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  Riddhika Parmar Week 15 - 4/27/22 50 First Dates Movies are a great way to explore different worlds; I remember watching a movie called 50 First Dates. I enjoyed this movie for many reasons, and it also gave me a lot to think about regarding memory.  The movie is about Lucy (Drew Barrymore) and Henry’s (Adam Sandler) relationship. Lucy has been in a car accident, so she only remembers her life before that accident. Every day after the accident, she goes to sleep and wakes up the next day having no memory of the prior day. In a way, the movie is kind of like another great movie called Groundhog Day. One day, Henry meets Lucy and they have a great connection and agree to meet the next day. But, when Henry meets Lucy the next day, she gets mad at him and finds him to be a stranger. This happens every single day throughout the movie, and Henry must patiently make Lucy fall in love with him in new, creative ways every day. Lucy’s condition is similar to a real-life disorder called anter

You know the saying, “forgive, but not forget?” A common saying in the aftermath of bad relationships and betrayal, it is this saying that inspired my blog for today. I found this article “The Psychology of Forgiving and Forgetting,” and its introductory paragraphs immediately got me hooked on the relation between the two actions. It starts off discussing the tragic death of Marina Keegan in an accident, because her boyfriend fell asleep at the wheel. What shocked author Wray Herbert was Keegan’s parents forgiveness of the boyfriend, who faced criminal charges for Keegan’s death. It spun a question: does forgiving help forget? Does it help in lessening the trauma of those memories? In a test by scientists at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, volunteers were put through “various scenarios depicting hypothetical wrongdoings”—being robbed, being cheated on, being expelled from university—and then asked questions regarding the severity of the situation and ability to forgive the

  Computer Memory It’s crazy to think that there are so many different interpretations of the word memory. From the game, memory, to memories we make throughout our lives to as distant as computer memory. In computers, memory is a device or system that is used to store information for immediate use. It’s honestly the same type of idea as memories we make and store inside our brains, but about two entirely different things. Let’s look at computer memory. It’s crazy to think that there are so many different memories we make in our lives that we end up forgetting over the years. Computer memory on the other hand, stays in the computer forever. Memory is one of the most basic functions of a computer, as without it, a computer would barely be able to function, if it can even function that is. Memory in a computer like I mentioned before is where all the data is stored to help the computer run smoothly. The data is stored in the memory, somewhere in which it can be accessed almost immediatel

Rishi, Week 15: Having Not-The-Best Memory is Actually Good? Three out of four prisoners convicted through eyewitness testimony are later acquitted through DNA evidence. An American neuroscientist and author, Lisa Genova, says that “you can be 100 percent confident in your vivid memory” but “still be 100 percent wrong.” The human brain is a notoriously lousy scribe—the “default setting” for our brains is forgetfulness. Many people see memory loss as a bad thing: forgetting key memories of loved ones that have since passed or letting go of significant life moments, but can the loss of memory be a good thing? Highly superior autobiographical memory (aka hyperthymesia) is a condition in which people can remember their whole life in spectacular detail. Solomon Shereshevsky, a man with the ability in the early 1900s, “felt burdened by excessive and often irrelevant information.” He “had enormous difficulty filtering, prioritizing, and forgetting what he didn’t want or need.” The only way he

Carolin Pan Benedetti APENG 26 April 2022 Learning When learning a subject you might spend the same amount of time as your peers or maybe even more, but you realize that you still do not perform as well as them on exams. Why is it that during exams, we can’t remember what we learned so well for the past week, or month even. During our learning unit in AP Psychology, we were taught numerous methods as to how to learn effectively for the information to be stored in our long term memory.  As most of us may know, learning is most effective when done in distributed intervals; however, why does this work? Well, our brains retain information best when we repeatedly call on the information learned, as this strengthens the synapses. If you were to cram all the information the night before an exam, your brain would not yet have developed these neural connections; hence, you would forget everything you just learned the night before.  Say you and your classmate both make flashcards for the upcomin

Attention Span Over the years I've noticed my attention span decline little by little. However, I've noticed its frightening drop over the course of quarantine; particularly when a good portion of Gen Z, including myself, began using TikTok. Scarily enough, "Gen Z typically have an attention span of just 8 seconds; a few seconds shorter than millennials, who come in at approximately 12 seconds." Attention span and memory are closely linked, in that whether we can learn and remember something partly depends on our ability to concentrate on the information at the time. It is normal for attention and memory to gradually decline as we age. However with recent app developments and a surge in social media use, especially with TikTok, it has become difficult for users to even watch several minute long videos, let alone movies. These short form videos catering to young audiences are as excellent of a marketing strategy as they are detrimental. When scrolling through the app,

“You look dead today; how many hours of sleep did you get?” asked the concerned friend. “I pulled an all-nighter and only slept 3 hours,” replied the sleep-deprived AP student whose eyes were swollen and already starting to close. Sleep. Not in class but at home and preferably at a reasonable time. Many students today are in a highly competitive environment and too often fall into a hustle culture.   However, students disregard that sleep can help them finish work faster and obtain higher grades in school. The idea that one can sleep when they die is flawed and lowers the quality of their shorter life. If a student takes part in deep work mentioned in my previous blog, finding adequate time to sleep should not be a problem. During spring break, I definitely slept more and saw many benefits in my energy and focus levels. Inspired by the advantages I received, I researched the topic of sleep and came across a book summary of Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker. According to Walker, sleep pro

