DailyDirt: How Reliable Is Your Memory?

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Human memories are not as trustworthy as you might think, but we rely on our brains to remember tons of information everyday. Without a decent working memory, we wouldn't be able to function normally at all. There are at least three different kinds of memory: sensory, short-term and long-term -- but how these memories are actually stored in our brains is still a bit of a mystery. Here are a few links on the subject of how we might remember.

• Scientists have successfully implanted a fake memory in a lab mouse, but maybe you didn't know that researchers already find it relatively easy to generate false memories of words and images in humans. The difference is now we know a little bit more about engrams and the mechanism of how memories physically form in the brain. [url]
• If someone asked you to name as many animals as you could in 3 minutes, it wouldn't be unusual for your list to be grouped into categories like pets, marine life, insects, etc. This kind of active recall or "memory foraging" can be modeled using the same equations that describe how bees forage for nectar in a field of flowers. [url]
• It's still science fiction to have the ability to download your memories onto a silicon chip. However, as we learn more about how memories are formed, it could be possible to save or copy our memories onto other media. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: brain, engrams, fake memories, memory, memory foraging