How does your brain decide what memories are important?
An study in Boston University has potentially found why our brains hold onto some memories with such importance and also explains how it decides to let memories go. At the beginning of the article they define what memory is, or rather, what it isn’t, they state that memory is “not a passive recording device” as our brains decide what memories matter, creating a ability for us to reach back in time to remember emotionally significant events.
They then emphasised on the fact that it’s a longstanding goal in cognitive neuroscience to develop strategies to strengthen useful memories and reduce harmful ones. They voiced that there is a divide on concepts known as retroactive and proactive memory enhancement, explaining that past studies have been conflicting one other on one question. Are weaker memories stabilized (easier to recall) by attachment to a more important ones?
The article differentiates retroactive memories (events that have happened before the significant moment) from proactive memories (events that have happened after the significant moment) with the use of a small scenario.
They explain that if you see a rare/beautiful animal for the first time (significant moment), this creates an opportunity for your brain to remember the small rock on the trail leading to the spot where you saw the animal (retroactive memory) and also remember the blissful feelings you had after the animal returned to bushes and out of sight (proactive memories).
While it is common knowledge is special moments reserve a spot in our heads for easy access to look back on later, this article dives deeper and asks the question as to what are the mechanisms for this?
This led them to conduct a study that they state is “the first study to definitively show that memory enhancement does happen”. They did this with the use of just under 650 participants, ten individual studies and AI to analyse the wider range of data. The found that their experiment’s big difference is that they found the brain uses a “sliding scale” to decide which memory is of higher importance/value.
Their method: Show a participant dozens of photos connected to different rewards and then giving them a surprise memory test the next day.
Their findings: They found that the recall strength of proactive memories depended on the emotional impact of the significant event itself. The bigger the emotional impact, the better the recall of things that happened after the event. They also identified that this was not the case for retroactive memories; they believe that for better recall of things happening in the run up of the event, there had to be similarities such as a matching colour or visual cues that connected them to the event itself. It’s also noted that if any secondary memories have an emotional value, it in turn diminishes the emotional impact of the main significant event and diminishes the ability of proactive and retroactive memory enhancement.
It’s very exciting to find research that shows a new understanding of how our brains work when it comes to memory. Furthermore creating a foundation for other mental health professionals to develop and use this understanding to help people regain important memories and also diminish harmful ones; showing this could be a powerful tool that can help not only patients, clients, professionals… but students, parents and even the general public.
Until next time,
Take care.
Click here to see original journal article.