Imagine your mind has a built in search engine, not unlike Bing or Google.
Wouldn't that be great? You just set it to work and presto, up comes a number
of hits on whatever you search. Guess what, it does!
The number of hits is small in most cases, large in others, but significantly null in all too many, especially for searches distant in time. Like all search engines, your engine has limitations of capacity. This implies you have lots of information, carefully filed away in your brain, but essentially inaccessible. It has become unsearchable and unremembered. Google, et .al., can merely add more servers to increase capacity. You cannot. The question we pose here is: how can we find this "lost" information. The method we propose is called relational recall. Sounds mysterious? It really isn't. But, this is something the digital search engines cannot do. As such, they are limited to text searches. They cannot feel what you feel much less know what you feel or desire. They cannot re-construct what you want to re-experience. Thank heaven. Happily, your brain is far more powerful - though profoundly flawed. Yet, how do we tap into these lost memories? This is our topic.
This piece is divided into three parts:
Memory includes the processes by which information is encoded, stored, and then retrieved within the human mind. Encoding can be either short-term or long-term, the latter being our focus. Storage involves the places in the mind where the information resides, and retrieval is about how we get it back. The latter point is indeed our point and direction here. The first two are substantially physiological, and while there is much evidence on these, they are substantially serious contemporary research topics - well beyond the scope of this short synopsis. On these, the philosophers must stand aside, and await some definitive information. What is needed right now is some glimmer of what human memory means; it is far more varied than might be imagined.
Below, we give some very broad strokes on types of memory and how we access it. In this catagorical delineation there is some overlap among them.
Types of Memory
Psychologists and neurologists have classified memory, ad nauseam. First of all, there is the declarative memory (knowing what) and procedural memory (knowing how). The former is simply remembering something, while the latter is procedural, the how of a process. For example, you may not remember the context of when you learned to ride a bicycle, but you do remember how to do it. The same may be true of reading, arithmetic, and swimming. Probably, we all remember both the declarative and procedural aspects of driving a car, a singular thrill in the life of most teenagers. Sub-categories of declaritive memory include episodic memory for events and experiences, while semantic memory includes facts and concepts.
Then comes the differentiation between recognition and recall. Recognition is merely the tag of a situation with something stored in memory, while recall is more like "dredging" up something from the past. If you see your picture from 30 years ago, you may recognize the events surrounding it, but if you want to recall how you and your grandfather faired together this may take some time and some effort. That is, if you can do it at all.
Next come flashbulb and topographic memories. From Wikipedia, we have "A flashbulb memory is a highly detailed, exceptionally vivid 'snapshot' of the moment and circumstances in which a piece of surprising and consequential (or emotionally arousing) news was heard." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flashbulb_memory). You meet a long lost friend and "flash" you remember a sequence of events or situations that are fully connected. They are substantially autobiographic. Note the keyword emotional. Other examples may include the tragedy of 9/11, the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the hurricane Sandy, or the Challenger Space Shuttle disaster. These type of memories are not necessarily of the event but of what you were doing or where you were at the time of the event. Topographic memory is a recollection relating to a sense of space and what it implies in recalling or remembering something. Perhaps, it is the path to some location, or where in the store some item is located.
Remembering and recollection are two different attributes of memory. Remembering is merely the mind's interaction with the mind of some salient facts, say like the area of a rectangle or where you vacationed in 2010. However, recollection, which implies remembering, implies discovering some time line (forward or back) by which you can arrive at a desired memory. This was an important topic for Aristotle in his essay, On Memory and Recollection, where he carefully distinguishes the two, stating that persons with quick memory are quite different from those with quick recall. In the second part of this note, we take to task the methods of recall with specific ideas not quite like the general notions posited by Aristotle, who gave a rather general account, more of a practical and psychological rather than philosophical nature. The important idea of recollection involve mnemonics - the keys to unraveling what you are seeking. More on this later.
