One thing that most people find perplexing is the ability of children to absorb so much new information, but as you get older you find it more difficult to take in new situations or new information, or to work it into your permanent memory. People wonder why it's so easy for children to grasp onto a foreign language, while it becomes increasingly harder for adults to speak it fluently. Why are kids so special in that they can absorb this information easier?
As I have read in The Brain that Changes Itself (Normal Doige, M.D.), brain-derived neurotrophic factors, BDNF, play a crucial role in plastic change and reinforcing it so that memories are stored. BDNF if released when we are in a certain activity that requires our neurons to fire together (neurons that fire together wire together...) This makes the connection stronger between the firing neurons and helps them to fire together in the future. "BDNF also promotes the growth of the thin fatty coat around every neuron that speeds up the transmission of electrical signals," (80). They key part of BDNF is that it turns on the nucleus basalis, which is the part of our brain that allows us to focus our attention on a certain thing or experience. Focusing our attention also helps us to remember the information better. During the critical period when we are younger, there is much room for growth because almost every experience is a new experience that information is stored upon. At some point, however, the brain needs to some stability and BDNF helps to close down the critical period when it is done helping to create such connections.
In the critical period we don't know what information is going to be important so we take as much of it as we can in. Once we continue to grow, we learn to decide what is important to let in and what is not, so it becomes harder for us to immediately see something or learn something and remember it because we already have the connections and this critical period for expansion is closed. One thing I can see for sure is that it really is true that one you focus your attention on something, your ability to remember that information increases immensely. I have recently switched my major to cognitive psychology, and while I did enjoy going to school before, I now feel a sense of such excitement to learn about these new concepts that I find I'm more attentive in class and taking in more information as well. I have always found it not in my strong suit to be good at memorizing, but lately in my biology and psychology classes, I have found myself remembering more information that I wouldn't have been able to before. I had been afraid of the expanse systems of learning parts of the body because there is so much to learn and I didn't feel capable to do that. Every day I go into class and I focus all of my attention on that subject matter and I walk away with more information than I came in with.
For me, since I have since found a passion for the brain and its ability to change, it's like I'm a kid again because there is so much new information that I need to take in that is exciting to me, so my attention is focused and I am remembering more. If I went into a class that I had no interest in, it would make learning and remembering so much more difficult because the brain is not activated enough for the neurons to connect to one another and make lasting connections with one another. When you think about it, as we grow up we tend to do many more things on autopilot because we do the same things over and over again. Obviously we're not going to be open to learning new things because we get into a sort of rut. We have to open our mind and shift our attention to important things if we expect them to stick with us. We did have it easier as a child because this naturally occurs, but now it is not impossible, it just takes work. Learning and remembering was crucial as a child, so now we have to create that spark again for ourselves. It's not always easy, but the hard work will pay off.
Great post Shelly! You makes some good points. Yes, "memory" is very much tied to "attention". Our interpretation (perception) of events is determined by past experiences that we have to help define what we are experiencing. So, we tend to immediately interpret what we see by the past experiences we have had. For little children they do not have a big pool of experiences to immediately interpret what they are experiencing. So, their brains are more attentive to it. As we get older, we tend to be less attentive, because we have more familiar memories to compare the experience to. We tend to quickly interpret experiences without attending well to them. Consequently, there is no new learning to encode. That being said, my guess is that "novelty" attracts the brains attention, makiing it attend and think about what it is experiencing, since it doesn't immediately know how to interpret the event. The neurons tend to "excite" over novelty, and "inhibit" to familarity.
ReplyDeleteNow, in addition to "novelty", just like you mentioned, motivation (passion) is another key factor in memory. Whem something is exciting to you it stimulates the "executive functioning" part of the brain, which controls attention and working memory. If that area of the brain is not excited, then memory is going to be weaker. When we are excited, there is greater neuro=transmitters in the frontal lobes, making us more alert and attentive to what excites us. So, like you say, something that is "new to us" (novel) and "exciting" is going to spark interest in the brain and encode better in memory. Interesting post Shelly!