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The time has come to complete our exploration of memory and the brain. In Part I we covered the types of memory—short term, long term, and working memory—and how the brain encodes, stores, and retrieves memory. In Part II, the full focus was on the issue of retrieval, including words that go rogue as we age. This brings us to Part III, the series final covering ways to protect and strengthen memory function.
Experts tell us that memory decline is not an inevitable part of aging. That is of course encouraging, but one aspect—verbal recall—seems to be a given. Thinking beyond word retrieval, though, I am pretty sure that my memory isn’t really much different from what it was years ago. I did wonder at times why my siblings had more childhood memories on tap than I did, but unlike them, I live on the East Coast, far from the western states where we grew up. A lesson learned about memory: once I resumed regular visits to the West, including revisiting familiar places, my childhood recall became almost on par with that of my western sibs.
This example shines light on something important about memory. Although long term memory has a vast amount of space, stored memories don’t necessarily stay there like gold bars in a safe deposit box. The brain is busy getting rid of memories we seldom call up and it actively modifies memories that we do recall, such as adding more details to shape them to our current thinking, factually correct … or not. Revisiting where you made memories is one way to revive them, but here is a much easier one. To have your current encoded memories stay viable, get out your phone and take pictures. In fact, regular scrolling through your phone photos is a fabulous and entertaining way to keep people, places, and events fresh in your memory.
Success and action
Back now to experts’ reassurance about memory—fading is not inevitable. Great, but in no way is that a guarantee. Success to one degree or another requires actions that take many forms and activities as we shall now see.
Technology has an interesting place in memory according to experts.
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