Retrospective and prospective memories are further slices and subslices of this memory pie. Retrospective memory basically refers to people, words, past events - roughly experiential. It can also involve "seeing" moments (episodes) from the past. On the other hand procedural memory includes remembering how to do something after a lapse of time. You remember how to bake a cake or shingle a roof - neither of which you do every day. This is akin to declarative and procedural memory, as above. Prospective memory is often tied to retrospective memories.
Temporal memory. This includes long-term and short-term memory. Often the aged seems to have excellent long-term memory, i.e. memory from the past, while they have diminished short-term memory. Short-term memory is more-or-less your working memory (an alternative term) , things you keep active, on the top of your head at one time. Usually, this is limited to about seven items. For example, the air traffic controller needs to have a wide-scale short-term memory to keep track of multiple events. Remembering names of a group of people at a party connects with short-term memory. Some are good at this; others poor (like me). Forgetting of these types of memories involve quite different processes.
Another memory type is usually called sensory memory. This is a brief, even very brief, recall of a sensory experience. Sensory memories may last only seconds. Two subcategories are the echoic memory - related to hearing, and iconic memory - related to vision. You hear a boom in the distance or see a for-sale sign on an attractive house. Both memories are gone in seconds. Indeed, you can associate memories with each of your senses, mostly specifically odor. You just can't retain these things in long-term memory; the risk of doing so would be to overload the mind/memory with irrelevancies. We have enough of these already.
Physiological effects. What makes for good memory, what enhances it, what improves it, and what does not? We make a very short list of pro's and con's.
Let's mention only briefly at this point the seminal work of Frances Yates, who unraveled ancient techniques of memory in world without paper or any of the aids we use now. This involves making memories more than the recall of memories.
References: Many basic references are on Wikipedia. At the cited links, there are numerous specific references, many of which are technical.
The number of hits is small in most cases, large in others, but significantly null in all too many, especially for searches distant in time. Like all search engines, your engine has limitations of capacity. This implies you have lots of information, carefully filed away in your brain, but essentially inaccessible. It has become unsearchable and unremembered. Google, et .al., can merely add more servers to increase capacity. You cannot. The question we pose here is: how can we find this "lost" information. The method we propose is called relational recall. Sounds mysterious? It really isn't. But, this is something the digital search engines cannot do. As such, they are limited to text searches. They cannot feel what you feel much less know what you feel or desire. They cannot re-construct what you want to re-experience. Thank heaven. Happily, your brain is far more powerful - though profoundly flawed. Yet, how do we tap into these lost memories? This is our topic.
This piece is divided into three parts:
- Your memory - basics of what and how, the categories and impressions of memory.
- Relational recall - how to do it and the remarkable results.
- Improving the memory - tricks exercises, games, venues.
Memory includes the processes by which information is encoded, stored, and then retrieved within the human mind. Encoding can be either short-term or long-term, the latter being our focus. Storage involves the places in the mind where the information resides, and retrieval is about how we get it back. The latter point is indeed our point and direction here. The first two are substantially physiological, and while there is much evidence on these, they are substantially serious contemporary research topics - well beyond the scope of this short synopsis. On these, the philosophers must stand aside, and await some definitive information. What is needed right now is some glimmer of what human memory means; it is far more varied than might be imagined.
Below, we give some very broad strokes on types of memory and how we access it. In this catagorical delineation there is some overlap among them.
Types of Memory
Psychologists and neurologists have classified memory, ad nauseam. First of all, there is the declarative memory (knowing what) and procedural memory (knowing how). The former is simply remembering something, while the latter is procedural, the how of a process. For example, you may not remember the context of when you learned to ride a bicycle, but you do remember how to do it. The same may be true of reading, arithmetic, and swimming. Probably, we all remember both the declarative and procedural aspects of driving a car, a singular thrill in the life of most teenagers. Sub-categories of declaritive memory include episodic memory for events and experiences, while semantic memory includes facts and concepts.
Then comes the differentiation between recognition and recall. Recognition is merely the tag of a situation with something stored in memory, while recall is more like "dredging" up something from the past. If you see your picture from 30 years ago, you may recognize the events surrounding it, but if you want to recall how you and your grandfather faired together this may take some time and some effort. That is, if you can do it at all.
