility to hypertension, diabetes, and obesity, and mutations in Bmal1 have been linked to infertility, gluconeogenesis and lipogenesis problems, and altered sleep patterns. BMAL1, according to genome-wide profiling, is estimated to target more than 150 sites in the human genome, including all of the clock genes and genes encoding for proteins that regulate metabolism.

Brain Vulnerabilities - Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor 

Why babies don't always remember what they have learned. If and how babies recall what they have learned depends on their mood: what they've learned when feeling calm is inaccessible when they're active and vice versa. This was shown in a study with 96 children aged nine months.

Adverse psychosocial factors in childhood are associated with worse midlife learning and memory. Socioeconomic and emotional environment, parental health behaviours, stressful events, self-regulation, and social adjustment were queried in the baseline. The results suggest that accumulation of unfavorable psychosocial factors in childhood may associate with poorer cognitive function in midlife. Specifically, poor self-regulatory behavior and social adjustment in childhood associated with poorer learning ability and memory approximately 30 years later.

Heightened activity of specific brain cells following traumatic social experience blocks social reward and promotes sustained social avoidance. Past social trauma is encoded by a population of stress/threat-responsive brain cells that become hyperactivated during subsequent interaction with non-threatening social targets. As a consequence, previously rewarding social targets are now perceived as social threats, which promotes generalized social avoidance and impaired social reward processing that can contribute to psychiatric disorders.

Children Exposed to Natural Disasters in the Womb have higher rates of developmental psychopathology in a sex-specific manner.

State-Dependent Memory is the phenomenon where people remember more information if their physical or mental state is the same at time of encoding and time of recall. State dependent memories are memories that are triggered or enhanced by a person's current mood because of the relationship to memories formed when you were in a similar state. For instance, happy memories are more easily or intensely remembered when one is already feeling happy and the same goes for sadness or anger.

Forgetting - Amnesia - Problems Remembering

Forgetting is the apparent loss or modification of information already encoded and stored in an individual's long term memory. It is a spontaneous or gradual process in which old memories are unable to be recalled from memory storage. Forgetting also helps to reconcile the storage of new information with old knowledge. Problems with remembering, learning and retaining new information are a few of the most common complaints of older adults. Memory performance is usually related to the active functioning of three stages. These three stages are encoding, storage and retrieval. Many different factors influence the actual process of forgetting. An example of one of these factors could be the amount of time the new information is stored in the memory. Events involved with forgetting can happen either before or after the actual memory process. The amount of time the information is stored in the memory, depending on the minutes hours or even days, can increase or decrease depending on how well the information is encoded. Studies show that retention improves with increased rehearsal. This improvement occurs because rehearsal helps to transfer information into long term memory – practice makes perfect.

Memory Erasure is the selective artificial removal of memories or associations from the mind. There are many reasons that research is being done on the selective removal of memories. Potential patients for this research include patients suffering from psychiatric disorders such as post traumatic stress disorder, or substance use disorder, among others. Memory erasure has been shown to be possible in some experimental conditions; some of the techniques currently being investigated are: drug-induced amnesia, selective memory suppression, destruction of neurons, interruption of memory, reconsolidation, and the disruption of specific molecular mechanisms. Removed from the Record in Law.

Repressed Memory are memories that have been unconsciously blocked due to the memory being associated with a high level of stress or trauma. The theory postulates that even though the individual cannot recall the memory, it may still be affecting them consciously. These memories can emerge later into the consciousness. Age Regression.

Psychological Repression is the psychological attempt made by an individual to direct one's own desires and impulses toward pleasurable instincts by excluding the desire from one's consciousness and holding or subduing it in the unconscious. In psychoanalytic theory repression plays a major role in many mental illnesses, and in the psyche of the average person.

Decay Theory proposes that memory fades due to the mere passage of time. Information is therefore less available for later retrieval as time passes and memory, as well as memory strength, wears away. When we learn something new, a neurochemical "memory trace" is created. However, over time this trace slowly disintegrates. Actively Rehearsing information is believed to be a major factor counteracting this temporal decline. It is widely believed that neurons die off gradually as we age, yet some older memories can be stronger than most recent memories. Thus, decay theory mostly affects the short-term memory system, meaning that older memories (in long-term memory) are often more resistant to shocks or physical attacks on the brain. It is also thought that the passage of time alone cannot cause forgetting, and that decay theory must also take into account some processes that occur as more time passes. Memory details fade over time, with only the main gist preserved.

Neuroscientists successfully test theory that forgetting is actually a form of learning. Seemingly lost memories can be retrieved and updated by environmental cues. To study the result of this form of forgetting on memory itself, the neuroscientists genetically labeled a contextual "engram" (a group of brain cells that store a specific memory) in the brains of these mice, and followed the activation and functioning of these cells after forgetting had happened. Crucially, using a technique called optogenetics they found that stimulation of the engram cells with light retrieved the apparently lost memories in more than one behavioural situation. Furthermore, when the mice were given new experiences that related to the forgotten memories, the 'lost' engrams could be naturally rejuvenated. Neural Pruning.

Time of day affects global brain fluctuations. As the day progresses, the strength of the brain's global signal fluctuation shows an unexpected decrease, according to a new study. Circadian rhythms govern diverse aspects of physiology including sleep/wake cycles, cognition, gene expression, temperature regulation, and endocrine signaling. But despite the clear influence of circadian rhythms on physiology, most studies of brain function do not report or consider the impact of time of day on their findings.

