Memory is one of the mental functions and types of mental activity designed to store, accumulate and reproduce information. Thanks to memory, we use our own experience and the experience of previous generations in everyday life. Memory connects us with the past, allows us to navigate the present, look into the future. But what do we know about memory? Is it possible to somehow improve it? What does it depend on? Let's try to answer these questions.
Where is the memory
Since childhood, the child is told: "Remember, think with your head." Where is our memory?
In ancient times, it was suggested that memory processes are carried out in the liver. Then people came to the conclusion that memorable information is deposited in the bones of the skull. The ancient Greek philosopher Socrates believed that there is a kind of wax tablet in the head, on which all the necessary information is recorded. Today it is known that the cerebral cortex is responsible for short-term memory, and the hippocampus is responsible for long-term memory.
Memory short-term and long-term
Memory is of two types - short-term, or operational, and long-term. Students during the session manage to “push” into their memory a huge amount of information during the night, which disappear immediately after the exam. Patients with the so-called senile forgetfulness remember in great detail the events that took place in early childhood or many years ago, but are unable to keep in mind what happened half an hour ago.
A person begins to remember already in the womb
Even at the beginning of the last century, it was believed that a person is born with a brain as clean as a sheet of paper. Modern research shows that the memory of the embryo is formed as early as 20 weeks after conception.
During the tests, a sound signal was sent through the mother's abdomen, which the fetus could hear; the response was then checked using an ultrasonic scanner. It turned out that the fetus reacts to noise by slightly moving its body or legs. True, after the fifth signal, he "got used" to the repeated sound and could ignore it. When the signal was sent again after 10 minutes and even after a day, the embryo easily recognized the familiar sound. Scientists believe that a person, in principle, can remember what happened to him in the womb.
Memory is individual
Memory is affected by many factors. someone better remembers what he saw, someone - what he heard. In such cases, one speaks of visual or auditory memory. A subject of interest is remembered better. The persistence of the memory of feelings is well known. In a state of emotional upsurge, things that seem long forgotten are sometimes called from memory.
Motivation is very important. A person who considers himself absolutely incapable of languages, having found himself in a stressful situation in a foreign country, when the question is about physical survival, easily learns the language.
In many ways, the ability to memorize depends on trainability. British scientists using a special scanner examined the frontal lobe of the brain, which controls movement in space, in taxi drivers and other professions. It turned out that it is much more developed among taxi drivers. Not only that, the better the driver is oriented in the city, the shorter the route he can travel from one place to another, the larger the frontal lobe of his brain. At the same time, the volume of gray matter as a whole does not change, it is simply distributed differently.
Distraction is not a sign of bad memory
Absent-mindedness is often confused with poor memory. But absent-minded people are actually simply immersed in their thoughts, their attention is just concentrated, but on something else, and everyday information is not interesting to them. Often, inattention caused by overwork, the consequences of an illness, that is, the state in which a person is currently located, is taken for memory impairment. Odors prevent memory loss. This is due to the proximity of the center of smell with the "memory" area of ​​the brain. The acute reaction of memory to smells is apparently programmed: the role of smells in the survival of ancient man was very great.
Memory does not always deteriorate with age.
Complaints about poor memory become more frequent after the age of 40 and even more so in old age. In fact this is not true. It’s just that at the end of active study, there is no need to memorize something, the skill to strain memory disappears, and it “detrains”.
The profession has an impact on memory. Better than others, it is preserved by artists (due to constant training - memorizing texts), scientists (all parts of the brain work hard) and beekeepers (if they use bee products that are rich in trace elements that improve memory).
Actors who have to learn new roles all their lives, and in old age they cope with the longest texts. Now in some countries, for example, in Germany and the USA, more and more people, having retired, enter universities (usually in the humanities), study quite successfully and pass exams on a par with young classmates.
The ability to forget
It is impossible to remember everything. The ability to forget имеет огромное значение в выживании людей. The brain must be freed from the unnecessary burden of impressions and information. The memory, as it were, regulates the load itself, preparing to receive new information. At the same time, old information does not disappear without a trace, but passes from active memory to passive, from where it can sometimes be retrieved. This remarkable property saves many people in tragic situations.
American scientists in experiments on mice proved that the faster animals forget old and unnecessary information, the better they perceive new information.
Memory can be improved
Scientists believe that neurons, whose number decreases with age, can worsen the quality of our brain and nervous system. Means deterioration of memory is predetermined? Not certainly in that way.
In most cases, memory can be improved. Previously, it was believed that in an adult, brain cells - neurons - do not divide and gradually die off. But it turned out that this was not the case. The results of recent studies suggest that neurons divide even at the age of 70. Moreover, reproducing cells are found in the most "thinking" areas of the brain. Now scientists believe that the age-related weakening of memory is associated not so much with the physical death of neurons, but with a violation of the contacts between them.
Substances that help establish such contacts are known. These are, first of all, vitamins C, E, B6, B12, beta-carotene, fatty acids contained in salmon, tuna, sardines, herring, an extract from the Ginkgo Biloba plant. It is believed that by following a diet, we "cleanse the body", improve its capabilities. Scientists have found that monotonous, meager food does not contribute to fast memory, and drinking alcohol leads to its deterioration.
Given the many connections that exist in the brain, the loss of neurons with age can be compared to the loss of some hair after washing your hair. The important thing is how the remaining neurons will work.
Impression, repetition and association
The average person uses no more than ten percent of the innate capacity of his memory. The remaining ninety percent disappear because we do not know how to use the natural laws of memory. And these laws are very simple. Их три - впечатление, повторение и association.
So you want to remember something. Firstly, for this you need to concentrate and get an impression, using not only sight, but also hearing and smell.
The visual impression is the strongest. After all, the nerves leading from the eye to the brain are twenty times thicker than the nerves leading from the ear to the brain. Mark Twain could not remember the sequence of his speech when he used notes, but when he abandoned the notes and began to use drawings for memorization, all his difficulties disappeared.
The second law of memory is repetition. Thousands of Muslim students know by heart the Koran, a book about the same size as the New Testament. They manage to remember it mainly through repetition.
And finally, the third law - associations. The only way to remember a certain fact reliably is to associate it with some other fact.
Memory training
1. 5-10 minutes after waking up, count backwards from 100 to 1 as quickly as possible.
2. Review the alphabet, making up a word for each letter. If you forgot a letter or can't think of a word, don't stop. Pace matters here.
3. Name twenty male names and the same number of female ones.
4. Choose any letter of the alphabet and name twenty words that begin with it.
5. Close your eyes and count to twenty.
6. You can learn poetry. The main thing is to do it gradually and regularly, constantly increasing the volume of the memorized text. In addition, it is you who should like the verses - if the memorization process goes through force, then a good result is unlikely to be achieved.
7. Remember the day you lived. In the evening, lying in bed before going to bed, you need to mentally scroll through all the events of the past day, like a film, and in reverse order - from evening to morning. At the same time, you need to try to remember as many details as possible. The main rule of this exercise is not to focus on the negative. It is necessary to recall events from a distance, as if observing them from the side.
8. Make associations. For example, we all memorized rainbows in childhood with the phrase “Every hunter wants to know where the pheasants are sitting”, where the first