 The Importance of Forgetting                                                                                           PC: sojo.net I often find myself forgetting a lot of various details on a daily basis and my friends often make fun of me for how quickly I can forget things that were just told to me. For adults, forgetting minor details becomes even more worrying as they start to wonder if their poor memory is a potential sign of dementia. However, people often forget that there is actually great value in forgetting for the overall efficiency of the brain, beyond just being able to let go of bad memories. It is actually a relatively new field in science that has only really undergone thorough exploration in the last few decades or so.  As vast and complex as the mind is, the brain only has a certain capacity for memories it can store and effectively process. With the sheer amount of sensory input that individuals receive on a daily basis, it would be impossible to store vivid memori

              Innate Memory                I often get caught up pondering over all the mysteries of the universe on an extremely broad scale, asking existential questions such as, “Where does the soul come from? How was the universe created? What happens after death? Etc.” As a human being, I have the privilege of perceiving the world from a more complex perspective than other animals and plants; however, recently I have been finding myself questioning the complexity of knowledge so common that you might have learned of them from cartoons.           For example: a spider knows how to make a web, a beaver knows how to build a dam, a baby turtle knows to swim to the ocean the moment it hatches, and a baby kangaroo knows to hop into its mother’s pouch after it is born. These are all seen as inherited instinctive behaviors yet still seem voluntary. Behaviors such as breathing, flinching, crying are also behaviors that can appear both voluntarily and involuntarily. Where is the line betwee

Click Now For a Way to Easily Cram Information into your Brain Before AP Testing https://www.pinterest.com/pin/164170348890094275/ What do the planets in our solar system, the order of operations, the colors of rainbows, and the types of rhetorical devices all have in common? Yes, they are all pieces of random information shoved into our brains by school, but more importantly, they are all memorized through the use of acronyms, a form of mnemonic devices used to "easily memorize things. " Mnemonic devices come in five different forms: acronyms, association, chunking, Method of Loci, and rhythmic devices.   The one that we are all likely most familiar with are acronyms. From everyday slang over text, we all use acronyms as both a way of creating short-hand ways to express certain ideas and as a way to remember names of companies and other random information. Applying this technique to studying for strict memorization tests like for psychology is probably the biggest benefit f

The "First Memory" and Childhood Amnesia So I was thinking about the “first memory.” In your childhood, almost everyone has a specific memory that they believe is their “awakening,” in a sense, or their first remembrance of an event in their life. Inspired by my sometimes-faulty memory, I wanted to know whether some people just did not have a “first memory,” or atleast had trouble remembering them. Upon further research, I found out that this concept has a term: “childhood amnesia,” which refers to the inability of adults in remembering their earliest childhood memories.  link: https://www.newsweek.com/2016/08/19/path-understanding-childhood-amnesia-488886.html This ZME Science by Alexandru Micu says that most people can remember their earliest memories around the age of two and a half, according to recent research. Prior, scientists believed that the earliest age memories could be retrieved from was age three and a half. To be honest, I do not think I can remember anything

Rishi, Week 14: The Pandemic and Memory Have you felt like your memory is much worse during the pandemic? According to Marie Eckerström, a psychologist who specializes in cognitive impairment, our lives have gone from divided sections of time to a mixed-up flurry of information. The fogginess seen in our minds is a direct result of that information overload. It’s also exasperated by the increased levels of stress we have in a post-COVID-19 world. Even though it may be intuitive to think that the pandemic allowed us to relax more, it unintentionally increased the levels of stress for many people, from parents having to deal with their children to students having to take on a heavy workload without direct support.  Humans did not evolve to sit in a home for months at a time, and this inhuman activity leads to inept biological responses. Elevated levels of cortisol, a “stress hormone,” can lead to memory loss, fatigue, and anxiety. Lower levels of dopamine cause reduced satisfaction, plea

  A Memory Mystery      What does the dentist’s office look like? Now think about it for at least five seconds. One . . . two . . . three . . . four . . . five. You probably imagined how the building looks, maybe how the parking lot or interior looked. Maybe you thought of your dentist or your experiences at the dentist. And if you did not, I probably just reminded you. I apologize for that. Now before I asked you that question, where were all these memories? Where were these vivid images, names, feelings, and sounds stored?      The Hippocampus is thought to be the part of the brain where sequential memories of one’s life are “stored.” Henry Molaison, who suffered from epilepsy, had his hippocampus surgically removed in 1953. While he may have been cured and able to live healthily for 55 more years, he had completely lost his ability to store long-term memories. Molaison’s memories before the surgery remained; however, present recollected memories did not last past a few events. This

