The science behind memory?
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Joshua1998
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The science behind memory?
What causes us to remember things? Why do some people have exceptional memory compared to others? Can one obtain photographic memory or does one have to be born with it? Are there ways to enhance our memory, such as the famous "chewing gum while studying" method? Also, what causes us to forget? We can hardly forget to walk, run, and other basic tasks, but what causes us to forget? Examples of things to forget would be names, faces, assignments. If you're under the influence, would that affect memory as well?
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SciB
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- Occupation: Retired molecular biologist, university researcher and teacher
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Re: The science behind memory?
Hi Joshua,
Memory is an extremely interesting subject as we all experience the frustration of forgetting a person's name or where we left the car keys. Your questions cannot be answered completely yet as the research into the physiology of memory is just beginning to make progress with PET scans and functional MRI and the ability to see brain activity in real time:
http://news.stanford.edu/news/2014/apri ... 42214.html
https://uonews.uoregon.edu/archive/news ... emory-fmri
http://www.memorylossonline.com/glossar ... raphy.html
If you are interested in doing a project on memory, check the Scibuddies project ideas section: https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... deas.shtml
The flatworms called planaria make good test subjects for memory experiments:
http://phys.org/news/2013-07-flat-worms ... ation.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planarian
Let us know what sort of project you want to do dealing with memory and we will try to help you.
Sybee
Memory is an extremely interesting subject as we all experience the frustration of forgetting a person's name or where we left the car keys. Your questions cannot be answered completely yet as the research into the physiology of memory is just beginning to make progress with PET scans and functional MRI and the ability to see brain activity in real time:
http://news.stanford.edu/news/2014/apri ... 42214.html
https://uonews.uoregon.edu/archive/news ... emory-fmri
http://www.memorylossonline.com/glossar ... raphy.html
If you are interested in doing a project on memory, check the Scibuddies project ideas section: https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... deas.shtml
The flatworms called planaria make good test subjects for memory experiments:
http://phys.org/news/2013-07-flat-worms ... ation.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planarian
Let us know what sort of project you want to do dealing with memory and we will try to help you.
Sybee
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Joshua1998
- Posts: 8
- Joined: Mon Sep 14, 2015 9:05 am
- Occupation: Student
Re: The science behind memory?
Thank you very much for the information, SciB. I am planning to conduct an experiment about memory and what makes us remember things, only using music as a basis for this experiment. I also wanted to bring up the topic of emotions. I decided to post it on this thread because I figured that memory could also influence our emotions. I want to know the science behind emotions and what causes us to happy, sad, angry, etc. If you have any information for me or any links for me to look over, that'd be very helpful. Thank you again.
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SciB
- Expert
- Posts: 2068
- Joined: Fri Feb 01, 2013 7:00 am
- Occupation: Retired molecular biologist, university researcher and teacher
- Project Question: I wish to join Scibuddies to be able to help students achieve the best science project possible and to understand the science behind it.
- Project Due Date: n/a
- Project Status: Not applicable
Re: The science behind memory?
You are welcome, Joshua! Very interesting project idea.
The links I sent you are a good place to start in learning the science of memory. Researchers use these methods for studying a variety of mental states--emotions, so you can do a search using those terms and see what you can find. These instruments are fantastically expensive so your experiments will have to be scaled down to use the resources that you have, but chemical manipulation of memory using a test organism like planaria can give you a lot of good indirect data.
Check google for memory and planaria and see what kinds of experiments are being done. The problem obviously would be that planaria aren't the most emotional critters and its hard to tell whether they are sad or mad.
If you are especially interested in the interplay of emotion and memory, you probably want to devise a human test using volunteers and some sort of visual test combined with emotional content. Check online. I'm sure there must be psychological studies that have focused on this.
Good luck and keep posting your questions!
Sybee
The links I sent you are a good place to start in learning the science of memory. Researchers use these methods for studying a variety of mental states--emotions, so you can do a search using those terms and see what you can find. These instruments are fantastically expensive so your experiments will have to be scaled down to use the resources that you have, but chemical manipulation of memory using a test organism like planaria can give you a lot of good indirect data.
Check google for memory and planaria and see what kinds of experiments are being done. The problem obviously would be that planaria aren't the most emotional critters and its hard to tell whether they are sad or mad.
If you are especially interested in the interplay of emotion and memory, you probably want to devise a human test using volunteers and some sort of visual test combined with emotional content. Check online. I'm sure there must be psychological studies that have focused on this.
Good luck and keep posting your questions!
Sybee