Where Do Forgotten Memories Go?

Our memory is an important process that is used daily throughout our whole life. We can use it to store information such as the knowledge learned in school or even a person's name and appearance. Memory also allows us to recollect information and past experiences that can be useful for many things in our daily lives. Our memory is very significant in our life it is basically the entirety of what we remember and it gives us the ability to adapt from former experiences and allows us the capability to learn. Even though our memory is a remarkable part of our life, it is not always perfect. Many flaws can accompany our memory and these problems can have a great influence on our life.

Absent-mindedness is one of the biggest flaws in our memory and these lapses in attention happens to all of us. It is an irritating feeling since it stops us from recalling bits of information and can lead us to be disorganized and frustrated. Every person has felt being forgetful, whether it be forgetting a key fact for a history test or even trying to figure out a person's name. This leads us to a key question, what happens to these forgotten memories?

There are two main theories that scientists have held for a long time. One theory predicts that memory does not decay but simply becomes overshadowed by new memories. The seconds theory predicts that older memories start to become weaker and new information degrades old recollections in order to not interfere. There is significant difference between these two theories because if the first theory is correct there is a possibility for recovery, but if the second theory is correct it can allow for a strategy of lessening traumatic memories. Both of these theories have positive benefits for our memory, but which one is correct?

In the article “Memories Weaken without Reinforcement, Study Finds” by Pam Belluck, it states that scientists in Birmingham and Cambridge, England, have conducted a study and were able to claim and provide evidence of memory’s weakening. The experiment “involved several stages with 24 participants first trained to associate words to two unrelated black and white pictures from lists of famous people, ordinary objects or scenes” (Belluck). They were then shown a cue word and asked to recall the image they had been trained to link the word to in order to cause that image to become the dominant memory. To test this they first had the word sand associated with Marylyn Monroe and then hat. The scientists then told the participants to press a button if they were recalling Monroe. This allowed them to see that when participants would choose the word Monroe when looking at the word sand instead of choosing the competing memory of the hat. From the brain scans they were able to find unique patterns of brain activity, also known as a neural fingerprint. They received these neural fingerprints by recording brain activity in the prefrontal cortex of the participants when they were viewing each picture of Monroe and the hat.

Scientists then wanted to see what happened to the memory of the hat, and to test this they showed the participants two different pictures of Monroe and two different pictures of the hat. They then asked which version they had been trained to recognize. The scientists reasoned that if the had memory had not degraded the participants would pick the right hat more often as they would with the right Monroe.

They they then obtained and identified a neural fingerprint like the cue word test. The results showed that when the word sand was first shown, the participants brain activity showed both Monroe and hat patterns, but with consecutive showing of the sand cues their brains showed fewer hat traces. According to Dr. Wimber, this meant that “we watched the memories being suppressed, actively degraded...it’s not just that the target memories get stronger; the other memories get weaker”(Belluck). From this, they were able to conclude that the results don't support the first theory of forgotten memories in which they get overshadowed.

In relation to this study, Dr. Anthony Ryals came to Loyola University Chicago to discuss his research on implicit memory the the limits. In his talk he introduces to us that memory has two different ways of remembering information and they are implicit and explicit memories. Implicit memory, also known as non-declarative memory, is the main topic of his research and this memory type is where information is remembered unconsciously and is unintentional. Information that you are trying to intentionally remember is stored in your explicit memory, also known as declarative memory. With this explains how it is possible for memory processes to occur without conscious awareness. He also states that a key fact in his research is that implicit unconscious processing may be involved and influence performance in explicit memory tasks and cognitive functioning. With evidence from brain studies that show some regions like the MTL cortex are active under certain circumstances in both implicit and explicit tasks. His study shows us that more information and research is needed to identify association and disassociation in memory and to expand our understandings of the implicit and explicit phenomena.

Both of these studies shows the many processes that our memory contains and goes through. They provide us with possible explanations with things like forgetfulness and also show us how we recall our information. These studies can benefit each other by providing information on brain activity and what regions of the brain are active. They can also be useful to help improve techniques in memory and possibly in future treatments of diseases like Alzheimer's. The research done in both studies provide an enormous amount of knowledge that can lead to more information about the brain and its ability in memory. These studies are important and allow us to take home information that is useful for us since memory is a huge part of our daily lives.

References

Belluck, Pam. "Memories Weaken Without Reinforcement, Study Finds." The New York Times. The New York Times, 2015. Web. 05 May 2016.

Ryals, Anthony J. "The Outer Limits of Implicit Memory." The Wiley Handbook on the Cognitive Neuroscience of Memory,. Ed. Joel L. Voss. Print.