 Carolin Pan Neural Connections When someone asks you to recall something, what is it that you think of in your mind? When you conjure up your memories, they come up as a combination of images and words, but how does your brain actually store it? It is quite fascinating actually, the way human brains store information. When a memory is created, the process of storing the information starts as the information flows from the cerebral cortex, rich in nerve cells, to the hippocampus, also considered the central switching point for memories. When retrieving memories, information flows in the opposite direction.  image source: https://www.kurzweilai.net/images/brain-network.png Through the strengthening of neural connections, your memory can also be improved in fact. When the brain forms memories or learns something new, it encodes this information in the connections between neurons. Every time you need to conjure up a memory or information you learned, one neuron will activate another, firi

In The Now We all experience feelings of nostalgia now and then; reminiscing on past memories. Whether they were pleasant or unpleasant during the time, these moments would be missed years, even months in the future. I notice that I've tended to appreciate periods of my life only after they've ended; so much so that I felt a sense of dissatisfaction in the present. Life in quarantine and the burnout I felt from zoom school had me constantly reminiscing on the past, whether it be freshman year or my kindergarten days; any time other than the present then was better. Essentially, I was miserable in the present, and living in the past. Yet at the same time, upon experiencing junior year and the in-person experience I so desperately wanted during sophomore year, I found myself missing and wanting to go back to quarantine life, a time I remember being the most miserable I've ever been. Even now, I miss the laid back feeling of having school in my room, the minimal amount of resp

A Possible Cure For Dementia                                                                            PC: healthshots.com I am currently rewatching Grey's Anatomy and I got to the episode where Meredith Grey's mom, a world renowned surgeon diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's, is admitted to Seattle Grace Hospital and tries to take over as a surgeon. Last week, I looked into how the inability of memories to fade away can prove detrimental to one's sanity, but watching this show made me realize that there are sometimes even worse consequences for an individual and their loved ones when their memories do involuntarily fade away. While the general disposition and general knowledge is typically retained in individuals diagnosed with dementia, they lose a crucial part of themselves in that they are not able to formulate those strong bonds of the past, and are not able to remember those memories that make an individual unique.  Probably one of the most disheartening aspec

Riddhika Parmar Week 14 - 4/5/22  Remembering The human brain is fascinating.  Described as “a curved seahorse-shaped organ on the underside of each temporal lobe,” the hippocampus is mainly responsible for our memories. I don’t know about you, but I feel like my parents are constantly sharing stories from when I was “just a baby” or very young. Since I have no memory of it (but they do), I can’t even begin to think that was the same person I am now. So, I wanted to understand why it is that most people cannot remember anything from their very early childhood. The short answer is that our brains don’t develop enough to remember events until about 3-4 years of age, depending on the person. That’s about the time we have our first actual memory, and even that is not a rich or full-blown memory but can be hazy or vague, missing a lot of key details and may appear as a snapshot of an event. When a baby is born, its brain is merely a quarter of what it will be at adulthood, and by 2 years o

This week I started reading a self-help book called Deep Work by Cal Newport, and it discussed the importance of uninterrupted, focused work in our digital age. Newport defines deep work as “professional activities performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that push your cognitive capabilities to their limit” (Newport 5). In the first few chapters, the author outlines how many successful people such as Mark Twain and Bill Gates have utilized this strategy to enhance their output. When Mark Twain wrote his successful novel Adventures of Tom Sawyer , he did it in a shed so isolated that his family blew “a horn to attract his attention” (Newport 6). Bill Gates also has performed “think weeks twice a year,” where he separated himself from others to learn new skills (Newport 7). Newport contrasts the strategy of deep work with another technique called “shallow work”: completing non-demanding replicable tasks while distracted (Newport 9). Examples of shallow work include having

Memory Growth I’ve always wondered how to enhance my memory. Having to study and memorize so much for a variety of classes, it’s always been hard to keep all the information I need to know inside my brain. It’s always been a challenge for students, especially high schoolers. That being said, there are several ways in which we can enhance our memory, helping us not only retain but understand information more quickly. Let’s look into one of those ways, physical education.           Obviously, there are ways such as getting a good night’s sleep to enhance your memory. Although that can be possible at times, especially for us, being juniors, we don’t get as much sleep as we would like because of the workload that comes with AP classes. That being said, we can look at some reasonable options, one main one as I mentioned earlier being physical activities. Physical activity is proven to increase the blood flow to your whole body, especially your brain. As the blood flow to your brain increa

Memory Foam Mattresses https://www.ebay.com/itm/274525855177 Memory Foam Mattresses. Do we all have them in our homes? I do not have the luxury of sleeping on one, but I do remember over a decade ago when my parents decided to go out and buy a memory foam mattress for themselves.  As a toddler, it was inevitable for me to be dragged along their expedition of hopping from mattress store to mattress store trying to find the style they liked at the best deal. We went to every store whose catchy slogans you probably know by heart through commercials and advertisements on television and Youtube videos. From this expedition, I remember one store in particular that had a very good deal; however, my parents found the salesperson who was trying to pitch us their beds incredibly annoying and we decided against buying from them.  I know that this salesperson’s behavior is entailed in their job description, but what annoyed my family was that he was really adamant that we needed to buy the mattre