Forgetting is also a good thing

Don't be nervous when you can't remember everything. Because that means your brain is working well.

According to a new study, the human brain selects only events that it considers to be memorable, while actively eliminating unimportant events, to reduce the burden of cognitive processes. and avoid confusion.

Brice Kuhl at Stanford University in California, USA, and colleagues used magnetic resonance imaging to measure the brain activity of 20 healthy people when they performed a simple memory test. Participants were given 3 pairs of words to memorize, including 2 pairs of similar words:

1. ATTIC dust
2. ATTIC junk
3. MOVIE reel

After contemplating the word " ATTIC dust " for the second time, the participants were asked to reread 3 pairs of words based on The clue is the first word. In general, everyone remembers the word "ATTIC junk" 15% less than when recalling an unrelated pair of words " MOVIE reel ".

Comparing the results with brain capture data, the team found that the brains of participants were more active in the area of ​​memory selection and also in the area of ​​memory removal.

Researchers believe that the brain region first identified that " ATTIC dust " and " ATTIC junk " are two conflicting memories. The second brain region repels " ATTIC junk " because it can only be viewed once. After the test was repeated 2 and 3 times, the repel operation decreased, indicating that the memory adjustment was created.

"When you are involved in the memorization process, the brain will adapt itself. It continuously quantifies memories," Kuhl said. "A good example is that we are easily confused when changing passwords on computers. First we will confuse the old and the new, but after several iterations, we have formed a memory. strong for new passwords and forget the old ".

At that time, the process of forgetting becomes a purposeful function of the brain, the researchers concluded.

MT