Catastrophic Forgetting is the tendency of an artificial neural network to completely and abruptly forget previously learned information upon learning new information.

Scientists define new type of memory loss in older adults. Researchers have established new criteria for a memory-loss syndrome in older adults that specifically impacts the brain's limbic system. It can often be mistaken for Alzheimer's disease. Limbic-predominant Amnestic Neurodegenerative Syndrome progresses more slowly and has a better prognosis, and is now more clearly defined for doctors working to find answers for memory loss patients. Without signs of Alzheimer's disease, the researchers looked at the involvement of one possible culprit -- a buildup of a protein called TDP-43 in the limbic system that scientists have found in the autopsied brain tissue of older adults. Researchers have classified the build-up of these protein deposits as limbic-predominant age-related TDP-43 encephalopathy, or LATE. These protein deposits could be associated with the newly defined memory loss syndrome, but there are also other likely causes and more research is needed, the authors say.

Amnesia is a deficit in memory caused by brain damage, disease, or psychological trauma. Amnesia can also be caused temporarily by the use of various sedatives and hypnotic drugs. The memory can be either wholly or partially lost due to the extent of damage that was caused. There are two main types of amnesia: retrograde amnesia and anterograde amnesia. Retrograde amnesia is the inability to retrieve information that was acquired before a particular date, usually the date of an accident or operation. In some cases the memory loss can extend back decades, while in others the person may lose only a few months of memory. Anterograde amnesia is the inability to transfer new information from the short-term store into the long-term store. People with this type of amnesia cannot remember things for long periods of time. These two types are not mutually exclusive. Both can occur within a patient at one time.

Forgetting History - Highway Hypnosis - Sleep Walking - Mind Wandering - Head Injuries

Childhood Amnesia is the inability of adults to retrieve episodic memories which are memories of specific events (times, places, associated emotions, and other contextual who, what, when, and where) before the age of 2–4 years, as well as the period before age 10 of which adults retain fewer memories than might otherwise be expected, given the passage of time. Age Regression.

Posthypnotic Amnesia is the inability in hypnotic subjects to recall events that took place while under hypnosis. This can be achieved by giving individuals a suggestion during hypnosis to forget certain material that they have learned either before or during hypnosis. Individuals who are experiencing post-hypnotic amnesia cannot have their memories recovered once put back under hypnosis and is therefore not state dependent. Nevertheless, memories may return when presented with a pre-arranged cue. This makes post-hypnotic amnesia similar to psychogenic amnesia as it disrupts the retrieval process of memory. It has been suggested that inconsistencies in methodologies used to study post-hypnotic amnesia cause varying results.

Retrograde Amnesia is a loss of memory-access to events that occurred, or information that was learned, before an injury or the onset of a disease.

Alzheimer's - Neuron Pruning

Anterograde Amnesia is a type of memory loss that occurs when you can't form new memories or loss of the ability to create new memories after the event that caused amnesia, leading to a partial or complete inability to recall the recent past, while long-term memories from before the event remain intact.

Transient Global Amnesia is a temporary, anterograde amnesia with an acute onset that usually occurs in middle-aged and older individuals. It is often precipitated by particularly strenuous activity, high-stress events, or coitus, but it can be seen with migraines as well.

Swiftie Amnesia is the reported memory gaps among concertgoers that last for a short period time.

Photosensitive Epilepsy is a form of epilepsy in which seizures are triggered by visual stimuli that form patterns in time or space, such as flashing lights; bold, regular patterns; or regular moving patterns. Flashing lights such as strobe lights or rapidly changing or alternating images (as in clubs, concerts, around emergency vehicles, near overhead fans, in action movies or television programs, etc.) are examples of patterns in time that can trigger seizures, and these are the most common triggers. Television has traditionally been the most common source of seizures in PSE.

Music-Induced Seizure or Musicogenic seizure is a rare type of seizure that arises from disorganized or abnormal brain electrical activity when a person hears or is exposed to a specific type of sound or musical stimuli. The current understanding of the mechanism behind musicogenic seizure is that music triggers the part of the brain that is responsible for evoking an emotion associated with that music. Dysfunction in this system leads to an abnormal release of dopamine, eventually inducing seizure.

Musical Hallucinations or auditory hallucinations describes a neurological disorder in which the patient will hallucinate songs, tunes, instruments and melodies. Hallucinations.

Focal Seizure are seizures which affect initially only one hemisphere of the brain.

Seizure is a period of symptoms due to abnormally excessive or synchronous neuronal activity in the brain. Outward effects vary from uncontrolled shaking movements involving much of the body with loss of consciousness (tonic-clonic seizure), to shaking movements involving only part of the body with variable levels of consciousness (focal seizure), to a subtle momentary loss of awareness (absence seizure). These episodes usually last less than two minutes and it takes some time to return to normal. Loss of bladder control may occur. Seizures may be provoked and unprovoked.

Reflex Seizures are epileptic seizures that are consistently induced by a specific stimulus or trigger making them distinct from other epileptic seizures, which are usually unprovoked.

Psychogenic Amnesia is a memory disorder characterized by sudden retrograde autobiographical memory loss, said to occur for a period of time ranging from hours to years. More recently, "dissociative amnesia" has been defined as a dissociative disorder "characterized by retrospectively reported memory gaps. These gaps involve an inability to recall personal information, usually of a traumatic or stressful nature." In a change from the DSM-IV to the DSM-5, dissociative fugue is now subsumed under dissociative amnesia.

