The Trouble with Memory

http://brainpages.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/memory-loss-600

                If you stick your hand in a burning flame, the pain will warn your body of impending danger. Usually, one unfortunate burn is enough to discourage someone from attempting such folly again; they recollect the pain, the situation attributed to it, and seek to avoid any similar events.

                You have learned to trust the people closest to you – family, friends, and coworkers. You are comfortable with your surroundings. You know what to do in an emergency, how to keep yourself healthy, and when and where you have to be each day only because you have the ability to remember.

                Memories are the foundation of everyday life, of living in general.

                That does not mean that they are true.

                Most everyone goes about their days accepting that much of what they see, feel, hear, smell, and taste at that moment will fade away until it is eventually forgotten. However, everyone has had an instance where they and another person recall a shared experience in a different way. In one account the sun was shining; in the other, it was cloudy and dark. In one account, they ate something sweet together; in the other, they enjoyed something spicy.

                Memories, to make my point clear, are continuously altering themselves. To quote Doctor Donna Bridge, a Ph.D. recipient in the field of neuroscience and former assistant director of the Laboratory for Human Neuroscience at Northwestern University, “If you remember something in the context of a new environment and time, or if you are even in a different mood, your memories might integrate the new information.” This means that each recollection of an event paints the experience differently based on the situation revolving around the recollection.

The mind alters the memory of an event to fit one’s current condition, their mindset. A memory of a time where everyone seemed happy can begin to develop a darker atmosphere when remembered by someone who is discontented. Remembering a certain scene from the past while eating a particular meal can tie the two together (i.e. we must have been eating this when we last spoke). Depending on the place and time that an event is remembered, anything in that memory can change: scenery, background noise, participants, and more.

There are some exceptions (such as eidetic, or photographic, memory), but even those classified as such cannot be said to be completely perfect, either. Though often more reliable, bias has still been shown to affect the integrity of their memories; current emotions color their recollections in a different light than when they were actually experienced.

If memories make us who we are, what does it mean when they become false? Grudges are created in minuscule ways, friendships are formed in small moments, and important events inspire regular contemplation. Each time these memories are called to the front of the mind, another piece is twisted and changed, made duller or more extravagant. What can we truly be said to know when our very own mental archives are endlessly rewriting themselves?

And how sad that the more we remember, the more we seem to forget.

Colors

                                                             http://i.ytimg.com/vi/evQsOFQju08/0

From the time we take our first gasps of air, opening our bleary eyes to the foreign world, we are met with color. Light shines off of minuscule particles that reflect the pigments they cannot absorb; we, because of the construction of our eyes, can perceive these rejected hues – love them and hate them as we so choose.

 Few of us really stop to ponder these preferences further than face value, but, when contemplating this partiality, greater questions have a habit of revealing themselves. For example: are all colors universal to all people?

Colorblindness is the decreased ability, or complete inability, to perceive color or to distinguish between variances in color. Reds can appear green; blues can appear red; everything can become another shade of grey, black, or white. There have even been reports that ‘colorblind’ individuals can differentiate pigments those with ‘normal’ color vision cannot.

In short, the sheer variety of ways it is known that color can be perceived, in other humans and in animals (cats are believed to see in blues and greys and fish can see in ultraviolet), means that there is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ way of seeing the world.

And even if two beings can gesture to the same color and call it the same thing, it may truly not appear the same to the both of them.

                That apple is red. A banana is yellow. Your dog is brown. Though most humans have the power to perceive color, it is impossible to explain colors to one who has never seen them; all children learned color through first-hand experience and guidance. Who’s to say that each and every perception of color is the same? Is his brown her orange? Is her green his purple?

People may very well have similar ranges of color perception (regarding the number of colors they can see and the severity of their dissimilarities) but may observe different colors in general. Regardless, they would all call their colors the same thing: his purple and her green could very well end up with the title of ‘red.’ This ‘red,’ no matter how it was seen by the individual, would have the exact same psychological influence on everyone; the wavelength attained by the cones in our eyes would determine the effect on the brain.

                Color is not the only thing that incites similar contemplation. Taste, touch, sound, and smell: these capabilities could very well be just as unique. They are sensations that the mind translates from the physical world for the individual experience. In this way, we are very much alone in our own heads. We should realize that not everything should be taken for granted.

Even topics that are seemingly fundamental have layers upon layers of mystery surrounding them. The trick is to dig deep enough to discover them. The goal is to make them a mystery no longer. The key is to realize how much we really do not know.

                 

Mind Tricks

                                    http://www.wired.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Eye-Benders-Shutterstock1

             The human brain is a strange and wonderful thing. It manages our instincts, behaviors coded into our bodies from the time where death was always around the corner. It contains our perceptions, ways one’s experiences have colored the world around them for the best and the worst. Sensations and stimulants control the way we exist. Sight, sound, touch, taste, smell; our world is defined by our senses.

   So… what happens when they lie to us?

                Everything that the brain does is done for the efficiency and/or the safety of its body. Because of this, it can be inferred that the changes in awareness and sensation caused by one’s senses are intended to use past experiences to predict the outcomes of future actions. The body subconsciously analyzes these expectations and reacts accordingly.

The way food looks has been shown to effect its flavor. For example, sweeter flavors have been reported in deserts served on white plates over black plates. 

In a widely replicated experiment, researchers put red dye into white wine. Wine enthusiasts have often spoken about how different the flavors of red and white wine are, but with the simple inclusion of the dye (which has no effect on flavor), even those dedicated to the study of different wines began using descriptions common to red wine for the red-dyed white wine.

The mind plays tricks on everyone every day. Shadows can give false impressions of color; phantom pains, or even sympathy pains, can plague others; and even the sizes and coloring of plates can deceive someone into eating less, eating healthier, and feeling full faster.

 By concentrating on one specific portion of an area, we can become blind to that which occurs around us. 

Whether seeking out similar phenomenon or simply trying to become more informed, it should be noted that something as seemingly innocent as a lapse in the logic in one’s physical senses can have devastating effects.

Imagine a man driving home from work. He pulls up to a stop sign in a relatively deserted part of town. Every time he has ever driven up to that spot, no cars have been moving in either direction. Habitually, he stops, looks both ways, sees nothing, and then pulls into the street. In the next second, he and another car collide. How is this possible? Complacency is the answer.

Because the man had been to that same stop so frequently and never saw any other cars, his eyes supplanted the image of an empty road into his head and prompted him to continue with his drive. We must be careful that we do not lose our cautiousness during potentially unsafe activities.

If appearances can warp our perceptions and comfort can block out the approach of looming threats, what else are our brains hiding from us?

Let this be a warning to think about what you see, feel, taste, hear, smell, and why. Not everything that our brains interpret (or do not) is beneficial to us in this world of technological wonders.

              "Instinct" is not enough anymore.