A FEELING FOR THE PAST

“Emotion engraves the brain with vivid recollections but cleverly distorts your brain’s record of what actually took place.”

By Ingfei Chen

Published: Scientific American Mind; the January – February 2012 issue
To access the article, copy paste the following:
http://www.nature.com/scientificamericanmind/journal/v22/n6/full/scientificamericanmind0112-24.html

Level of Difficulty: *****

Note to the reader: I have, thus far, only based my reading tasks on articles which are readily available free of charge on the internet. I have decided to make an exception in the case of this magazine as it is so very, very good. I strongly advise you to subscribe. Alternatively, you will need to pay a small fee to access the article.

BEFORE YOU READ

1.       Think of a traumatic event from your past. How clearly do you remember it? How sure are you that your recollection is correct?

2.       Now think of a pleasant event from your past. How clearly do you remember it? How sure are you that your recollection is correct?

3.       Now describe a typical day, say five years ago, how clearly do you remember it? What do you think the reasons are?

QUESTIONS

1.       Imagine you were in Gölcük during the earthquake in August 1999. How clearly would you feel you remembered the events of that terrible night? Would you be right in your opinion? What are these types of memories called?

2.       What surprising fact is expressed in the text concerning flashbulb memories?

3.       Is the fact that “emotion edits and sculpts the particulars of what we recall” an advantage or a disadvantage? Why?

4.       Laboratory experiments have proved that …………………………… is far less likely to be remembered. What, in your view, is the reason for this?

5.       Read on until the end of paragraph 9 carefully. Which are could be dubbed first in command? Which area follows cues from the command center? These two areas are functional in the case of memories involving …………………………………………………………………………………………………….

6.       What general conclusion can we draw from paragraphs 7, 8 and 9?

7.       Read the experiment described in paragraph 10 carefully. Which memory did the subjects remember with greater clarity? What quality of flashbulb memories was documented as a result?

8.       Read the information concerning Hirst’s studies. What conclusion did Hirst reach concerning the glaring inaccuracies? What accounts for the greater accuracy concerning neutral facts?

9.       What does the phrase “That trade off” at the beginning of paragraph 16 refer to and what is the reason for the phenomenon?

10.   What does the phrase “That idea” in paragraph 17 refer to? What proof does the author put forward as support?

11.   There are two basic differences between the way uplifting memories and scary memories are preserved. They are: ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

12.   Read the studies reported in paragraph 19 carefully. The difference in recall observed between older and younger adults seems to be due to …………………………………………… This fact proves that ……………………………………………. also affect what you remember.

13.   Read paragraphs 20 and 21 where Payne and Rensinger’s study is described.

14.   What enables the brain to successfully deal with bad memories during sleep?

15.   Chronic anxiety, reoccurring nightmares of post traumatic stress disorder and depression are aggravated by insomnia if …………………………………………………………………………….. ( Be specific)

16.   In what practical instance in daily life might accurate recall be important?

17.   At the beginning of paragraph 25, the writer poses a question: why emotion infuses our memories with such a supreme yet misplaced confidence. What is the answer? Has evolution got it wrong?

18.   Achieving more accurate memory is possible with the use of various techniques. They are:

19.   Read the experiment conducted by Jasmeet Pannu Hayes. Do his findings prove or disprove the above findings?

20.   What are the future implications of the new research into memory?

A FEELING FOR THE PAST KEY AND TEACHER’S NOTES

This text is a fascinating piece of writing explaining how our memories work and how inaccurate they, in fact, are. The text goes on to explain the reasons for this state of affairs with a series of interesting experiments explaining the process and the evolutionary basis step by step. I have fallen in love with Scientific American Mind so I suggest you subscribe as I have done. Another point, texts out of this publication will prepare students for the proficiency exam as well. Enjoy.

1.       You would feel they were searing memories; you would be wrong; flashbulb memories.

2.       Memories forged under strong emotions distort considerably even though, paradoxically, they seem so vivid that we hold a misguided confidence in their fidelity.

3.       An advantage because the most crucial knowledge for surviving life’s challenges is preserved.

4.       Neutral information; open ended

5.       The amygdale, the hippocampus; positive events or pleasant recollections.

6.       Rather than being limited to a few key regions, emotional memory processes are much more complex than we thought.

7.       The memory of 9/11; the sense of enhanced vividness and inflated confidence that we have in the accuracy, this sense that I will never forget.

8.       We tend to reconstruct our emotional past in a way that is consistent with the way we currently are emotionally reacting; societal memory practices.

9.       Their memory for that emotional item – the snake – actually seems to be coming at the cost of their memory for the context; the way an emotionally arousing object grabs your attention.

10.   Whatever dominates your mind ends up in the memory banks; in seemingly contradictory studies, scientists have observed participants showing stronger memory for neutral details in an emotional scene

11.   Uplifting memories differ in the type of information that is preserved. Scary memories fire up the brain’ sensory processing regions; happy memories are prone to more distortions in accuracy and confidence.

12.   Older adults’ active management of their emotions by paying less attention to negative things; age and personality.

13.   Sleep selectively preserves only the emotional aspect of the scene.

14.   The lack of arousal inducing stress hormones specially norodreanaline.

15.   During slumber, he theorizes, the brain…

16.   Eye-witness testimony in court.

17.   Memory evolved to help prepare us for an unpredictable future.

18.   Making an effort to actually now focus on non emotional things that might be important, putting a positive spin on a bad situation OR cognitive reappraisal.

19.   It proves it.

20.   It could be used for the treatment of various psychological disorders