Family Anatomy » memory

Memory, Part 5: What works?

Dr. Brian MacDonald C. Psych. — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 13:44:29 +0000

The school environment requires students to memorize more information than they’ll ever have to as adults. From multiplication tables to state capitals to historical dates to the formula for the area of a circle, students find themselves required to remember an increasing amount of information as they progress to high school and post-secondary settings. While there’s also an increasing role for critical thinking and (hopefully) creativity, facts, concepts and formulas still have to be learned. Parents also play an important role in helping their kids learn how to remember the material being taught at school. My son was having trouble remembering whether the “a” or the “u” came first when spelling “because.” He really enjoyed my suggestion: “Bunnies Eat Carrots And Usually See Everything.” He aced his spelling test and later taught his brother the same trick. But if a Google search for “mnemonic strategies” yields 1.5 million hits, how can students and their parents know which techniques are likely to be most helpful?(...)
Read the rest of Memory, Part 5: What works? (459 words)

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Post tags: high school, keyword, memory, mnemonics, pegword, reconstructive elaboration, teenagers
Note: Posts on Family Anatomy are for education only, and are not intended to replace professional or medical advice. If you need to talk to someone about family or mental health issues, you can get a referral from your family doctor.

Memory, Part 4: Learning how to remember

Dr. Brian MacDonald C. Psych. — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 14:39:59 +0000

There are lots of things that I hope my kids will remember as they get older – family holidays, special activities, and fun routines we’ve developed together, to name only a few. But like all abilities, different kids vary in their skills when it comes to remembering information and events. Not only that, but memory skills develop and change as kids grow, making it tough to know the best way to help kids remember things that they’ve done. In other words, there is no “one size fits all” solution when it comes to helping your kids remember things. However, there has been some research examining strategies that parents and caregivers can use to find the best techniques for improving memory. In 1997, Drs. Hudson and Gillam published an article in Topics in Language Disorders about long-term memory strategies.(...)
Read the rest of Memory, Part 4: Learning how to remember (811 words)

© Dr. Brian MacDonald C. Psych. for Family Anatomy, 2009. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Children, memory, Parenting Ideas, recall
Note: Posts on Family Anatomy are for education only, and are not intended to replace professional or medical advice. If you need to talk to someone about family or mental health issues, you can get a referral from your family doctor.

Memory, Part 3: The Reminiscence Bump: Remembering the "Good Old Days"

Dr. Giuseppe Spezzano C. Psych. — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 15:00:59 +0000

In 1986 Duke University researcher Dr. David Rubin conducted studies that first established the so-called “reminiscence bump”. That is, his research showed that, regardless of his subjects’ age, people had a greater number of memories between the ages of 10 and 30 than at any other time in their lives. His research also established that people also remember recent events but that they fade in memory gradually all the way back to the “reminiscence bump”. Since that time this finding has been replicated many times and is considered a robust truth about human memory.

When parents or grandparents talk about the “good old days” it turns out they’re likely talking about their teens and 20s. Why should this be the case? Some researchers have speculated that these years have more novel events within them thus making them more memorable. However, there has been mixed evidence for this hypothesis. A more current theory, promoted by Dr. Rubin, suggests that there are more memories during this period because our enduring adult identity is being forged during these years.(...)
Read the rest of Memory, Part 3: The Reminiscence Bump: Remembering the "Good Old Days" (181 words)

© Dr. Giuseppe Spezzano C. Psych. for Family Anatomy, 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: lifespan, memory, Parents, Teens
Note: Posts on Family Anatomy are for education only, and are not intended to replace professional or medical advice. If you need to talk to someone about family or mental health issues, you can get a referral from your family doctor.

Anatomy of Memory (Episode 81)

Dr. Brian MacDonald C. Psych. — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 13:04:48 +0000

Doctors Brian and Giuseppe talk with Dr. Elizabeth Loftus, author of Eyewitness Testimony, about the reliability of memory.

How well can you trust what you recall?

How do false memories affect behaviour?

Find out what Dr. Loftus thinks in this week’s episode!

Listen here:

… or right click here to save the episode for later.

You can also get your free podcast subscription in iTunes. If you use iTunes, you can leave a review!

Website of the Week: Innocence Project

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Note: Posts on Family Anatomy are for education only. If you need to talk to someone about family or mental health issues, you can get a referral from your family doctor.

