Quickly
now, think about last Wednesday. What did you have for breakfast? Lunch? Can
you list the ingredients in that meal? Who was your best friend in
kindergarten? What are the capital cities of all the Canadian provinces?
These
facts, at one point or another, had some relevance in your life. Now, they have
likely faded into blurry memories. Now think back to the morning of Sept. 11,
2001: what were you doing? What day does your Grandmother’s birthday fall on?
Who was your first kiss? Perhaps these memories stir up more vivid images than
the questions posed before, but why?
The
factors that affect the importance of an event could be what cause a memory to
stick, but it could also the number of times that memory is repeated in your
consciousness. Scientists have struggled with these questions for over a hundred
years, and have seen some fascinating breakthroughs in the last few years.
Brain
Basics
We
rely on memory for nearly everything we do in our lives. From recognizing words
in a textbook to remembering when to catch your bus, we simply could not
survive effectively without the most basic forms of memory. It’s no surprise that
memory is a complex and intricate part of our brain.
To
fully grasp memory and the brain, we need to look at how memory is stored. This
process begins with the entorhinal cortex, a region of the brain. This cortex
resides in the temporal lobe just behind your ears, and as a gate to memory serves
as a network to all aspects of memory.
“What
it does is gather information from parts of the cortex and relays it deeper in
the lobe to an area called the hippocampus,” says Tony Phillips, the Science
Director for the CIHR Institute for Neuroscience. “The entorhinal cortex and
the hippocampus are not just a one way street, however. It’s more of a loop in
which information can come in and pass back out to the cortex.”
Once
a memory has entered through the entorhinal cortex, there are three main stages
to making a memory last. “The bits of information are first encoded which is
the first step of cognition [and] this happens over a length of time. The second
process is called consolidation. The information in your brain then has to go
through more changes to be long lasting.” says Phillips. “The third step is
called storage, which is where the information is located somewhere in the
brain waiting to be reactivated.”
The
key to long-term memory retention is often referred to as the three “R’s”:
Recall, Recognition, and Re-Learning. These three methods of remembering all
work in varying degrees of complexity and are responsible for even the most
obscure reminiscences. For example, “recall” is used to quickly remember the
basic information we retain. Who we are, what we do, and how we do it are all
types of “recall” memory.
“By
recalling a memory you are actually reactivating a little network of activity,
that contains the information that constitutes the memory,” says Phillips.
Remembering
Memories Past
For
over a century, scientists have theorized over how the brain interrupts
memories, stores them, and then brings them up again when needed. German
psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus began research in this field in 1885 with his book
Memory: A Contribution to Experimental Psychology, which is still used widely
today.
During
his research, Ebbinghaus found that memory relies heavily on emotion and
feeling – even in the most sterile of tests. He found that people attached
significance to even simple three letter words like DAX or TYR when remembering
them even though these had no previous relation to their lives before the
experiments.
Ebbinghaus
also pioneered research on learning and forgetting, dubbed “The Forgetting
Curve”. Ebbinghaus states that there are three stages of forgetting information
which all depend on the strength of the memory. The first and most rapid stage
of forgetting is within the first 20 minutes of learning, followed by one hour,
and then four to five days. The rapidity of forgetting information is
determined by many factors including the difficulty of the material and the emotional
context in which it is presented.
Although
we do not consciously control our memories and the speed at which we forget them,
Ebbinghaus spoke of the studying method known today as “cramming”.
In
his book Ebbinghaus claims, “He who learns quickly also forgets quickly.” This
is a crucial tip to any students toying with the idea of all night study
sessions the night before a mid-term or final. Optimal study times and
different types of auditory or visual studying are easy ways for students to
make the information stick. Although what Ebbinghaus claimed about memory still
remains true, students forced to cram might be able to use some techniques that
will allow them to still remember facts learned at the last minute.
Mnemonic
Memory Methods and More
Although
many psychologists and memory scientists will tell you that slow and steady
will always win the memory race, there have been some breakthroughs in the last
few years that could help students cram better. Techniques such as optimal
study time and mnemonic devices can help students fill their memory banks with
facts and theories related to your next exam; however, these adverse studying
strategies won’t help you much in the long run.
Mnemonic
devices are tactics we use quite frequently, often unknowingly, to remember
facts or details. Mnemonics are ways to relate large amounts of knowledge to
simple anagrams or numerical sequences. The Roy G. Biv abbreviation for the
seven colours of the rainbow is a simple mnemonic, which will hopefully stick
within your hippocampus for a long time. Mnemonics are easy to create and
incredibly useful once memorized. They don’t have to be anagrams or number
sequences, either; just ways to associate small concepts to much larger ideas
and information.
Researchers
at UC San Diego have recently released a study that states that cramming just
doesn’t work when trying to remember information long term. Although in the
short term you may be able to remember the information you need to pass your
next test, this information is usually forgotten very quickly – which could be
a problem in the future if you’re studying to become a brain surgeon.
However,
if there is no alternative to cramming, the study does mention optimal studying
time for cramming. The study claims that if you have a test on a class on
Monday and an exam the following week, the best day to study would be Wednesday
or Thursday. The day after class is too soon, and any time after Thursday would
be too late. This is related to the Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve and how long it
takes to forget information you’re trying to store. The best thing to do is
study early and lay off the late-night, caffeine- induced cram sessions.
Making
it Stick, With Science!
On
Feb. 9, 2012, researchers at UCLA published their findings regarding memory and
stimulating parts of the brain to help with memory retention.
“Our
preliminary results provide evidence supporting a possible mechanism for
enhancing memory, particularly as people age or suffer from early dementia,”
says Itzhak Fried, the senior author of the research paper.
Their
method of stimulating the entorhinal cortex in the brains of seven subjects who
suffer from epilepsy has resulted in optimistic findings: “When we stimulated
the nerve fibers in the patients’ entorhinal cortex during learning, they later
recognized landmarks and navigated the routes more quickly,” says Fried. “They
even learned to take shortcuts, reflecting improved spatial memory.”
The
test involved subjects playing a video game in which they drove a taxi, delivering
customers to various parts of a city.
Although
Fried says it is much too early to begin plans for a memory enhancing “thinking
cap”, the concept of memory stimulants has been floating around in scientific
communities for a few years now. Phillips claims that neuroscientists are now
very close to fully understanding the molecular biology behind what makes a
memory and with that will come more scientific breakthroughs.
“This
will open up a whole new field of opportunity by which we could physical
manipulate that process and either erase an unwanted memory or strengthen a
desirable one,” he says.
According
to Phillips, these developments would likely take form as memory-enhancing
drugs, and have other practical uses as well. The treatment of soldiers with
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder by helping them to forget a traumatic event or
helping people with dementia from losing all facets of their memories are goals
that Phillips and his colleges are working towards.
Phillips
does warn of the potential risk of these memory-enhancing drugs giving
advantages to the privileged who could afford them, saying that they would
hopefully only be available to the elder or sick who truly need them.
“We
are basically memory machines,” says Phillips. “So, the more we learn about
memory, the more we learn about ourselves and human nature.”
Hopefully
with these advancements in memory science, we will soon uncover the secrets of
learning and cognition. However, until then, students will likely continue
their 4am study sessions, trying to force names and dates down the funnel that
is the entorhinal cortex, and make it stick in their hippocampus.
//Clin Spensley, columns editor
//Graphics by Desiree Wallace
//Clin Spensley, columns editor
//Graphics by Desiree Wallace
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