Dissociative Amnesia can be the result of emotional shock or trauma. Dissociative amnesia is a disorder characterized by retrospectively reported memory gaps. These gaps involve an inability to recall personal information, usually of a traumatic or stressful nature. Dissociative Disorders are conditions that involve significant disruptions and/or breakdowns "in the normal integration of consciousness, memory, identity, emotion, perception, body representation, motor control, and behavior.

Chronic Stress can be harmful. Regular exposure to elevated glucocorticoids (a hormone released by the adrenal gland) also causes our brain cells to reduce receptors, making brain cells less capable of responding to neurochemical (brain chemicals) cues. Anxiety and Depression everyday stress increase cortisol levels in the brain, which causes our brain cells to lose synapses (the bridges that connect our brain cells to one another), and make it more difficult to create and retrieve memories.
Infections when the body is fighting infections the memory is not at its best. Viruses.

Effects of Stress on Memory include interference with a person's capacity to encode memory and the ability to retrieve information. During times of stress, the body reacts by secreting stress hormones into the bloodstream. Stress can cause acute and chronic changes in certain brain areas which can cause long-term damage. Over-secretion of stress hormones most frequently impairs long-term delayed recall memory, but can enhance short-term, immediate recall memory. This enhancement is particularly relative in emotional memory. In particular, the hippocampus, prefrontal cortex and the amygdala are affected. One class of stress hormone responsible for negatively affecting long-term, delayed recall memory is the glucocorticoids (GCs), the most notable of which is cortisol. Glucocorticoids facilitate and impair the actions of stress in the brain memory process. Cortisol is a known biomarker for stress. Under normal circumstances, the hippocampus regulates the production of cortisol through negative feedback because it has many receptors that are sensitive to these stress hormones. However, an excess of cortisol can impair the ability of the hippocampus to both encode and recall memories. These stress hormones are also hindering the hippocampus from receiving enough energy by diverting glucose levels to surrounding muscles. Stress affects many memory functions and cognitive functioning of the brain. There are different levels of stress and the high levels can be intrinsic or extrinsic. Intrinsic stress level is triggered by a cognitive challenge whereas extrinsic can be triggered by a condition not related to a cognitive task. Intrinsic stress can be acutely and chronically experienced by a person. The varying effects of stress on performance or stress hormones are often compared to or known as "inverted-u" which induce areas in learning, memory and plasticity. Chronic stress can affect the brain structure and cognition. Studies considered the effects of stress on both intrinsic and extrinsic memory functions, using for both of them Pavlovian conditioning and spatial learning. In regard to intrinsic memory functions, the study evaluated how stress affected memory functions that was triggered by a learning challenge. In regard to extrinsic stress, the study focused on stress that was not related to cognitive task but was elicited by other situations. The results determined that intrinsic stress was facilitated by memory consolidation process and extrinsic stress was determined to be heterogeneous in regard to memory consolidation. Researchers found that high stress conditions were a good representative of the effect that extrinsic stress can cause on memory functioning. It was also proven that extrinsic stress does affect spatial learning whereas acute extrinsic stress does not.

Blackout or lost time, is a common symptom of dissociative amnesia and dissociative identity disorder.

Blackout Drug-Related Amnesia is a phenomenon caused by the intake of any substance or medication in which short-term and long-term memory creation is impaired, therefore causing a complete inability to recall the past. Blackouts are most frequently associated with GABAergic drugs. Blackouts are frequently described as having effects similar to that of anterograde amnesia, in which the subject cannot recall any events after the event that caused amnesia. Blackouts can generally be divided into 2 categories, en bloc blackouts and fragmentary blackouts. En bloc blackouts are classified by the inability to later recall any memories from the intoxication period, even when prompted. These blackouts are characterized also by the ability to easily recall things that have occurred within the last 2 minutes, yet being unable to recall anything prior to this period. As such, a person experiencing an en bloc blackout may not appear to be doing so, as they can carry on conversations or even manage to accomplish difficult feats. It is difficult to determine the end of this type of blackout as sleep typically occurs before they end, although it is possible for an en bloc blackout to end if the sufferer has stopped drinking in the meantime. Fragmentary blackouts are characterized by a person having the ability to recall certain events from an intoxicated period, and yet being unaware that other memories are missing until reminded of the existence of those 'gaps' in memory. Research indicates that such fragmentary blackouts, also known as brownouts, are far more common than en bloc blackouts. Memory impairment during acute intoxication involves dysfunction of episodic memory, a type of memory encoded with spatial and social context. Recent studies have shown that there are multiple memory systems supported by discrete brain regions, and the acute effects of alcohol and learning and memory may result from alteration of the hippocampus and related structures on a cellular level. A rapid increase in Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC) is most consistently associated with the likelihood of a blackout. However, not all subjects experience blackouts which implies that genetic factors play a role in determining central nervous system (CNS) vulnerability to the effects of Alcohol. The former may predispose an individual to alcoholism, as altered memory function during intoxication may affect an individual’s alcohol expectancy, one may perceive positive aspects of intoxication while unintentionally ignoring the negative aspects. Memory disruptions by alcohol leading to blackout have been linked to inhibition of long-term potentiation, particularly in the hippocampus, by affecting gamma-Aminobutyric acid (GABA) and N-methyl-D-aspartate neurotransmission (see Effects of alcohol on memory). Alcohol acts as an agonist of the GABAA type receptor, leading to memory disruption (see Effects of alcohol on memory). Benzodiazepines (such as flunitrazepam, midazolam, and temazepam), barbiturates (such as phenobarbital), and other drugs which also act as GABAA agonists, are known to cause blackouts as a result of high dose use. Dizzy - Fainting.

