On the next level of memory, the brain is organizing memories according to physical similarities. Then the sound teddy will summon up a visual memory of the teddy bear, a phenomenon Lynch believes is unique to human beings. Say teddy at the same time and the word association is recorded as well.
Show your baby a teddy bear and he or she will remember the visual image. But the same sounds without pauses are recognized as one word. Say ought, toe and mobile, and they’re recognized as three words. It’s inescapable, because it’s built right into our brain organization.” “This is why when a door slams and the light goes out, you instantly assume the slam shut off the light. Lynch suggests that this is the basic reason we have a sense of cause and effect, that we recognize (or imagine) that two things happening at different times can be related.
Code pulses spaced too closely or too far apart will fail to turn on the memory apparatus. The process is pure cause and effect-first comes the code, then the information to be remembered-and the process depends on a sense of time. Now the cells have hair triggers, and when the brain goes looking for this memory, the network where it’s stored is much more likely to respond strongly.
The cells record by turning themselves into more sensitive receivers. An electrical “learning code” is sent telling each cell to remember whatever immediately follows, such as the impulses from hearing a sound. What seems to you to be a single continuous action of remembering is actually many actions occurring in quick, seamless succession.Īt the most basic level, the brain stores each memory in its own network of brain cells by changing how those cells behave. The brain can manage such an immense cargo of memories because it breaks the process into smaller jobs. You’d need many more than one lifetime to fill it up. This means the brain’s memory storage capacity is effectively unlimited. One square millimeter of cortex, the crinkly surfaced dome of the brain, contains 80,000 brain cells, making the cortex the most complex electronic circuit board on Earth. Each of 10 billion brain cells connects with 50,000 others. The brain is an unimaginable jumble of electrical circuits. You have to, because your brain’s just built that way.” “Whatever you encounter, you will relate it to something in your experience-that is, to something you remember. “Memory is the device that organizes the world for you,” Lynch says. You see a red light and unconsciously remember that you’re supposed to stop. You hear a song on the radio and remember the emotions you felt when you first heard it.
You remember how to open the door, how to start the engine, how to drive home. You leave work and recognize your car among the hundreds in the parking lot. Most people think of memory only as remembering to pick up milk on the way home. During that time, the brain can send a code that erases the new memory.Īll this is more important than most people realize, Lynch says. It is also known that newly formed memories are, like unset concrete, vulnerable for a few hours. There is evidence that new memories can partially override old ones, so seeing a white house similar to Grandma’s yellow one might unconsciously tint the original memory. Lynch says it is not known exactly how this happens. As soon as the need for the information is gone, scratch-pad memory tosses it overboard.īut how could the memory of Grandma’s white house be so vivid yet so wrong? This also explains why you don’t remember the time only seconds after looking at your watch. The hormones released when you feel strong emotions intensifies these memories, and your hormones really pumped on prom night.īut the location of your keys was recorded in your “scratch-pad memory,” which is separate and notable for two qualities: You can’t store much information there, and the information evaporates quickly, usually within a few hours. The prom is engraved in your “episodic memory,” a very powerful system for preserving the rich details of events. You are using two physically separate kinds of memory, Lynch says. Why is it you can remember the prom but not where you put your keys?