Ah, the memory… It’s brilliant when it’s working (and brings you happy memories!) but can be truly terrible when it’s not. It seems to get worse with age, too. BBC Focus magazine look into exactly what memory is and how it can be altered from what’s real…
If you’ve ever had a particularly bad experience that you’d rather forget, then we’re sure you’d gladly delete the memory if you could. Or on the other hand, if you’re cramming for an exam you want remember every single thing you’ve learned. Is it possible (without inebriation!) to do either?
“Memory is a very important aspect of cognition,” University of East Anglia senior research fellow Dr David Vauzor tells BBC Focus. “It refers to what you can remember along with the capacity for remembering. Some memories are retained for a short period of time and then discarded, but the most important ones are stored in the brain and can be retrieved at will. This process of learning new information, storage and recall involves a complex interplay of brain functions.”
If you want to find out more about deleting memory, improving memory or even implanting memory, you’d better get your hands on the April issue of BBC Focus magazine.
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Posted by Amy Power.