Too much activity in one of the brain's key memory regions is bad for your memory and attention. Hippocampal neural disinhibition causes attentional and memory deficits.

Reality - Awareness

Smoking Tobacco damages the brain by impairing its blood supply, and by the accumulation of abnormal proteins which impair the brain's ability to process and relay information. 

High-Fat and Trans Fats creates stress hormones influence an area of the brain area that controls working memory.

Prescription Drugs also can reduce your ability to remember. 

Hot flashes also can reduce your ability to remember. Dysfunctional thyroid can also reduce your ability to remember.

Scientists have found in a study of 3,000 people living in France, that those who worked rotating shifts performed significantly worse in memory and cognitive speed tests than people who had worked regular hours.

Not Getting Enough Sleep effects memory.

She can't remember her marriage, but she can tell you how to fly a plane (youtube)

The Man With The Seven Second Memory (Medical Documentary) - Clive Wearing has one of the worst cases of amnesia in the world. (youtube) - He still remembers how to walk, play the piano and remembers how to talk, and still retains a vocabulary, but he can't make new memories so he forgets everything he did each day.

"You don't have to change or suppress memories, you just need to change how you remember those memories, and also, create new and better memories so that the not so good memories become distant and less significant. One example is when you install new and better software, you will eventually forget all those bad experiences that you had with the old software."

We understand our world by how we interpret our memories and our ability to use that information and knowledge from those memories effectively. Even though we share the same experiences, this does not mean that we share the same memories. Sometimes we remember things a little differently even though we experience the same things. And we edit our memories based on what we learn, and you can't be a good editor if you never learn how to be a good editor. There are skills involved.

We can't always trust our early memories to be accurate - sometimes they will have been molded by later conversations about the event, sometimes creating imaginary memories.

"Blessed are the forgetful, for they get the better even of their blunders."  Friedrich Nietzsche (wiki).

"How happy is the blameless vestal's lot! The world forgetting, by the world forgot. Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind! Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd." The world forgetting, by the world forgot.  Alexander Pope (wiki)

50 First Dates (wiki) - Groundhog Day (wiki) - Time Loop Effect

Total Recall is a 1990 American science fiction action film that tells the story of a construction worker who suddenly finds himself embroiled in espionage on Mars and unable to determine if the experiences are real or the result of memory implants.

The Spotless Mind refers to an innocent mind, a mind that does not have to account for its own sin, because the person did not know any better.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a 2004 American romantic science-fiction film about an estranged couple who have erased each other from their memories. After a fight, Joel Barish discovers that his girlfriend Clementine Kruczynski has had her memories of him erased by the New York City firm Lacuna. Heartbroken, he decides to undergo the same procedure. In preparation, he records a tape for Lacuna, recounting his memories of their volatile relationship. Though he said horrible things about her in an attempt to make it easier to forget her, he realizes how much he loves her, so the relationship begins again, but not from the beginning, but from the end.

Sudden Memories - Flashback

Flashback is a psychological phenomenon in which an individual has a sudden, usually powerful, re-experiencing of a past experience or elements of a past experience. These experiences can be happy, sad, exciting, or any other emotion one can consider. The term is used particularly when the memory is recalled involuntarily, and/or when it is so intense that the person "relives" the experience, unable to fully recognize it as memory and not something that is happening in "real time". Stress.

Traumatic Memories - When some memories become a curse instead of a blessing. - Reconsolidation Therapy.

Cryptomnesia occurs when a forgotten memory returns without it being recognized as such by the subject, who believes it is something new and original. It is a memory bias whereby a person may falsely recall generating a thought, an idea, a song, or a joke, not deliberately engaging in plagiarism but rather experiencing a memory as if it were a new inspiration.

Déjà vu is the phenomenon of having the strong sensation that an event or experience currently being experienced has already been experienced in the past, "already seen". Déjà vu is a feeling of familiarity, and déjà vécu is the feeling of having already lived through something, a feeling of recollection. Past Life Regression.

Emotion and Memory can have a powerful effect on humans and animals. Numerous studies have shown that the most vivid autobiographical memories tend to be of emotional events, which are likely to be recalled more often and with more clarity and detail than neutral events.

It's better to deal with a bad memory and understand it then it is to just try to about forget it. Once you have come to terms with a bad experience, the less likely you will be negatively effected by recalling that bad memory. And you will also be more likely to remember the good memories more often. Then eventually all bad memories will lose their grip on your well being. This is a learned skill, the good news is that everyone is capable of learning. Changing Bad Habits - Brain Plasticity.

Human Memory is Similar to Computer Memory, well almost

The amazing thing about our memory is that it stores and saves our experiences, our knowledge, and our information. And all you have to do to recall your past experiences, knowledge and information, is to ask for it, and some how the information you asked for is retrieved and presented to you in the form of internal images, emotions and information. Wow, this thing is awesome! The human memory is an incredible tool with amazing abilities. But the memory has certain vulnerabilities. Like not being able to remember something when you need to, or remembering the wrong things at the wrong time. So is our memory a little imperfect, or is it just that we're not using our memory properly? In order to ask that question you would first have to answer this question, "what are the best ways to use our memory, effectively and efficiently?" First you want your information to be organized and easy to locate when needed. So learning the right things at the right time, in the right way, is a must. Second, you want to control the flow of information. You want to recall the right information at the right time. Third, you only want to see the information that you've requested. You don't want irrelevant information to suddenly appear in your mind and distract you from accessing more important information that you need. Fourth, you want to make sure that your current information is continually updated when needed, which is almost always needed. Fifth, you have to make sure that the perception of your stored information is logical. And in order to make sure that your information is logically perceived is to learn logical information and learn how to perceive it properly. Easier said then done but it can be done. The power of your memory is directly related to the quality of information and knowledge that you learn, as long as it learned at the right time and in the right way. Computer Memory.

