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
It’s about how integrated that memory is with other sensory information. You can’t remember that one fact for math class because you were in your normal room, staring at a normal piece of paper, and everything was normal. But imagine if that math fact was something that your favorite artist yelled at you on your birthday when you went to see them at your favorite concert venue. Notice how you have so many notable strings that connect you to that fact in the second example. Similarly, these random memories that you remember in detail are like webs that connect to other memories and so all you have to do is pull on one and you are able to remember everything else.
Imagine your brain is like an *extremely* cluttered computer with no reliable search function. You can search and get most things you need, but the stuff you haven’t opened in the while doesn’t show up.
So you’re on your desktop and randomly you need a certain file, that you haven’t thought about for years. So you start looking for it. Obviously, it’s going to take a very long time.
The difference between randomly recalling a memory is that, you aren’t starting from a desktop, you’re starting from a file that leads to another file of similar nature, that leads to your undesired random memory.
I know that it’s not an answer, but on day one of neurobiology 101 in college, the first thing that my professor said was “I know that you guys came here to learn about the brain. But we don’t actually know anything concrete. It’s up to you guys to help us figure this out as you get into your doctorates.” I wound up learning a lot, but I found out that most of the brain is still a mystery. We learn things, but we find out that a lot of what we “knew” was wrong. So take everything that you hear as an answer here with a grain of salt.
Try having your boyfriend/girlfriend breakup with you will you’re studying. You’ll vividly remember every last detail for the next 50 years.
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.
Maybe because you’re using all your capacity at once to recall that single detail and because it is a modicum of what could surely be an interwoven and intricate mixture of other small, mighty but necessary details that require you to sift thru to be precise or better yet definitive if you could be worth a little salt in that regard. Now in contrast with recalling memories it’s easier to get to that specific little thing because you already have every aspect of the picture in mind enough to go back and live in it so it’s easier to grasp a tid bit when it’s been reckoned forth quite often, especially if an important anecdote all the more. Memorizing is easy when we help the mind grasp a form that it can knowingly accept to tabulate and compile this necessary information. The quickest and easiest way to do this is form a list of the items in alphabetical order. After repetitively reciting the list you will knowingly recall each thing much more quickly than most I’m quite certain. There are lots who don’t have patience to sit and organize a list that way but being a server I’ve had to crunch liquor lists like a champ to get at the bar and handle my business. So yeah.
Memories are made from connections between large groups of neurons. Those connections are created and organized by your brain, a machine shaped by evolution to help you survive and procreate and also shaped by your genetics and your past experiences.
When you are recalling a random memory, you’re taking advantage of those pre-existing random connections that have already been made and the “proximity” between how different elements of your memories are organized. Just a stroll down the closest foot paths in neurons lane.
In contrast, when you are trying to form a memory on demand, you have to form those connections and make them permanent in your long term memory. The machinery of your brain has to edit and prune connections to create a correct pattern of neuron firings. How is it supposed to do it? How is the functional machinery of the brain suppose to respond to your conscious thought to form a bunch of very specific connections? This is not necessarily corresponding to anything it naturally knows how to do. It may not have had nearly as much practice. So it basically bumbles along, doing things by trial and error (or mostly not doing much at all).
You need to program it to do the right thing. The only way you can do that is by training and practice, and maybe with some tricks that take advantage of our natural evolution driven tendencies. For example, to help them remember, the ancient greeks would place a marble pedestal in their houses as a place where they can “keep” memories. That works because we are built to remember places and geography, so associating a place or an object helps create and recall a memory.
There are a number of these memory techniques one can use. Generally, the theme is, take something that evolution has already programmed our brains to do, and reappropriate it to help us remember more stuff. Over time, you can adapt these programs to become better and better suited to remembering things on demand, and it becomes easier and easier….
At least until you hit middle age, then your memory start to become shit again.
Latest Answers