If all the data received by our senses were stored in our memory, we would soon be overwhelmed. The subconscious sorts the input and retains only a fraction for permanent memory storage. Every second, the eyes absorb ten million bits of information, the skin one million bits, and the ears receive one hundred thousand bits. Of these millions of bits processed, only about forty bits reach the conscious mind. Data that is not deleted is classified and filtered by the subconscious and then committed to long-term memory.
The active brain can remember things that actually Nope happen or that they are not correct. The mind makes assumptions to link events. People remember implicit or unspoken words, with the same probability as explicit words. Studies with fMRI have shown that the same areas of the brain are activated during questions and answers about true and false events. This may explain why false memories can appear so convincing to the individual reporting the events.
memory types
Remembering (storing memories in a memory bank and retrieving them) is a biological process that involves dedicated brain structures such as memory banks variously specialized for different types or categories of memory functions. Knowing that memories are formed in different categories and that they move between categories can help develop strategies to improve memory and learning.
There are two broad categories of memory: non-conscious and conscious. The latter includes short-term and long-term memory.
- non conscious memory, takes two forms. One of these, implicit memory, automatically stores experiences and concepts and plays an unconscious role in affecting perception. the other way, muscle memoryit plays a role in the mechanical execution of a series of movements, such as riding a bicycle or playing a musical instrument, learned through repetition over time.
- short term memory, is working memory. It’s a place for things you need to hold on to for a short time. By holding information for just a few seconds, it allows you to recall a current thought and, for example, participate in a conversation, keep a lecture in context as it progresses, or keep the thread of a story or movie going.
- Long-term or permanent memory: The memory of events and facts that we can consciously remember and verbally describe. It includes that of words, symbols and general knowledge about our perception of how the world works. Information of a personal nature, things witnessed or experienced, are best remembered when associated with emotion.
The brain links information at an unconscious level. You can consciously help to maximize this effect. As you perceive new information, associate it as well as possible with the material already in your memory, using images, sounds, key words, and concept maps. A vital ingredient for memory is review, and it is effective only when done at specific times after absorbing the information. For example, after one hour, one day, one week, and six months.
The emotional and thinking brain
This is a good time to explain the difference between the different types of stress. Unhealthy stress is too low or too high. Healthy stress is often simply called a challenge. Often the distinction is conditional on how much control we perceive we have over the stressor. In difficult situations, the body releases chemicals like adrenaline and norepinephrine. These enhance learning by increasing motivation, sharpening our perceptions, and even strengthening our bodies. On the other hand, unhealthy stress sets off alarm bells throughout the body by releasing cortisol, the survival hormone. In this book, I use the word stress to refer to harmful stress.
Neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux discovered a particular relationship and interaction between the emotional and thinking brains, and identified the neural pathways that carry information from the senses to the brain. Information coming in through the eyes or ears first goes to the thalamus, which acts as a sorting area to assign different information to different parts of the brain. Compare the new data with the existing information and decide whether to compress, absorb, or ignore the new input. If the incoming information is emotional, the thalamus sends two signals. Survival being a priority concern, the first signal goes to the emotional brain (limbic system, specifically, the amygdala), and the second to the thinking brain (neocortex). This means that the emotional brain has the information first and, in an emergency, can react before the thinking brain has received the information and had a chance to consider options.
In such a case, the amygdala sends instructions to the lower reptilian brain to flood the body with stress hormones. There are more neural connections going of the limbic emotional center a the neocortex than vice versa. With continual arousal of the amygdala, it is difficult to break out of the resulting fight or flight cycle. Then reason does not rule, and we are left hanging in the middle of a crisis.
The hippocampus helps create long-term memory by assigning data to different parts of the brain. For example, the names of natural things, such as vegetation and wildlife, are stored in one part of the brain, while man-made items, such as cars and furniture, are retained in another part. Likewise, the event, or what happened, and its meaning are established in separate parts of the brain.
Emotion drives attention which, in turn, drives memory. James McGaugh, PhD, of the University of California at Irvine, said, “We think the brain harnesses chemicals released during stress and powerful emotions to regulate the strength of memory storage.” Journalist Jill Neimark said: “A memory associated with emotionally charged information is burned into the brain.”
It is the management of emotions that gives students greater control over their learning.
Although the brain thrives on challenge and complexity, its main drive is survival. You need to survive socially, economically, emotionally, and physically. The brain is pre-programmed to learn, and if optimal conditions are not met, employees may learn to fear change in the workplace, and students can learn to fear subjects like math. Overwhelming stress has a detrimental effect. Researchers have evidence that high stress experienced by a pregnant woman can distress the fetus, resulting in learning difficulties for the child later in life. Among infants and young children, chronic high levels of stress can make learning difficult, perhaps even reducing the part of the brain associated with memory.
Tips to remember
Imagine that I recite a list of thirty items to you. Then I ask you to write them down after I finish. You would remember things that are:
- in the beginning of the list
- Unusual
- repeated, repeated
- in the final of the list
The first and last elements are known as primacy Y freshness. Every study session has them. If you study for an hour, then take a break, you get one of each. If you study for twenty-five minutes, take a short break and then study for another twenty-five minutes. You get twice as many primacy and recency events. How good is that?
Memory is not stored in one place in the brain. This deconstructed and is distributed throughout the cortex. Emotional content is stored in the amygdala, visual images in the occipital lobes, source memory in the frontal lobes, and place is stored in the parietal lobes. Remembering is actually an act of reconstruction.
memory impairment, or the loss of remembered events, is a natural phenomenon as new experiences displace existing memories. You can easily counteract this loss of learned material through regular review. Revision can make it easier to preserve at least 80 percent of your learned material. Without a systematic review process, material evaporates at a 20 percent retention level.
A greater variety of input streams from eyes, ears, touch, and emotion allows for more avenues for dynamic reconstruction, thus creating a richer memory. Multimodal instruction makes a lot of sense. Accelerated learning addresses the need.
To get an idea of how limitless our ability to learn is, multiply the number of neurons (10 billion) by the number of branch spines (10 million) by the number of spiny dendrites possible on each spine (100 million). . The result indicates how many new connections are possible by learning. Using this font size, the answer is a 1 followed by zeros that stretch for about 6.2 million miles!
The capacity of our memory is practically unlimited.