Next come flashbulb and topographic memories. From Wikipedia, we have "A flashbulb memory is a highly detailed, exceptionally vivid 'snapshot' of the moment and circumstances in which a piece of surprising and consequential (or emotionally arousing) news was heard." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flashbulb_memory). You meet a long lost friend and "flash" you remember a sequence of events or situations that are fully connected. They are substantially autobiographic. Note the keyword emotional. Other examples may include the tragedy of 9/11, the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the hurricane Sandy, or the Challenger Space Shuttle disaster. These type of memories are not necessarily of the event but of what you were doing or where you were at the time of the event. Topographic memory is a recollection relating to a sense of space and what it implies in recalling or remembering something. Perhaps, it is the path to some location, or where in the store some item is located.
Remembering and recollection are two different attributes of memory. Remembering is merely the mind's interaction with the mind of some salient facts, say like the area of a rectangle or where you vacationed in 2010. However, recollection, which implies remembering, implies discovering some time line (forward or back) by which you can arrive at a desired memory. This was an important topic for Aristotle in his essay, On Memory and Recollection, where he carefully distinguishes the two, stating that persons with quick memory are quite different from those with quick recall. In the second part of this note, we take to task the methods of recall with specific ideas not quite like the general notions posited by Aristotle, who gave a rather general account, more of a practical and psychological rather than philosophical nature. The important idea of recollection involve mnemonics - the keys to unraveling what you are seeking. More on this later.
Retrospective and prospective memories are further slices and subslices of this memory pie. Retrospective memory basically refers to people, words, past events - roughly experiential. It can also involve "seeing" moments (episodes) from the past. On the other hand procedural memory includes remembering how to do something after a lapse of time. You remember how to bake a cake or shingle a roof - neither of which you do every day. This is akin to declarative and procedural memory, as above. Prospective memory is often tied to retrospective memories.
Temporal memory. This includes long-term and short-term memory. Often the aged seems to have excellent long-term memory, i.e. memory from the past, while they have diminished short-term memory. Short-term memory is more-or-less your working memory (an alternative term) , things you keep active, on the top of your head at one time. Usually, this is limited to about seven items. For example, the air traffic controller needs to have a wide-scale short-term memory to keep track of multiple events. Remembering names of a group of people at a party connects with short-term memory. Some are good at this; others poor (like me). Forgetting of these types of memories involve quite different processes.
Another memory type is usually called sensory memory. This is a brief, even very brief, recall of a sensory experience. Sensory memories may last only seconds. Two subcategories are the echoic memory - related to hearing, and iconic memory - related to vision. You hear a boom in the distance or see a for-sale sign on an attractive house. Both memories are gone in seconds. Indeed, you can associate memories with each of your senses, mostly specifically odor. You just can't retain these things in long-term memory; the risk of doing so would be to overload the mind/memory with irrelevancies. We have enough of these already.
Physiological effects. What makes for good memory, what enhances it, what improves it, and what does not? We make a very short list of pro's and con's.
Pro - Memory
|
Con - Memory
|
Diet
- using flavenoids of many types
|
Fats
- saturated and hydrogenated
|
Cognitive
training, both strategy and core types
|
Stress,
acute and chronic
|
Oxygen
|
Sleep
depravation
|
Proper
sleep
|
Alcohol
|
Odor
|
Lack
of mental functioning - use it or lose it
|
Music
|
|
Other
trigger actions - to be discussed in Part II
|
Let's mention only briefly at this point the seminal work of Frances Yates, who unraveled ancient techniques of memory in world without paper or any of the aids we use now. This involves making memories more than the recall of memories.
References: Many basic references are on Wikipedia. At the cited links, there are numerous specific references, many of which are technical.
- Aristotle, On Memory and Recollection. See http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/ to read or download.
- Martha C. Nussbaum and Amélie Oksenberg Rorty, Essays on Aristotle's De Anima
- Yates, Frances, The Art of Memory (1966) ISBN 9780226950013
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flashbulb_memory
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retrospective_memory
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_improvement
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