An update on Lumosity - I have a subscription.
July 31st 2008 22:51
Signature Tune
Lumosity is pleased to announce the debut of our newest game, Name Tag, designed to help you remember peoples' names. It exercises your ability to store and recall the names of people you've just met - an invaluable skill at work, at social events and (admit it) at family reunions. If you haven't played it yet, please find Name Tag under the Games tab on your Trainer page. Or, for a limited time only, play Name Tag free!
Brain Science 101 • New Series on the Brain
Understanding that brain science can quickly start to sound like a bunch of mumbo jumbo, Lumosity is starting a Brain Science 101 series. The intent is to break down some of the more complicated neuroscience related concepts into easily digestible pieces.
Here the 1st course is served (including some appetizing tidbits on how to sharpen your mind).
Long-term and Working Memory - You Are What You Remember
By Gregory Kellett, a cognitive neuroscience researcher at SFSU and UCSF and science writer for Lumos Labs.
Memories are vital to our ability to function on even the most basic of levels. Our respective “realities” are in fact a large part due to the constantly shifting kaleidoscope of our remembrances. Here we will touch briefly on the difference between short-term/working memory and long-term memory as well as how the two filter and add meaning to our worlds.
What if we could remember everything we experienced? As enticing asNutrition label it sounds, our finite brains would quickly find themselves overwhelmed with the random details of yesterday’s weather forecast alongside the nutritional information off of last month’s box of raisin bran.
Thankfully, the vast majority of our memories are fleeting mental wisps lasting only seconds to minutes. These temporary impressions make up what is called short-term or working memory.
Working memory can be thought of as a staging area where the mind takes meaning from such items as:
* Specific immediate memories of very recent sensory input (IE the sour smell of expired milk).
* The temporary recollection of details from long-term memories (IE what happened the last time you drank sour milk).
* Conclusions and ideas made in the past (Sour milk is bad).
Notice how working memory can temporarily pull details from long-term memory for short-term use. AlthoughGear Head constantly changing and ephemeral itself, working memory is vital to our ability to make decisions and take action over time (such as our pouring that sour milk down the drain). For a brilliant and more in-depth description of working memory read Elizabeth Buchen’s “Working Memory: What it is and how it works”.
When an experience or piece of information sticks and doesn’t evaporate with short-term memory, it is said to have entered into the realm of long-term memory. This journey is called consolidation and takes place after prolonged exposure to a piece of information or experience. The longer the exposure, the better the consolidation, the more robust the related memories will be.
Long-term memories can store much larger quantities of information than working memory and for much longer periods of time (often as much as a lifetime). These resilient long-term recollections are made up of both consciously learned facts, such as “Madrid is the capital of Spain” and subconsciously learned knowledge, such as the ability to balance and ride a bike.
We derive meaning and the ability to act via the synergistic relationship between long-term PeanutBttrTstand working memory. Working memory combines elements from our long-term stores with immediate sensory information in order to generate ideas and plans of action. For example, remembering that the taste of peanut butter is pleasant as we toast toast, might just have us use our memorized skill of unscrewing a jar in order to manifest the pleasurable experience of peanut butter on toast. Which is just one more potentially delicious result of a fit and active mind.
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