more on memory...

It must be obvious by now, and I've probably said it here before, that i have become increasingly fascinated with memory. So, it was with interest I read about a recent study on contextual memory. The actual study is pretty specific. People were asked to look at a list of words and then later to recall as many as they could. It turns out that people remember the words "in order." That is, if they remembered one word the next word they remembered was likely to be the word that immediately preceded or followed that word in the list. The theory is that the context of a memory matters, if we remember one part then other parts will follow.

The article in the Times that describes the study doesn't make any connections to other studies, but I was reminded of another recent story that looked at study habits. I'm sure I discussed it here and could go back and find it, but I won't. In that study, researchers found that students who studied in different places remembered more information. In a different way, context mattered. By studying in different places the encoded information was associated with more clues. Those clues helped in retrieval later on. It also reminds me of the clustering of memories used by memory competitors. Those people "chunk" information and use other clues to help anchor the memories (walking through a house, telling a story, etc.)

So, what about in real life? I notice that in talking with older people who have memory deficits that sometimes this clustering takes place. The retrieval of one memory, or part of a memory, will lead to a cascade of additional memories around an event. It is like priming a pump.


http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/05/health/05memory.html?ref=science