Daniel Davis Week 15: Forcing Forgetfulness?
You have the ability to choose what to remember and what to forget. How do you use this newfound power?
While it is more complicated than simply picking and “deleting” a memory from our mind like we might snip a scene from a roll of film, we actually do have the power to make it more likely that we memorize certain situations in place of others.
A study led by Mara Mather proved that “emotional arousal” or anything that excites, scares, or otherwise stimulates someone, can lead to a decrease in the ability to retain information. This is because the stimulation “can attract visual attention” and use energy firing the amygdala, “thereby reducing integration of central aspects with peripheral contextual information into a unified mental representation” (Waring). Basically, emotion can distract the mind from retaining information that might be used to complete our memories.
However interesting this information may be, this only proves that we can control the extent to which we can remember if we can also control the emotions we feel.
Thankfully, another study, this time by Jill Warring and Elizabeth Kensinger, proved that we can make certain situations more measurably memorable than others.
The researchers presented images that were chosen to create both high and low levels of emotional stimulation. For example, flowers and toilet plungers were two low stimulation items and pinatas and tarantulas were two high stimulation items. These images were placed in scenes that the participants were later asked to recall details from. Unsurprisingly, the results of this experiment matched Mather’s conclusion.
These researchers crafted the scenes to include images that either increased or decreased the chance that the participant would remember specific details. Is it too far a stretch to suggest that we could do the same?
The next time you want to make use of your memory, try to place yourself in a peaceful situation and there’s a much greater chance of success. Or accept that in you are in a tense situation, it's going to be much less likely that you retain specific details.
Hi Daniel! I was surprised by your mention of the fact that emotional arousal can lead to a decrease in the ability to retain information. I would think that such memories associated with strong feelings would be easier to remember, if anything, not harder. Immediately backing this statement with Waring’s scientific study allowed me to truly understand why, and I found this information really insightful. Moreover, I enjoyed how, rather than simply stating such facts through an educational aspect, you took a step further, posing the possibility that we can, in fact, take advantage of this phenomenon to gain control of our ability to retain information. Your recommendation to immerse oneself in a peaceful environment, verses one of tension, when seeking to enhance memory retention makes a lot of sense, as quieter working enviorenments are often linked to better focus. However, I'm intrigued by your suggestion and wonder if similar results would emerge with internal feelings verses the vibe of one’s surrounding enviorenment. For instance, could a sense of sadness in the moment allow one to be more productive than when overcome by feelings of happiness/excitement?
ReplyDeleteHi Daniel,
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, your title and picture really caught my attention. I was curious as to what your blog would be about from your title and the Men In Black image was a funny way to show someone about to erase their own memory. You continued to pique my interest with your first two sentences. Describing this as a power made me wonder exactly what this power is and how I am using it without even realizing. I like how you used studies to explain and prove your point, which was a very unique one compared to the ones I am used to hearing about emotion and memory retention. What I have usually heard and thought about how our emotions play a role in our memory is that emotional memories are the ones that we remember the most and the most vividly. However, your blog opened me up to a new perspective, that these heavily emotion-filled memories actually have the details clouded by the strength of the emotion. What we often remember about these kinds of memories are the feelings that they evoked, rather than the specifics of the event itself. I am very interested in psychology, especially how people think and remember things, so this was a very eye opening insight into how emotions really seem to effect our memory.