why our brains can form arbitrary memories from seemingly random events and recall them perfectly but its hard to memorize something when you are intentionally trying to memorize it?

Question

why our brains can form arbitrary memories from seemingly random events and recall them perfectly but its hard to memorize something when you are intentionally trying to memorize it?

In: Biology

Answer 1

This is obviously a very complicated question, but I’ll offer several points. Firstly, the fact that you are alive today after thousands of years of human generations means that your direct line, like everyone else alive today, has traits that have helped them survive. These traits probably include tendencies for the brain to retain certain types of information. Why this happens, I couldn’t answer, and I doubt even the smartest scientists alive today could answer. So maybe the trait that would’ve allowed you to retain whatever information you want to retain was actually lost long ago.

Second, I believe your level of personal interest has a lot to do with it. If it’s something you enjoy doing, you’re probably more likely to remember specific things about it. I have a very technical job, where we’re encouraged to read instructions and other documentation as often as possible. But unless I’ve had prior experience with a particular thing I’m reading about, my brain is going to be so overwhelmed with information that it probably won’t retain as much as if I were reading about something that I had already dealt with. The reason being, as you read, your brain fills in information you already know and looks for bits that you might have previously wondered.

There are also variables that may affect the efficiency of the brain. Eating things that help with concentration, exercising to increase circulation, and breathing right, all of which will cause more effective delivery of nutrients to the brain. But ultimately, the memory is an involuntary function, like the digestion of food, and we’re very limited as to how we can improve it. Maybe that random situation you remember perfectly as a small child, all of the right boxes were checked, whereas that exam you spent hours studying, your brain was under excessive stress and not working as efficiently.