© Dr. Brian MacDonald C. Psych. for Family Anatomy, 2009. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: eyewitness testimony, false memory, Loftus, memory
Note: Posts on Family Anatomy are for education only, and are not intended to replace professional or medical advice. If you need to talk to someone about family or mental health issues, you can get a referral from your family doctor.

Memory, Part 1: Recalling Childhood

Dr. Giuseppe Spezzano C. Psych. — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 12:00:06 +0000

All this week on Family Anatomy, Dr. Brian and I will be discussing memory over the life span. From our earliest memories of childhood, to memory issues in our parents and grandparents.

Memory is a very complex phenomenon. Without repetition or meaning, most memories fade away within seconds. If we hear something, for instance, a phone number, and don’t repeat it to ourselves or provide some meaning or context to it, it will quickly fade away. Similarly, visual material, for instance a series of pictures, will also fade from our memory if not repeatedly viewed or contextualized. However, when we see or hear things and then repeat them to ourselves or provide contextual information, we establish long-term memories. Long-term memories are divided into memory for general information such as knowing that Paris is the capital of France, and autobiographical or “episodic” memory that places us within a specific time and place.

As adults, when we look back to our childhood, there is typically no memory of early events. In fact, researchers have established that children do not develop episodic or autobiographical memory (i.e., a memory of themselves in a specific time and place) until they are approximately 3 1/2 years of age. Psychologists have termed this “childhood amnesia”. If you feel that this is not true of you since you have clear memories prior to 3 1/2 years of age, it is likely that these memories were created by parents or other adults who repeated stories to you from your early childhood. Thus, you don’t really have a memory of the original event, rather you have a verbal memory that you retained through adult storytelling. This can be a difficult truth for parents as the first 3 1/2 years of life can be exhilarating, stressful, magical, and frustrating. In other words, memorable. For children, on the other hand, these early experiences are no longer accessible.(...)
Read the rest of Memory, Part 1: Recalling Childhood (284 words)

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Post tags: childhood, memory
Note: Posts on Family Anatomy are for education only, and are not intended to replace professional or medical advice. If you need to talk to someone about family or mental health issues, you can get a referral from your family doctor.

Reversing Alzheimer's with Coffee*

Dr. Giuseppe Spezzano C. Psych. — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 13:00:40 +0000

Researchers at the University of South Florida recently published a study in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease indicating that caffeine may be effective in reversing the memory impairments that are the hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease. While these research results are exciting, further study is necessary given that the results were observed in mice and not people (hence the*in the title above).

The researchers experimented with 55 mice who were genetically altered to develop memory problems similar to Alzheimer’s disease as the aged. Behavioral and learning tasks then confirmed that the aging mice were indeed exhibiting memory difficulties. At this point, the researchers gave half the mice water and the other half the equivalent of five 8 ounce cups of regular coffee a day.

Two months later, behavioral and learning tasks showed that the mice who were given caffeine returned to their normal memory functioning. The mice that had consumed water, on the other hand, had continued to deteriorate.

Interestingly, mice who were not genetically pre-destined to develop Alzheimer’s type memory difficulties, did not experience beneficial memory effects from consuming caffeine.

The researchers concluded that coffee may help reverse the memory difficulties associated with Alzheimer’s, although coffee does not help improve the memory of people without it.(...)
Read the rest of Reversing Alzheimer's with Coffee* (172 words)

© Dr. Giuseppe Spezzano C. Psych. for Family Anatomy, 2009. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: aging, Alzheimer's, caffeine, memory
Note: Posts on Family Anatomy are for education only, and are not intended to replace professional or medical advice. If you need to talk to someone about family or mental health issues, you can get a referral from your family doctor.

Does pregnancy make women smarter?

Dr. Brian MacDonald C. Psych. — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 03:22:12 +0000

Parents may have a notion that pregnancy and motherhood makes women more forgetful, but the research doesn’t support that conclusion. Professor Helen Christensen, director of the Centre for Mental Health Research at the Australian National University, began studying a group of women in 1999. She soon found that there was no link between pregnancy and memory loss, although parents indicated their belief that pregnancy had a negative effect on recall. Pof. Christensen has found that mothers are marginally less-educated than women who have no children, probably because of the delays in education that occur when one has a child.