Memory Storage Capacity of the Human Brain

The adult brain has been estimated to store a limit of up to 2.5 petabytes of binary data equivalent. Humans also have enormous amounts of information capacity in our DNA, so information is not just in our brains, it's in our whole body. And humans also have the ability to carry in their pockets large amounts of external memory capacity when we have our smartphones with us. Memory Storage.

Kim Peek, the real Rain Man, shows just how much information and knowledge a human brain can handle, it seems almost limitless.

Daniel Tammet shows just how incredible Human Brain processing abilities are.

Autistic Savant or High-functioning Autism seems to make certain processing abilities stand out more. It's not that they have enhanced abilities, it's just that Autistic people use certain human brain abilities more effectively. 99% of all humans have these abilities, so it's just learning how to use them.

Autobiographical memory also shows the enormous memory capacity of the Human Brain.

Learning Methods - AI (artificial intelligence)

Procedural Memory - Memory Management - Logic Gate

"That saying that humans only use 10% of their Brain, that is now a fact. People only know 10% of the 100% of what is known in 2017. People are being under utilized, and you can see the negative effects throughout society. The great awakening is about people finally taking the activity of learning seriously. The human brain has enormous memory capacity, more then a million computers added together. Use it or lose it, which is another fact of life."

Immersed in Old Memories - Nostalgia

That brings back good memories means that something in the present moment has caused you to remember something pleasant in your past, a good memory and a beautiful moment in your life that happened during a simpler time, when joy and pleasure was just a normal experience. But as you get older, things can get complicated, causing you to lose touch with that amazing feeling of discovery.

Not all old memories are good memories - One memory leads to another memory

Once in a while we like to visit old memories. We have to see what we can remember and how we still perceive that experience and understand our old memories. Sometimes we can spark old memories by playing songs that we use to listen to as a child, or by looking at old photographs. Have you ever heard a song that sparked a distant memory? Why do songs connect us to moments in time? Is it a memory trace or just our episodic memory working by association.

Retro is looking back or looking backward or behind. To bring to mind something in the past.

Retrospect is to review a past course of events or remember a period of time. To look back upon a period of time or sequence of events. A contemplation of things past. A long and thoughtful observation.

Introspect - Backstory - Time added Value - Time Travel

Retroactive is something taking effect from a date in the past. Retroactive in psychology is a descriptive of any event or stimulus or process that has an effect on the effects of events or stimuli or process that occurred previously. Affecting things past.

Rosy Retrospection refers to the psychological phenomenon of people sometimes judging the past disproportionately more positively than they judge the present. Although rosy retrospection is a cognitive bias, and distorts a person's view of reality to some extent, some people theorize that it may in part serve a useful purpose in increasing self-esteem and a person's overall sense of well-being. False Memories in History.

Memories interpreted as a reconstruction in retrospect, can sometimes misjudge the original experience.

The Surprising Benefits of Unconsciously Remembering Things. A new study offers insight on why sleep and daydreaming are good moments to arrange and store long-term memories.

Generative AI helps to explain human memory and imagination. Recent advances in generative AI help to explain how memories enable us to learn about the world, re-live old experiences and construct totally new experiences for imagination and planning, according to a new study. - Except we don't always learn from our experiences the way we should because most people stop learning about themselves and the world around them. In order to accurately process old memories we need to continually educate ourselves in order to make sense of what we have experienced.

Was I happy then? Our current feelings can interfere with memories of past well-being. Research suggests that one reason happiness can seem so elusive is that our current feelings can interfere with memories of our past well-being. An analysis of data from four longitudinal surveys to investigate how our current feelings influence our memories of past happiness. Happy people tend to overstate the improvement of their life satisfaction over time, whereas unhappy ones tend to overstate the deterioration of their level of happiness. This indicates a certain confusion between feeling happy and feeling better. People are able to recall how they used to feel about their life, but they also tend to mix this memory with the way they currently feel. It seems that feeling happy today implies feeling better than yesterday. This recall structure has implications for motivated memory and learning and could explain why happy people are more optimistic, perceive risks to be lower, and are more open to new experiences.

Nostalgia is a sentimentality for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations. Smell and touch are strong evokers of nostalgia due to the processing of these stimuli first passing through the amygdala, the emotional seat of the brain. These recollections of one's past are usually important events, people one cares about, and places where one has spent time. Music and weather can also be strong triggers of nostalgia. Nostalgia is a longing for something past.

Sentimental is nostalgic feelings of tenderness and sadness. A personal belief or judgment that is not founded on proof or certainty. Sentimentality commonly connotes a reliance on shallow, uncomplicated emotions at the expense of reason. Originally indicated the reliance on feelings as a guide to truth.

Reminiscing is to indulge in enjoyable recollection of past events. To recall the past. Day Dreaming.

Recollection is the act of recollecting, or recalling to the memory; the operation by which objects are recalled to the memory, or ideas revived in the mind; reminiscence; remembrance. The power of recalling ideas to the mind, or the period within which things can be recollected; remembrance.

