A paper published on Neuron discusses the effect "high-rewarding" events have on whether or not we remember that event.
To summarize, it was found that volunteers did better at recalling memories when there was a reward and high-reward memories were replayed by the brain when the volunteers were at rest.
While the research design and experiment itself were interesting, I think there is definitely room for further research opportunities.
The idea of childhood trauma isn't very rewarding; yet, it's something people with trauma will always remember. Surely we don't ONLY remember things that were rewarding, right?
Shahram Heshmat, a writer for Psychology Today and an emeritus professor at the University of Illinois, presented an idea in 2015 that I think better captures the idea behind what we choose to keep as memories.
"The experience of emotion enhances our memories"
To me, that's way more relatable than just "high-rewarding" events 'cause, TBH, a lot of the long-term memories that I have are pretty stupid (in a funny way).
I remember (years and years ago) my Dad, brother, and I cooking popcorn while Mom was out of the house. Well, what happens when three idiots decide to try cooking something for the first time? The answer is a burned pot with burned popcorn, the smoke alarm going off, and a really angry Mom.
I remember in elementary school, my friends were out playing soccer. One of my teammates had scored and ran over to the imaginary corner flag and did the iconic Cristiano Ronaldo celebration. But, as he did it, he slipped and his butt was stained with mud.
Why did I keep these stupid memories? Well, they're pretty funny to me, and maybe that's all that matters.
Perhaps this is one of the problems with the educational system, and I know I'm going a little bit off-topic here but it's just what I'm thinking.
Who here remembers the causes of the Russian Revolution? Who here remembers the chemical symbol for Tungsten? Probably not a lot of you.
I'm not sure how, but if each lecture in school was more emotionally impactful while still being informative, perhaps students would understand and retain information better. And most importantly, maybe they'd actually like school.
Memory still looms as a big mystery in science. No scientist is perfectly sure how the brain physically sorts and stores all the information — and all the types of information — that gets encoded into memories. However, perhaps asking what we remember will start to teach us how we remember.
You know what's funny about memories? Sometimes, you take a vacation to, I don't know, France or something. You end the trip saying "Man I wanna remember this forever", but that doesn't happen. It's quite sad to think that even the things you want to remember, you can't.
But maybe that's for a reason that we don't understand yet because, as I said, memories are still a huge mystery. Maybe the things we don't think impacted us really did. Maybe the things we don't think will help us actually will.
According to Brian Resnick from Vox, "Memory, the researchers remind me, doesn’t exist to be an archive that perfectly preserves the past. Instead, it exists for the future. It helps us sort and make sense of the world, and it prepares us for what’s ahead. We can’t take everything with us wherever we go. That would be overwhelming."
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