(...)
Read the rest of Does pregnancy make women smarter? (119 words)

© Dr. Brian MacDonald C. Psych. for Family Anatomy, 2009. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: adults, memory, pregnancy
Note: Posts on Family Anatomy are for education only, and are not intended to replace professional or medical advice. If you need to talk to someone about family or mental health issues, you can get a referral from your family doctor.

FA048 – Anatomy of Three Things, Part 7

Dr. Brian MacDonald C. Psych. — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 02:27:36 +0000

Doctors Brian and Giuseppe talk about recent stories posted on familyanatomy.com, including:

the importance of eye contact
parents’ gestures and children’s vocabulary development
city vs. country life impact on memory and attention

Listen here:

… or get your free subscription in iTunes. If you use iTunes, you can leave a review!

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Note: Posts on Family Anatomy are for information only. If you need to talk to someone about family or mental health issues, you can get a referral from your family doctor.

© Dr. Brian MacDonald C. Psych. for Family Anatomy, 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: All Ages, attention, environment, eye contact, gestures, memory, Parenting Tips, vocabulary development
Note: Posts on Family Anatomy are for education only, and are not intended to replace professional or medical advice. If you need to talk to someone about family or mental health issues, you can get a referral from your family doctor.

Confused, Fatigued? Take a Walk in the Country, not the Wild Side

Dr. Giuseppe Spezzano C. Psych. — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 13:00:30 +0000

Psychologists Marc G. Berman, John Jonides, and Stephen Kaplan from the University of Michigan have conducted a study looking at how being in country or city environments affect memory and attention. The results confirmed that being in nature led to better results on tests of memory and attention, than being in the city. The authors believe that the complex and incongruent stimulation experienced in the city, requires higher levels of mental energy to digest and that this, in turn, interferes with memory and attention. In contrast, being in nature offers a more coherent and relaxing environment. Exposure to the natural environment, they found, leads to improved memory and concentration – essential elements for learning.

So, the study indicates that reduced levels of stress help you learn. By implication, it also suggests that being in nature reduces stress levels. There is a long history of people looking to nature to cure ills. Humans appear to be have an intuitive sense that nature can heal. There are several examples in my own life where people I’ve know have asked to be taken out to the country to relieve physical or emotional pain. What have your experiences been with respect to this?

You can read more about the study here.

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Note: Posts on Family Anatomy are for information only. If you need to talk to someone about family or mental health issues, you can get a referral from your family doctor.

[digg http://digg.com/health/City_life_linked_to_reduced_memory_attention]

© Dr. Giuseppe Spezzano C. Psych. for Family Anatomy, 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: attention, country, memory, stress, urban
Note: Posts on Family Anatomy are for education only, and are not intended to replace professional or medical advice. If you need to talk to someone about family or mental health issues, you can get a referral from your family doctor.

Coffee Doesn't Help Your Memory – (If you've had a cup, you may want to read that again!)

Dr. Giuseppe Spezzano C. Psych. — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 13:00:12 +0000

A startling 90% of people drink coffee on a daily basis. A large number of these people use caffeine to help them be alert and focused as they start the day. However, a recent study at the University of California, San Diego led by Sara Mednick suggests that while coffee does help you concentrate and be more alert, it hinders your memory. Researchers found that when people were asked to recall explicit verbal information or a new motor skill, those who drank caffeine performed more poorly than those who had a sugar pill or those that had taken a nap instead. (Okay, those of you who took a nap while reading this probably need to read it again as well.)

Let us know what you think. Do you use coffee to deal with sleep deprivation? Is it affecting your performance at work, at school? Leave us a comment.

You can read more here.

Subscribe to The Family Anatomy Podcast by clicking here, or get your free subscription directly through iTunes.

[digg http://digg.com/health/Coffee_Memory]

Note: Posts on Family Anatomy are for information only. If you need to talk to someone about family or mental health issues, you can get a referral from your family doctor.

© Dr. Giuseppe Spezzano C. Psych. for Family Anatomy, 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: caffeine, learning, memory, sleep
Note: Posts on Family Anatomy are for education only, and are not intended to replace professional or medical advice. If you need to talk to someone about family or mental health issues, you can get a referral from your family doctor.