mysteries of the mind revealed

[intellex]

very intresting article take the time to read if you like




1. How a memory is made

Let's say you meet someone new. The first time you see her, you take it

all in: the length of her hair, the sound of her voice, that fresh shampoo

scent that follows her around. As you're fumbling for an opening line,

your hippocampus, a sea-horse-shaped area in your brain's temporal

lobe, has already converted all these external stimuli into a memory. All

potential memories must go through this mental gatekeeper before they

take root in your mind. But the hippocampus is just a holding area, the

first step in a complex process. After a memory has been forged, it's

disassembled into its various sensory components, which are then

distributed throughout the brain. Later, when you think of the person or

happen to hear her name, see her face, or smell her hair, the

components are drawn together again.



2. How alcohol affects your memory

Before it hits you over the head with a hangover, too much booze

produces temporary amnesia by interfering with the ability of the

hippocampus to create memories. (This is also known as a "blackout.")

The memories that aren't lost can be especially tough to recall—unless

you start drinking again and your brain taps into something called "state-

dependent" memory. "When you encode memories while in a specific

state, like being drunk, you're more likely to remember them when

you're again in that state," says Jonathan Schooler, Ph.D., an assistant

professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia. This may

explain why Old School quotes start flying faster right around last call.




3. Why you can't remember being born

You might think something as traumatic as birth would leave its mark on

your memory, but chances are you can only recall back to age 5. Why?

One theory points to myelin, the protective nerve sheathing that helps

with signal conduction; before age 5, a child's brain is low in myelin. "It

may be important in long-term memory maintenance," says Schooler.

Another possible explanation: As we learn to speak, we can no longer

access memories created in our preverbal years. "With the onset of

language, the way we think may change, making it impossible to get into

the shoes of our older memories," Schooler says.



4. How memory stacks up to an iMac



It's a close race, but humans have the edge—for now. Our brains have

about a thousand times the memory capacity of even the most

sophisticated computer (though that could change by the year 2020).

What's more, gray matter is a much more reliable storage device. Unlike

computers, which store entire pieces of information in specific locations,

the human brain spreads memories over many neurons. "This means that

losing a single neuron doesn't have to affect memory performance," says

David Leake, Ph.D., a professor of computer science at the University of

Indiana.



5. How testosterone can help you remember


T may be essential for building memories as well as muscles. In a study


at Oregon Health & Science University, men taking a drug designed to


halt T production did significantly worse on verbal-memory tasks than

men who weren't given the medication. "Animal studies have shown that

if testosterone is taken away entirely, there's significant loss of the

connections between neurons," says Jeri Janowsky, Ph.D., a professor of

behavioral neuroscience and coauthor of the study.



6. What amnesia is all about




Forget what you've seen on soap operas. "Retrograde amnesia, the total


blackout of memory so beloved on television, is relatively rare," says

Alan Baddeley, Ph.D., author of Your Memory: A User's Guide. When

retrograde amnesia does occur, it's often due to severe psychological

trauma rather than a nasty bonk on the head. A head injury would more

likely cause anterograde amnesia, the condition featured in the movie

Memento. "You can talk to someone with this condition and he'll be able to

tell you his name, keep up with the conversation," says Michael Stadler,

Ph.D., a professor of psychology at the University of Missouri. "But if you

leave the room and come back 10 minutes later, he won't remember you."


7. Why you never forget how to ride a bike


When a child learns to ride a bicycle, he makes two sets of memories:

One is explicit memory, which records things like the color of the bike and

the elation of riding unassisted. Implicit memory, on the other hand,

notes the body mechanics required to ride the bike, which is why it's

sometimes called "muscle memory," says Janet Gibson, Ph.D., a

professor of psychology at Grinnell College, in Iowa. Even when explicit

memories fail, implicit ones remain.



8. Why hypnotism works—sometimes

Just because you can't remember an event, name, or face doesn't mean


it's not still lurking in your brain, able to be retrieved through hypnotism.

That's because our brains appear to have a threshold of what's

considered fully formed memory, and hypnosis lowers that threshold

(though how it does this is still unknown). Fragments and half-processed

memories that your brain's retrieval system may not recognize when

you're in a conscious state can be recognized under hypnosis as

legitimate experiences. "It gets rid of your internal monitoring," says S

schooler. However, with your threshold temporarily lowered, your mental

guard is down: You're prone to suggestion—e.g., "cluck like a chicken"—

and more likely to remember statements from the hypnotist as your own

memories.



9. Why you lose your keys

It's impossible (and impractical) to remember each detail of our daily

lives, so our brains compensate by making memory generalizations called

schemata. For example, instead of remembering every apple you've ever

eaten, your brain creates a schema of apples: hard, red, sweet. Same

thing happens with your keys. Rather than recall every instance of placing

your keys on, say, the dresser, you create a "keys = dresser" schema,

so you have difficulty remembering the rare instances that don't fit the

formula.



10. How to preserve your memory

"Statistically, the most common form of memory loss occurs through

natural aging," says Baddeley. "You become worse at encoding and

retrieving new information, particularly arbitrary information, such as

people's names." One way to battle this brain drain is by recruiting help

from your sense of sight. "Your visual sense takes up roughly 60 percent

of your brain area," says Frank Felberbaum, a memory-training expert

and the author of The Business of Memory. So if you want to remember


someone's name, turn it into a visual image and link it to a prominent

part of the person's appearance. In Felberbaum's case, he says, picture

falling (fel) beer (ber) bombs (baum) hitting him on the nose. The key is

to pick a facial feature that's both distinctive and unlikely to change over

time; results may vary with Hollywood starlets and members of the

Jackson family.


Provided by Men's Health