Why do we remember words but still forget faces?
June 14th 2008 22:05
Signature Tune
Why are we no better at remembering faces when we have been training our memory for words? Scientists at Umeĺ University and Karolinska Institutet in Sweden now show in the journal Science that the answer lies in the brain areas activated by each task.
The scientists studied the brain activity of healthy subjects as they performed a task that was part of a training program and two untrained tasks. Their performance on the trained task and one of the untrained tasks improved. What these two tasks had in common was the activation of the striatum, a cluster of neuronal nuclei in midbrain.
The study involved a group of older (over 65 years) and younger (20-30 years old) subjects, who were asked to participate in a training program to update information in working memory. After five weeks, both groups showed clear improvement on the trained tasks. The transfer effect was limited, but in the younger group transfer was observed to another test involving memory updating.
To examine the neural systems involved, the scientists studied their subjects’ brains using functional magnetic resonance imaging before and after training. During scanning, they performed a verbal updating task from the training program, a non-trained numerical task, which also required updating, and a non-trained task that did not require this skill. All tasks activated areas in the frontal cortex before training. In the younger group, the striatum was also activated during the updating tasks. After training, the striatum was activated during the trained task in both groups, and during the non-trained updating task in the younger group.
Altogether, the findings show that transfer is possible when both the trained and the non-trained tasks engage specific and overlapping brain systems, which is something to be borne in mind when developing and running training and rehabilitation programs. The striatum is a critical region in the updating of the working memory, and age-related changes here can inhibit the effects of both training and transfer.
The link to this article is at the top.
And if you want to improve your facial memory take a long hard look at my signature tune, but don't forget to move your eyes and look for shapes, faces, whatever you can find. There are a lot there
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Comment by tlcorbin
Comment by katyzzz
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How did you go with the puzzle, and try rational emotive therapy for those difficult memories, which are probably seared into your brain by the trauma of the emotional reaction.
Not just a pretty face, am I?
I know, you Never thought that for one moment ( implication ---I am not pretty, oh, cruel world, who needs to be pretty when one has the "looks" )
Comment by Naomi Paul
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Comment by katyzzz
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Comment by tlcorbin
Comment by katyzzz
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It must be hard on you bearing the brunt of your own good looks, I feel so badly about mine that I cover them up with art so that others won't get jealous, but actually there is some consolation in getting older, one just doesn't care any more, although I do know some who preserve their vanity to the end, just pretty faces is all they want, how empty headed, forgiveable in the young, unforgiveable in the older, as far as I am concerned.
Comment by tlcorbin
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