Memory Lane is the act of remembering past journeys or remembering the experiences of ones childhood or younger years. "Memory Lane, oh how I love thee". Taking a Walk Down Memory Lane is when you're thinking about things that happened a long time ago, and you remember who you were as a person back then and what you thought of the world in those times. So much has changed while some things have stayed the same.

Blast from the Past is something that you had almost forgotten about and have not seen or heard of for a long time, something nostalgic that returns after a long period of obscurity or absence that suddenly and strongly makes you remember a previous time in your life, reminding you of some incredible memories of past experiences, things that have not thought about in years.

Retrofuturism is a movement in the creative arts showing the influence of depictions of the future produced in an earlier era. If futurism is sometimes called a "science" bent on anticipating what will come. Retrofuturism is the remembering of that anticipation past visions of the future. Paleo Future.

Retro Style is imitative or consciously derivative of lifestyles, trends, or art forms from history, including in music, modes, fashions, or attitudes. In popular culture, the "nostalgia cycle" is typically for the two decades that begin 20–30 years ago.

Flashback in a story is an interjected scene that takes the narrative back in time from the current point in the story. Flashbacks are often used to recount events that happened before the story's primary sequence of events to fill in crucial backstory. In the opposite direction, a flashforward (or prolepsis) reveals events that will occur in the future. Both flashback and flashforward are used to cohere a story, develop a character, or add structure to the narrative. In literature, internal analepsis is a flashback to an earlier point in the narrative; external analepsis is a flashback to a time before the narrative started. In film, flashbacks depict the subjective experience of a character by showing a memory of a previous event and they are often used to "resolve an enigma". Flashbacks are important in film noir and melodrama films. In movies and television, several camera techniques, editing approaches and special effects have evolved to alert the viewer that the action shown is a flashback or flashforward; for example, the edges of the picture may be deliberately blurred, photography may be jarring or choppy, or unusual coloration or sepia tone, or monochrome when most of the story is in full color, may be used. The scene may fade or dissolve, often with the camera focused on the face of the character and there is typically a voice-over by a narrator (who is often, but not always, the character who is experiencing the memory).

Age Regression in therapy is a technique in a psycho-therapeutic process that facilitates access to childhood memories, thoughts and feelings. Age regression includes hypnotherapy, a process where patients move their focus to memories of an earlier stage of life in order to explore these memories or to get in touch with some difficult-to-access aspects of their personality.

Past Life Regression - Genetic Memory - Human Nature

Emotion and Memory have shown that the most vivid autobiographical memories tend to be of emotional events, which are likely to be recalled more often and with more clarity and detail than neutral events. The activity of emotionally enhanced memory retention can be linked to human evolution; during early development, responsive behavior to environmental events would have progressed as a process of trial and error. Survival depended on behavioral patterns that were repeated or reinforced through life and death situations. Through evolution, this process of learning became genetically embedded in humans and all animal species in what is known as flight or fight instinct. Artificially inducing this instinct through traumatic physical or emotional stimuli essentially creates the same physiological condition that heightens memory retention by exciting neuro-chemical activity affecting areas of the brain responsible for encoding and recalling memory. This memory-enhancing effect of emotion has been demonstrated in a large number of laboratory studies, using stimuli ranging from words to pictures to narrated slide shows, as well as autobiographical memory studies. However, as described below, emotion does not always enhance memory.

Traumatic Memories - Music helps us to Remember

Memories of past events retain remarkable fidelity even as we age. Even though people tend to remember fewer details about past events as time goes by, the details they do remember are retained with remarkable fidelity, according to a new study. This finding holds true regardless of the age of the person or the amount of time that elapsed since the event took place. Scientists studying the complex relationship between aging and memory have found that in a controlled experiment, people can remember the details about past events with a surprising 94% accuracy, even accounting for age. These results, published in the journal Psychological Science, suggest that the stories we tell about past events are accurate, although details tend to fade with time.

Interpret is to make sense of; assign a meaning to. Give an interpretation or explanation to. Create an image or likeness of. Restate words from one language into another language. Make sense of a language.

Make Sense is to be reasonable or logical or comprehensible.

Comprehensible is capable of being comprehended or understood.

Memoir is a collection of memories that an individual writes about moments or events, both public or private, that took place in the subject's life. Biography - Chronicle.

Contemplation is a long and thoughtful observation. A calm, lengthy, intent consideration. - Meditation.

Reflection is a calm, lengthy, intent consideration. Expression without words. A remark expressing careful consideration. Reflection can also mean the image of something as reflected by a mirror or other reflective material. The ability to reflect beams or rays. The phenomenon of a propagating wave of light or sound. A likeness in which left and right are reversed. Reflection in mathematics is a transformation in which the direction of one axis is reversed.

Dreams - Abstract

Why do some things go into our long-term memory, it's not like I asked my brain to store this information, it seems to save certain nformation on its own, unless subconsciously or consciously there's a trigger that activates the release of Protein Kinase A that's used in creating long-term memories. We know there are control mechanisms in long-term memory because some people have the ability to remember what they see in incredible detail when they want to. It's like a computer, you don't have to know how it works, you just have to know how to operate it. But you don't have to remember everything in detail, you just have to remember what's important.

We start out our lives creating memories. Then we spend a lot of our time remembering our memories. The most important thing we need to do is to keep learning and to increase our knowledge, because the most important thing about our memories is how we process our memories. So we must continue to learn and develop. Having memories is not enough. We must have the intelligence to realize how valuable our memories are. We have to keep on creating new memories so that our old memories can be compared to our new memories. Pattern Recognition.

