Memory!

February 19th, 2022| Topic: RaMbLeS | 2

It is, no doubt, true that the older you get, the greater your knowledge of the world. But it is also true that the older you get, the worse you do on memory tests. How come? You know more, and so should be able to remember more, one would think.

The answer to the disparity is, apparently, clutter. So saith scientists from University of Columbia, Harvard, and University of Toronto, in “Cluttered Memory Representations Shape Cognition in Old Age,” a review article in Trends in Cognitive Sciences, published recently.

It is not that the brains of older folks are “impoverished” and cannot lay down new memories. And it’s not that they don’t have enough space or bandwidth to store information. Rather, first author on the paper, Dr. Tarek Amer, says:

Older adults might actually be forming too many associations between information. Compared to young adults, healthy older adults (defined in the paper as 60 to 85 years old) process and store too much information, most likely because of greater difficulty suppressing irrelevant information, the analysis found. This difficulty is described as ‘reduced cognitive control’ and can explain the cluttered nature of older adults’ memory representations.”

Clutter, caused by less selective cumulation of information, leads to an inability to find what we want when we need it. Hey, that happens to all of us: we can’t remember a person’s name or remember where we put our phones, and suddenly that “lost” information pops into our head later. That is because the older you get the more similar memories you have—such as all the people you’ve have recently met or all the places you could have put your phone. That makes correct information challenging to pick out.

Amer and colleagues argue this happens more frequently, as people get older, because of these “cluttered memoryscapes.” Memories include both the target information—what one is trying to recall—and irrelevant information. Amer illustrates it this way:

A person knows several people named Mike, but they are trying to remember the last name of just one of the Mikes. As they think through all of the Mikes they know, they have to filter through everything they know about these people and suppress all the information related to the wrong Mikes. This internal navigation becomes especially difficult when one is older because it becomes more challenging to suppress irrelevant information.”

So, let’s try to remember the important things.

We remember the deliverance of God:

You shall remember that
you were a slave in the land of Egypt,
and Yahweh your God
brought you out of there
by a mighty hand and
by an outstretched arm.
Deuteronomy 5:15

We remember the power of God:

… you shall not be afraid of them;
you shall well remember
what Yahweh your God did
to Pharaoh and to all Egypt.
Deuteronomy 7:18

We remember the provision of God:

But you shall
remember Yahweh your God,
for it is He who is giving you
power to make wealth ….
Deuteronomy 8:18

We remember the mercy of God:

You shall remember
that you were a slave
in the land of Egypt,
and Yahweh your God redeemed you;
therefore I command you this today.
Deuteronomy 15:15

And, thankfully, ours is a God who never forgets.

For Yahweh your God is
a compassionate God;
He will not fail you nor destroy you
nor forget the covenant with your fathers
which He swore to them.
Deuteronomy 4:31

What a relief—He doesn’t forget. He always remembers. So must we. The important things. Declutter!

SOURCES:
Trends in Cognitive Sciences; StudyFinds