Welcome to the Tuesday edition of the Coffee Hour at Street Prophets. This is an open thread where we can discuss what’s happening in our lives, what we’ve been working on, and our opinions on current events. I thought I’d start today’s discussion by talking about memory.
Humans generally have two kinds of memory: working memory and episodic memory. Working memory is like a big mental white dry erase board where you keep track of what’s going on in the present. As it fills up, you simply erase it and add more. Working memory works hand-in-hand with attention to determine which information to write on the board and to keep distractions off it. People with higher working memory capacity are generally better able to regulate mood and prevent their minds from wandering off onto subjects not related to the present.
Episodic memory, on the other hand, corresponds to our memories of past events. Michael O’Shea, in his book The Brain: A Very Short Introduction, writes:
“So episodic memories are personal, highly selective, idiosyncratic, and possibly false, but they may also be richly complex and movie-like in character. They constitute the stories we tell ourselves about our past, they are the things we would write about in our autobiography.”
This autobiographical memory provides the foundation of self-awareness. People who have a realistic self-image tend to be mentally healthy. On the other hand, people who have a faulty self-image—an unrealistic autobiography—tend to have high levels of anxiety, defensiveness, self-doubt and narcissism.
Jennifer Ouellette, in her book Me, Myself, and Why: Searching for the Science of Self, provides an interest caution with regard to memory:
“Just because a memory is vivid, that doesn’t mean it’s accurate.”
She also says:
“Our memories are distributed over several different regions of the brain, and each time we recollect an event, we are, in essence, reconstructing it from scratch, based on a few key clues. Some of the details that emerge over time might be pure fabrication, but we still believe they are accurate.”
For those who may have already forgotten what today’s topic is, neuroscientists generally find that the best way to improve memory and recall ability is to continue to learn.
Do you feel that you have a good memory, what kinds of things can you easily recall and what kinds of things give you difficulty?
This is an open thread. Feel free to change the topic. Our usual ongoing question: what’s for dinner? Food porn photos are welcome.