"I like it how your brain reminds you what you were thinking about a few minutes ago. I was thinking about doing something and then I got distracted, but a few minutes later, my thoughts returned to that action that I was thinking about doing. Thanks Brain, I knew I could count on you."

I can see my younger self saying, "Remember me, I was you once. It's been a while since we talked, so, how have you been?" It's good to think about things that you have not thought of in a long time. Even though they may bring back sad memories, I believe that you have to go back once in a while and see how much you can still remember. Like an exercise for your memory. Time Travel.

When I see pictures of myself when I was younger, it's like I'm looking at a stranger. I can recognize myself, but I can't even imagine what my thoughts were like back then. It would have been great if I kept a diary, but I doubt that my writing would have been enlightening enough in any meaningful way. I didn't start deliberately educating myself until I was 48 years old. I do have a lot of great memories of great experiences in my youth, but my knowledge was very limited before turning 48, so processing those experiences and those learning moments was very vague. I was learning a lot of things in my younger years, but I was not learning enough in order to crystalize any real intelligence or any real wisdom. Even though I thought I was smart and wise in some ways, I had no idea how much ignorance that I had about myself and the world around me. I only realized my ignorance when I started to educate myself when I turned 48. And after 16 years of educating myself, I am still far from knowing enough that would allow me to consider myself to be intelligent. Though I have learned many things and have knowledge of many things, I still have a lot to learn, but at least I know that I still have a lot to learn. After 16 years, the knowledge is more powerful now and the lessons are more life changing. But I still make mistakes sometimes and I still lose focus at times. But I definitely feel the force. Knowledge is a source of energy, and it's extremely powerful. But I'm still a grasshopper. More training and more learning is needed. But soon I'll be ready to control the power of knowledge. I can feel the force, but I'm not ready to fully connect just yet.

Songs About Remembering

Always Something There to Remind Me - Naked Eyes -  (youtube) - I walk along the city streets you used to walk along with me, And every step I take reminds me of just how we used to be, Well, how can I forget you girl? When there is always something there to remind me, Always something there to remind me. As shadows fall I pass the small cafe where we would dance at night, And I can't help recalling how it felt to kiss and hold you tight, Well, how can I forget you girl? When there is always something there to remind me, Always something there to remind me. I was born to love her and I will never be free, You'll always be a part of me, If you should find you miss the sweet and tender love we used to share, Just come back to the places where we used to go and I'll be there, Well, how can I forget you girl? When there is always something there to remind me, Always something there to remind me. I was born to love her and I will never be free, You'll always be a part of me, 'Cause there is always something there to remind me, Always something there to remind me.

The Way We Were (1975) - Barbra Streisand (youtube) - Light the corners of my mind, Misty water-colored memories, Of the way we were, Scattered pictures, Of the smiles we left behind, Smiles we gave to one another, For the way we were, Can it be that it was all so simple then? Or has time rewritten every line? If we had the chance to do it all again, Tell me, would we, would we, Could we, could we? Memories, May be beautiful and yet, What's too painful to remember, We simply choose to forget, So it's the laughter, We will remember, Whenever we remember, The way we were, The way we were, I miss you baby, The way we were.

A Million Miles Away - The Plimsouls (youtube) - Friday night, I'd just got back, I had my eyes shut and dreaming about the past, I thought about you while the radio played, I should have got loaded, some reason I stayed, I started drifting to a different place, I realized I was falling off the face of the world, And there was nothing left to bring me back, I'm a million miles away, A million miles away, I'm just a million miles away, And there's nothing left to bring me back today, Took a ride, I went downtown, The streets were empty, there was no one around, To place that we used to know, Been all the places that we used to go, I'm at the wrong end of your looking glass, Just trying to hold on to the hands of the past and you, And there was nothing left to bring me back, I was a million miles away, A million miles away, I'm just a million miles away, And there's nothing to bring me back today, Bring me back today, bring me back today, I started drifting to a different place, I realized, falling off the face of the world, And there was nothing left to bring me back, I was a million miles away, I'm a million miles away, I'm a million miles away, And there's nothing left to bring me back today, Bring me back today, bring me back today, Bring me back today.
 
Times Of Your Life with Lyrics - Paul Anka (youtube) - Will you remember the times of our lives?

Songs about Looking Back on Fond Memories.

Memories - Maroon 5  (youtube) - Here's to the ones that we got, Cheers to the wish you were here, but you're not, 'Cause the drinks bring back all the memories, Of everything we've been through, Toast to the ones here today, Toast to the ones that we lost on the way, Cause the drinks bring back all the memories, And the memories bring back, memories bring back you, There's a time that I remember, when I did not know no pain, When I believed in forever, and everything would stay the same, Now my heart feel like December when somebody say your name, 'Cause I can't reach out to call you, but I know I will one day, yeah, Everybody hurts sometimes, Everybody hurts someday, ayy ayy, But everything gon' be alright, Go and raise a glass and say, ayy.

Unforgettable (Duet with Nat King Cole) (youtube) - Unforgettable, That's what you are, Unforgettable, Though near or far, Like a song of love that clings to me, How the thought of you does things to me, Never before, Has someone been more, Unforgettable, In every way, And forever more (And forever more), That's how you'll stay (That's how you'll stay), That's why, darling, it's incredible, That someone so unforgettable, Thinks that I am, Unforgettable too, No never before, Has someone been more, Ooh, unforgettable (Unforgettable), In every way (In every way), And forever more (And forever more), That's how you'll stay (That's how you'll stay), That's why, darling, it's incredible, That someone so unforgettable, Thinks that I am, Unforgettable too.

