During the first ten minutes of class, write a summary of John Medina’s Brain Rules, Memory chapter. To help guide your summary, consider the difference between short term and long term memory. How long does it take for memories to form?
Remember to type up your summary and post it as a comment to this blog entry.
We’re not born knowing everything we need to know about the world. We must learn it through experience. Memory provides a big survival advantage. It allows us to remember where food grows and where threats lurk. Researchers agree that its broad influence on our brains is what truly makes us consciously aware. The name and face of our loved ones, our own personal taste and especially our awareness of those names of those names and faces and taste are maintained through memory. The more elaborately we encode a memory during its initial moments, the stronger it will be. The brain has especially two types of memory; short term and long term memory. Containing many types of memory systems to encode, store and forget our brain is gathering information by fragments. For example the faster people talk the more we are able to remember at a time because it is received in chunks rather than one continuous memory. The more we encode a memory the stronger it is. That’s short term memory. Long term memories are formed in a two-way conversation between the hippocampus and the cortex, until the hippocampus breaks the connection and the memory is fixed in the cortex which can take years. Also the brain has many types of memory systems. Declarative memory follows four stages of processing encoding, storing, retrieving, and forgetting. Semantic memory and episodic memory are the two subtypes of declarative memories. Semantic memory contains general factual information and knowledge related to your world. The way to make long term memory more reliable is to incorporate new information gradually and repeat it in timed intervals. Working memory is a collection of busy work spaces that allows us to temporarily retain newly acquired information. If we don’t repeat the information, it disappears. If you forget a lot you can improve your chances of remembering something if you reproduce the environment in which you first put it into your brain.
Zahirah Hutton
ENG 1101
3/23/2015
After reading this chapter I come to the realization that when I forget something it’s totally not my fault. It’s the way my brain is programmed to function. Everyone I believe has a case or short term, long term as well as selective memory. It is proven that the faster a person talks the more our brain processes what’s being said that’s because it is given to us in chunks and not bits and pieces. The more we encode a memory the stronger it will become.
The chapter “Memory” is basically about how we encode, store, retain, and subsequently. In this chapter, it also talks about how there’s two types of memories. One is short term and the second one is long term memories. Working memory is short term memory. Working memory is the ability to store and manipulate information in the mind for brief periods of time. We often use “working memory” when we’re learning new things. For long term memories, there are two types; Declarative Memory and Non-Declarative Memory. Declarative is things you know that you can tell others. For example; Remembering your first day in school. Non-declarative is things you know that you can show by doing. For example; knowing how to ride a bicycle.
According to John Medina’s “Memory” chapter, memory takes many different forms. The two main categories of memory, are short and long term memory meaning the short time that we keep something in mind before dismissing it in our brain’s system for storing information before it become persistent. Moreover, memories last only a few minutes to form and then vanish. However, other memories persist for days, months, and even for a lifetime which is what makes us human. For example, we form memories by the experienced in our conscious awareness involving encoding, storing, retrieving, and actually forgetting. As one can see, memory has different stages which function as a sort filter allowing us to prioritize and survive playing a vital role in our ability to function.
Short term and long term memory, some people have short term and others have long term. Short term memory is when the person affected with it does not easily remember points in their lives and forget very quickly. Long term well, is opposite of short term, when they can remember easily. For someone to remember something specifically, it has to be catastrophic, life threatening, or near death experience. Those images or say memories will never be erased from our minds. Soldiers that suffer from PTSD usually get PTSD from the things that happen on the battlefield and they can not forget. According to Medina memories take many different formes, the two main forme are long term and short term. Medina states that it takes years for memories to fully take forme, your memories from elementary school might fully be formed until your sophomore year of high school. I find this very interesting because that’s a very LONG time for a memory to forme, I thought memories would forme up right when the certain point in time of your life happens.
In the Memory chapter from Brain Rules, John Medina describes explicitly the memory and how we are able to remember so much stuff. One thing that caught my eye was that there’s two types of memories one is declarative and the other is non-declarative. Declarative memories are those that can be experienced in our conscious awareness, such as the definition of a word, and non-declarative memories are those that cannot be experienced in our conscious awareness, such as how we wear a jacket or how to open a door. I have experience both of these memories. Some of my declarative memories are remembering my social security number, the way I do a quadratic math problem, my password for Instagram and a lot more other things. Memories no-declarative are the way I go to sleep, the way I cut fabric, the way I eat, the way I walk and a lot more things. This was one of my favorite facts from this chapter along, I love the way john medina presented to us by writing about his own personal memories and experiences.
REVISED
In the memory chapter from Brain Rules, John Medina describes explicitly the memory and how we are able to remember so much stuff. One thing that caught my eye was that there’s two types of memories one is declarative and the other is non-declarative. Declarative memories are those that can be experienced in our conscious awareness, such as the definition of a word, and non-declarative memories are those that cannot be experienced in our conscious awareness, such as how we wear a jacket or how to open a door. I have experience both of these memories. Some of my declarative memories are remembering my social security number, the way I do a quadratic math problem, my password for Instagram and a lot more other things. Memories no-declarative are the way I go to sleep, the way I cut fabric, the way I eat, the way I walk and a lot more things. This was one of my favorite facts from this chapter along, I love the way John Medina presented to us by writing about his own personal memories and experiences.
