Context plays a critical role in the formation and reproduction of our memories, good and bad. Research by Princeton scientists shows that people can erase certain memories from memory, tying their context to new information.
The findings from the study have many applications, from enhancing the effectiveness of educational methods to improving approaches to the treatment of PTSD. Even the philosophers of Ancient Greece drew attention to the fact that by associating memorized information with smells, sounds and surrounding objects, we can more effectively operate with our memories. In a new study, scientists tried to find out if people are able to purposefully delete certain data from memory.
Scientists have perfected a long-known experiment in which people are asked to memorize a list of unrelated words. Through the use of magnetic resonance imaging, researchers were able to capture neuroactivity that mirrored the contexts of memories in the brains of volunteers. Images of various landscapes - forests, mountains and beaches - were used as such contexts in the experiment. The participants in the experiment were shown two lists of words - the second could be passed only after the first was reliably memorized.
“We expected that the memorized words in the memory of the participants in the experiment would associate with the objects represented in the images. Using MRI, we were able to personally observe such ligaments, the process of their formation and disappearance,”says author Jeremy Manning.
The participants in the experiment had to forget the words from the first list. This was achieved by memorizing the words of the second list associated with the same images. When the first sequence of words was forgotten, the neuroactivity also disappeared, reflecting their connections with the pictures.
“It's as if we were trying to discard pies from our memory so as not to think about grandmother. During the experiment, we were able to trace this process very accurately by observing the activity of the brain,”says Manning.
According to the authors of the study, the process of forgetting for a long time remained without due attention of scientists. The loss of memories was viewed in a negative sense as a kind of failure. However, forgetting information can be helpful.
“Removing memories of a traumatic event could help soldiers with PTSD. Also, the possibility of purposeful forgetting would help people get rid of obsolete knowledge before moving on to learning new material. Our research has revealed an interesting mechanism that can be used in such cases,”says Manning.
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ALEX KUDRIN