Guest guest Posted October 29, 2004 Report Share Posted October 29, 2004 Sorry I can't get it in plain text, but there are a few good connected links Taking your brain down memory lanehttp://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1 & click_id=31 & art_id=vn20041027052 122230C926910 October 27 2004 at 07:46AM By Julia Stuart London - Memory is like a dog that lies down where it pleases, said the Dutch writer Cees Nooteboom in Rituals. No matter how you wrestle with it, bump into someone in the street you're not expecting to and suddenly their name refuses to move from the tip of your tongue to your brain. Go into a supermarket and chances are you'll leave having forgotten the one thing you went in for. Our memory can let us down at any age, but when we reach our 40s it appears to get up to a whole new kind of mischief: the perception that life is suddenly speeding up. Annual rituals such as birthdays and Christmas appear to come round faster than ever, and summers are over before they have even started. 'You are not the boss of your memories' " This is a powerful time illusion and most people experience it, " says Douwe Draaisma, who explains the phenomenon in Why Life Speeds Up As You Get Older, to be published on November 4. A professor of the history of psychology at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, Draaisma explains that as people get older, their early memories up to 25 become much more vivid than those of later years because they hold so many first-time experiences. " When you get old you tend to remember fewer things, because there is a lot more repetition in your life and a lot of it is routine. You have a very good memory for first-time experiences, most of which happen when you are younger. " " It is a very powerful effect. Added to that is the fact that time seems to expand with the number of memories it holds. For example, a week's holiday with lots of new experiences will appear to have lasted longer than a week spent on the usual office routine. " " I would argue that the same holds true on a lifelong scale for youth memories, " says Draaisma. " When these are vivid again in old age, it seems as if the time as a youth has lasted longer than, say, a year during middle age. " There may well also be physiological reasons at play. 'There are all of kinds of biological clocks in the human body' " There are all of kinds of biological clocks in the human body that play a part in indicating subjective time. Fever, for instance, makes you experience time faster, and cold makes you experience time slower, and when these physiological clocks start to slow down in old age it appears as if clock time seems to speed up. " Draaisma also examines the curious fact that we remember almost nothing before the age of three. He believes this partly has to do with the maturing of the brain. Up until the age of three the brain is still changing rapidly, which makes it difficult to form memories. " Another explanation would be that part of the way our memory works is by telling ourselves stories and retelling them. But it depends on having language and when you are one, two or three you don't have a language in which you tell yourself a story of what happened to you. And perhaps once we are used to using language memory it's difficult to have access to earlier memories. " Memory has an important role to play in deja vu, the sensation that you have lived a particular moment before. " Traditionally, there were a lot of explanations of earlier lives and former lives, " says Draaisma. However, he has a more scientific explanation. " It may be that because of a lack of concentration, something that you experience comes in twice. At first, due to lack of concentration you don't notice something, and then when you raise your concentration you see exactly what happened. It is as if you are experiencing this faint echo of the earlier experience that is still there. " Draaisma also studies why people's lives appear to flash before them during near-death experiences. " It may be that alterations to the brain, such as lack of oxygen, may cause some cells in the brain to fire more or less randomly. " When they are from the area in the brain where you have stored your early memories, it may be that you begin to see all kinds of childhood memories that are very vivid. " Ask someone what they were doing and wearing on August 31, 1997 - the day on which Princess Diana died - and they will probably give you a detailed description of the room they were standing in at the moment they heard. Such memories are known as " flashbulb memories " . One hypothesis is that the sudden emotion causes a rush of adrenaline in the brain, which, for a short time, makes people notice things visually. Another is that flashbulb memories are often about things people frequently repeat to others. " On the other hand, " counters Draaisma. " There are a lot of flashback memories that are not that spectacular. For example, there are a lot of women who remember their first period. While we are able to linger on more pleasant memories, when it comes to traumatic ones, we have no control over them popping into our heads. " " You are not the boss of your memories, " says Draaisma. " It is not a book that you can edit. If you could you might leave out the unpleasant memories and then elaborate on the happy memories, but then you would have a memory that wasn't of much use in daily life and one that would get you into trouble because it's precisely the painful, traumatic and dangerous things that you remember very vividly, so there may be an evolutionary background to this phenomenon. " He says we are not able to improve our personal memories, though there are tricks to remember what is often useless information. Those who have good memories were simply born that way. a.. This article was originally published on page 9 of Cape Times on October 27, 2004 Subscribe now to Cape Times Online Services a.. Babynet b.. Banking c.. Book a Flight d.. Car Hire e.. Car Insurance f.. Casino g.. Cellphones h.. Dating a.. Homeloans b.. Medical Aid c.. Play UK Lottery d.. Residential Property e.. Shopping f.. Speed Dating g.. Vehicle and Asset Finance h.. Work @ Home FREE Newsletter Sign up to receive IOL's top headlines daily and stay in touch with the news. We respect your privacy. Breaking News Top 5 News Stories a.. How Zuma blew his millions b.. Bad news for Boks as captain Smit limps out c.. Arafat suspected to have Leukaemia d.. 'Aristide wants free elections back home' e.. Free meals for lasting love Reader's Favourites Top 5 Reads - Yesterday a.. 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