BRAIN NOTES

BY TONY PEREIRA

Tony Pereira is an Independent Consultant and Founder of SuperTrouper365

Our brain has been called a supercomputer . Why , then , can we not retain information that we have learned ?

We have all experienced a situation where we bump into someone at a mall and can ’ t recall their name . We have all had conversations with people at a social event but then struggled to remember exactly what was said and by whom .

How does the brain work when it comes to remembering ? Is there any way to remember information for extended periods ?

Here is something quite extraordinary that I learned about memory retrieval . When we recall an event from the past , we do not recall the event as a whole item . The brain stores the event as if it is a jigsaw puzzle .

Each time we recall the event , the different cells , each storing a part of the event , are reassembled as if a jigsaw puzzle is being put together . Over time , cells hosting the event may die , and

“ We have all experienced a situation where we bump into someone at a mall and can ’ t recall their name . We have all had conversations with people at a social event but then struggled to remember exactly what was said and by whom .”

hence , that part of the event is forgotten .

In a criminal prosecution case , for example , the defence lawyers try to attack prosecution witnesses of a crime by asking them to recall what they witnessed and then attacking their recollection .

Each time an event is recalled , the brain does not necessarily remember the original event but will recall the most recent recollection of that event . Each time that recollection is diluted - a particular cell may die , and hence , a vital

part of that recollection is excluded .

SPECIFIC EFFORTS

A good defence lawyer will challenge that recollection . That is why , in criminal cases , a witness statement is so critical . It is also why the prosecution , when preparing for the trial , will ask the witness to read the witness statement .

Another example is when I got married in December 2001 . But when I think back to that day , I am not retrieving the events from that specific day . The brain will instead retrieve the event from the most recent occasion when I thought about my wedding day .

So , each time I recall that day , a new memory is formed , and that is the memory that is now stored . The next time I try to recall that particular day , the brain does not go back to the storage of December 2001 , but instead , it goes back to the most recent recollection of the event , which could have been in 2010 .

Hermann Ebbinghaus ( 1850-1909 ), a German psychologist , is known for research he carried out on memory . Ebbinghaus put forward a theory called the forgetting curve ( see diagram ).

He stated that unless specific efforts are made to remember information , a human would , at best , remember facts and information for up to seven days only .