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Information from
It's Magical! It's Malleable! It’s... Memory by Jill Neimark, Psychology
Today, 1995 Jan/Feb Memory is not a single
entity residing in a single place in the brain. For example, the emotion
associated with a memory is stored in a different part of the brain than the
content of the memory.
Some memories occur in primitive parts of the
brain unknown to conscious perception
Learning is defined as two neurons communicating
with each other. One neuron sends a message to another—a chemical message using
neuro transmitters—when neurons learn or practice information, they become more
efficient at connecting
The more often the brain accesses the neuro-network
about a piece of learning or information, the stronger the connections become.
An analogy would be a path in the woods—the more it is walked upon the smoother
it becomes making travel easier and faster.
The neuro transmitters swim across the synapse
and attach themselves to the dendrite of the receiving neuron. When a neuron
receives a message repeatedly, the receptor site increases in number giving the
chemical message more areas for attachment—making attachment easier and faster.
Experiments showed learning environments that
are social, enriched with stimulation and caring, produced the greatest amount
of dendrite growth
A person with a visual learning style preference
means they likely have more neuro-networks for "visual information" than they
would have for auditory information—therefore making the learning and
remembering of that information easier and faster
Our preference on how we receive information is
important and in memory, how we retrieve it (which memory lane we use) is even
more important.
The more memory lanes used for storage of an
event the more powerful the learning will be. These lanes are semantic, episodic
(location), procedural (muscle, such as riding a bike), automatic (conditioned
response like songs or the alphabet), and emotional memory.
For learning to be permanent, it has to follow
certain paths— an example is like the lanes in the supermarket—if I am looking
for pancake mix in the dairy isle I could be there all day but if I find the
baking isle I can find it quickly.
When new information enters the brain, it is
sent to the hippocampus. If the information is factual, the hippocampus will
search for files of matching information. If they are found, the information
will be continually sorted and refined and added to long term memory. This
process may need to be repeated several times before long term memory is formed.
Association, comparisons, analogies, similarities, and examples all stimulate
this memory process of factual semantic information.
Students who take only Tuesday and Thursday
classes and do not interact with the material they learned (were exposed to) on
Thursday until the next Tuesday have little hope of remembering (learning) the
information.
The most powerful learning takes place in
multiple memory lanes. Teachers need to think about how they can present
information using multiple memory lanes.
Implicit memory is involved in learning habits.
This type of memory does not require a conscious awareness—riding a bike or
driving a car.
Explicit memory is conscious (declarative
memory). This would include autobiographical memory (the ability to tell stories
about ourselves) semantic memory, and episodic (contextual or spatial memory)
memory.
Even the simplest memory stimulates complex
neural networks at several different sites in the brain. Depending on the
content, the meaning, or how it felt, the information can be processed in
different parts of the brain.
The master regulator of memory is the
hippocampus. It exists on both sides of the brain, and without it we would learn
and remember nothing.
It is not clear how long it takes to fully
consolidate a memory. This happens when the linkages are so deeply engraved that
the memory becomes clear and easy to recall.
Memories become permanent during sleep or deeply
relaxed states. The brain slows to a "Theta" rhythm and it is believed that the
brain releases chemicals that enhance storage.
REM sleep improves memory. However, continual
interruption of REM sleep prevents learning.
It is now believed that the brain takes
advantage of the powerful stress hormones adrenaline and noradrenaline (which
are also released during powerful emotions) to regulate the strength of storage
of the memory (James McGaugh).
“A memory associated with emotionally charged
information gets seared into the brain."
In a landmark study by James McGaugh and Larry
Cahill, they indicate that any emotion, even ordinary emotion, is linked to
learning. Experiment groups who were given information with emotional charges
did significantly better on memory tests of the information than groups who
received the information without the emotion, or whose secretion of adrenaline
and noradrenaline were blocked.
The source of our memory is fragile—it is the
first part of the memory to fade. This is why it is easier to recall the core
truth of an event but we may get the details (such as time, day, or place)
wrong. |