Makin' Memories (youtube) - I'm makin' memories I'd like to remember, I'm meetin' new people I'd like to recall, Some of their names like Larry and Steve, I'm makin' memories I'd like to keep, I had some fun back in the day, Yeah, I got some stories did I tell ya the one, The time when we drank and drank till we passed out, There on the ground boy, that was fun. Tonight I'm makin' memories I'd like to remember, I'm meetin' new people I'd like to recall, Some of their names like Larry and Steve, I'm makin' memories I'd like to keep. What is that word I'm lookin' for, I learned to say it back when I was three, It starts with a C (kitty cat) (congress) (cousins?), (Kansas?) Candy, yeah that was the name, I knew I'd remember by the end of the day, I'm makin' memories, memories that I remember, Yeah, I'm makin' memories that I can keep, Tonight I'm makin' memories I'd like to remember, I'm meetin' new people I'd like to recall, Some of their names like Larry and Steve, I'm makin' memories I'd like to keep, Yeah, I'm makin' memories I'd sure like to keep.

Having a good memory is extremely valuable. But having a good memory doesn't matter if you don't remember the things that matter. So knowing how to remember only counts when you remember what counts.

Little Things to Remember

Remember that your memory is an amazing gift, use it wisely, for it has unlimited potential. Remember that you can learn anything that you want, as long as can read, listen and learn effectively. Remember to learn something new everyday, especially things that are important and informative. Remember to learn things in logically ordered steps, at the right time and in the right way. Remember to not to believe everything that you read, hear or see, analyze information carefully. Remember that intelligence is a journey, and if you stop learning, you will never know how great you can be. Remember to dream and to visualize, think of new ideas, no matter how big or how small they are. Remember to write about anything that you feel like writing about. Writing down your thoughts can be liberating and immortal. Remember to write down things that you want to do, and things that you need to do. Responsibilities. Remember to read your things to do list everyday, and take the steps to reach your goals. Remember to keep things simple, learn to manage time, use moderation, and learn to stay balanced. Remember to always eat healthy foods, and do not over eat. Learn to savor the moment. Remember to drink enough clean water everyday. Remember to practice good hygiene. Remember to exercise and to be active, but know your limitations. Remember to rest when you're tired. Learn to relax every part of your body, especially the face and the stomach area. Remember to do different breathing exercises throughout the day, understand how they effect you, focus only on your breathing. Remember to exercise your focus and attention, staying sharp takes practice. Remember to be aware of yourself, and your surroundings, several times a day. Keep an open mind. Remember that you have vulnerabilities, so learn what they are. Remember to understand how you feel, and that you can control your feelings. Remember that you have abilities, and you also have a brain, which means that you have controls, so don't stress yourself. Remember to relax and take breaks, but don't sit for long periods of time. Remember to be nice to the planet, it's the only home we have, and we share it with all life forms. Remember to be nice to people, learn to be honest, especially with yourself. Take an oath. Remember to Learn how to respect other people, and learn how to respect yourself. Remember to Learn how to forgive, and learn why forgiveness is important. Remember to Learn how to understand people and learn to understand yourself. Remember to Learn how to understand and control your emotions, and learn how to understand the emotions of others, especially when others have trouble controlling their emotions. Remember to not allow other people to control your thinking, and don't allow outside forces to intrude on your wellbeing. Remember to Learn how to control your fears. Thinking logically is a lot healthier than worrying. Remember to keep in touch with people, even if its only for a moment. Remember to love. Remember to love yourself, be proud but be modest. Remember that mistakes and accidents can happen, and the only time that you fail is when you don't learn from your mistakes. Remember to learn from experiences, good or bad. Remember to share your knowledge. Remember to laugh, especially at yourself. Remember to listen to music, practice dancing, or play learning games or do something entertaining. Celebrate life. Remember that you can solve any problem, as long as you learn how to solve it. Remember to measure value and cost accurately. Remember, as long as you keep learning, you will always have control, power, freedom, potential and possibilities. Remember to Remember.


A Poem about Remembering
Our memory is so important, we need to use it every day, never take it for granted, for there's always a price to pay. It shapes our personalities, and makes us who we are, sometimes making us laugh, and sometimes leaving a scar. We'll always have good memories, and we'll always have bad, but we learn from our experiences, so that knowledge we'll always have. We know it's not perfect, for sometimes we forget, it doesn't mean it's lost, it just means we misplaced it. Even with so much to remember, and so much to make sense, it's choosing what to remember, that will always make a difference. It’s remembering your ideas your thoughts your dreams your goals, it’s remembering to write them down, so everyone knows. It’s remembering that time that song that poem that movie, it’s remembering to say I love you, and being proud to say I’m me. It’s remembering to exercise our body, and that incredible mind of ours, for our body will carry us through life, and our mind beyond the stars. So let us not forget, especially in the month of December, that life is a miracle full of magic, and we should always remember to remember.


"Little Things To Remember was a book that I started working on in 2008. I stopped working on the book when this website BK101 became more important. I will finish the book one day, though it will not be the same book that I started out with."

Would you rather lose all of your old memories, or lose your ability to make new memories?

It's not just what you remember, but more importantly, it's how you perceive that memory. Is your opinion of that memory correct?