When your mind drifts, it's hard to remember what was going on before you stopped paying attention. Now a new study has found that the effect is stronger when your mind drifts farther - to memories of an overseas vacation instead of a domestic trip, for example, or a memory in the more distant past. Psychologists have known for a while that context is important to remembering...
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July 27, 2010
July 22, 2010
Zapping Memories Away
Imagine you're about to have to do something horrible or embarrasing, like say, admitting that you read Neuroskeptic. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to switch off your memory for a while, so you at least didn't have to remember it?Well, now you can, as long as you have electrodes implanted in your brain. Lacruz et al, based at London's Institute of Psychiatry, report that Single pulse electrical
11 Vote(s)
11 Vote(s)
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March 5, 2010
I’m Certain That I Can Certainly be Wrong or Confidence and Memory, Is one a Good Measure of the Other?
A man is the sum of his memories, you know, a Time Lord even more so.The Doctor, in “The Five Doctors”We all know that our memories can’t always be trusted, time and life tends to erode the confidence we have in our memories. At least that is the case for normal memories. We also tend [...]... Talarico, J., & Rubin, D. (2003) Confidence, Not Consistency, Characterizes Fl
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January 29, 2010
January 28, 2010
A mind at rest strengthens memories, researchers find
Our memories are strengthened during periods of rest while we are awake, researchers have found. The findings expand our understanding of how memories are boosted -- previous studies had shown this process occurs during sleep, but not during times of awake rest.
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January 13, 2010
As in humans, sleep solidifies a bird’s memories
Sleeping is known to help humans stabilize information and tasks learned during the preceding day. Now, researchers have found that sleep has similar effects upon learning in starlings, a discovery that will open up future research into how the brain learns and preserves information. The research fills an important gap between human behavioral findings and animal experiments of how the brain chan
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September 10, 2009
You Can Believe Your Eyes: New Insights Into Memory Without Conscious Awareness
Scientists may have discovered a way to glean information about stored memories by tracking patterns of eye movements, even when an individual is unable (or perhaps even unwilling) to report what they remember. The research provides compelling insight into the relationship between activity in the hippocampus, eye movements, and both conscious and unconscious memory.
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7 Vote(s)
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May 28, 2009
Eyewitness testimony: Can you really trust your own eyes?
We all like to think that we have good memories for events and that if we were to be witness to a crime or incident that we would be able to recall in detail the events of the day. However our memories are not that reliable at all. This has implications on many levels, but [...]
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April 29, 2009
Some Short-term Memories Die Suddenly, No Fading
Researchers have found that the temporary, working memories that the brain uses to process visual information may last for several seconds with little or no loss of precision. After that, they begin to wink out, but remain accurate until they disappear.
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8 Vote(s)
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April 27, 2009
Eliminating Drug-Associated Memories To Treat Drug Addiction
Addicts, even those who have been abstinent for long periods of time, are often still vulnerable to their own memories of prior drug use. For example, exposure to the same environment in which they commonly used drugs - a contextual memory - can increase their craving for the drug dramatically and can lead to relapse. A new study in the April 15th issue of Biological Psychiatry (http://www.
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