In John Medina’s Brain Rules, Memory chapter, Medina’s declares that the brain has different types of memory systems, which many operating in a semiautonomous fashion. Also, we know the most about declarative memory. According to Medina’s Brain Rules, Memory chapter, declarative memories are those that we can be experienced in our conscious awareness, such as “My SUV is blue.”
On the other hand, Medina’s Brain Rules, Memory chapter states that “non-declarative memories are those that cannot be experienced in our conscious awareness”, such as the skills that I need to drive my SUV.
Nevertheless, from my understanding, after reading Medina’s Brain Rules, Memory chapter, what we usually think of as “memory” in day-to-day usage is actually long-term memory, but there are also important short-term and sensory memory processes, which must be worked through before a long-term memory can be established. Medina’s Brain Rules, Memory chapter explains that Long-term memory will last a lifetime. Short-term memory, which recalls temporary information, will last about one minute. Sensory memory, which is the shortest-term element of memory, works through the five senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch. This last about one second. For example, the ability to look at something and remember what it looked like with just a second of observation is an example
In this chapter, Medina expounds the different class of memories by first introducing the example of Kim Peek who actually was given an extraordinary memory in which he can memorize books. This kind of memory is called declarative memory and this kind of memory works by remembering a series of number. On the other hand, there is nondeclarative memory, and the way it works is by remembering how to ride a bike and probably consciously people don’t recall the right posture or the feet you have to insert first in the bike. In addition, Medina talks about the four stages of memory which are encoding, retrieving, storing, and forgetting. Also, how the information is absorbed by the brain into little pieces and then goes to different regions of the brain. Medina also mentions that the memory is relating with strong experiences which fortalices the memory depending how vivid this memory is. In addition, Medina explain to us little tips on how to improve our memory which is by reproducing the environment of the memory that people got. Furthermore, he states how long term memory is formed in the brain which is an exchange of information between the hippocampus and the cortex. Moreover, Medina explains how the brain is wired in terms of memory by combining past memories with new experiences which make strong this connection.
John Medina’s Brain Rules is the reading I enjoy the most at this class. “Memory” chapter was another interesting chapter that gave new knowledge about the brain and its functions. According to the author, memory divides into Short-term memory and Long-term memory. He subtitles his chapter saying we need to repeat to remember. Our minds are volatile and to remember things we need to consistently repeat them and relate them to our previous knowledge. The brain has many types of memory systems; one type is called declarative memory, which involves something you can declare, those things that can be experienced in our conscious awareness, such as “The sky is blue”. This is the type of memory altered when the hippocampus and various surrounding regions become damage. Declarative memory involves four steps: encoding, storage, retrieval, and forgetting. The first step is crucial in determining whether something that is initially perceived will also be remembered. Also, the author expresses that our brains do not come fully assembled at birth, which means that most of what we know about the world has to be either experienced by us firsthand or taught to us secondhand. Memory makes us not only durable, but also human because it does all the work for us. Such as, remember names and faces. Based on Hermann Ebbinghaus researches, he showed that memories have different spans. Some memories hang around for only few minutes, and then vanish. Other persists for days or months, even for a lifetime, and we can increase the life span of a memory by repeating the information in timed intervals. Another type of memory is called Nondeclarative memory, which involves the things we cannot experience in our conscious awareness, such as the motor skills necessary to ride a bike. This type of memory is not altered (or at least not greatly altered) when the hippocampus and surrounding regions are damaged. Moreover, in this chapter I learned that vowels and consonants are not stored in the same place. Scientists have found that all encoding processes have common characteristics. The first one declares, “The more elaborately we encode information at the moment of learning, the stronger the memory”. The second one says, “A memory trace appears to be stored in the same parts of the brain that perceived and processed the initial input”. The last one says, “Retrieval may best be improved by replicating the conditions surrounding the initial encoding”. Furthermore, the author says that Long-term memory is formed in a two-way conversation between the hippocampus and the cortex, until the hippocampus breaks the connection and the memory is fixed in the cortex, which can take years. Most memories disappear within minutes, but those that survive the fragile period strengthen with time. It takes years to consolidate a memory. Not minutes, hours, or days but years. Forgetting allows us to prioritize events. However, if you want to remember, remember to repeat.
In this chapter, Memory in Brain Rules by John Medina I have learn things that help me explain why certain things happens. You see sometimes when I do things I end up forgetting what I have done or something that I have done a couple hours ago, yesterday or even weeks for some reason. But, now I understand that it wasn’t my fault this entire time because I had figure it was my fault for not remembering in the first place or I would find some way of trying to blame my parents and due to this reading I was able to. It turns out it was my brain fault the entire time which gave me a smile on my face since now I know it’s not entirely my fault.