As chemistry class came to an end, my friend and I started walking to our next class.  We began talking about what we were going to do that weekend and he asked me if I had anything fun planned.  I told him that my friends and I were going to go out to dinner that night at this one restaurant, but for the life of me, I could not remember the name of the restaurant.  I could imagine what it looked like, where it was located, and what the word looked like.  I could even remember what the first letter of it was which led to me trying to sound it out in a million different ways.  This caused me to sound like a child reading a book for the first time so I stopped.  My friend eventually gave up on trying to help me figure it out even though he could tell I was clearly frustrated.  He began to continue on and tell me of his plans for the weekend.  I completely tuned him out.  The only thing I was focused on was figuring out the name of that restaurant.  I had no idea why I could not let it go but I just kept trying to think of anything that would help me get the name out of my head.  I knew it was in there somewhere.  As we walked and my friend continued to be clueless that I was not listening to a thing he was saying, it came to me.  “Rotelli’s!” I burst out.  My friend turned to me with a baffled expression on his face. “Huh?  What does that have to do with snow tubing?”  He asked me.   I assumed that is what he had been talking about at that moment.  “That’s where I’m going to dinner tonight!” I exclaimed.  “You know that was about five topics ago.  Have you even been listening to me this whole time?”  he asked.  “Of course I have, don’t be silly!”  I answered.  I later learned in psychology class that what happened to me actually had a technical term in the world of psychology and it was called the tip of the tongue phenomena.

The tip of the tongue phenomena is defined as being able to say things about the word that you are thinking of but not being able to recall the word.  Some examples would be knowing the number of letters in the word or what the first letter in the word is but not know the actual word itself.  The phenomenon is a problem with retrieval in the brain.  Retrieval cues explain that memories are held in storage by a web of associations, which are like “anchors” that help retrieve the memory.  With the tip of the tongue phenomena, one can remember the web but it is almost like it is unlinked from that thing the person is trying to remember.  As the person thinks they know the word it gives the effect that they are about to say it and it is on the tip of their tongue.  They simply cannot remember the entire word because the web is not fully connected.

Being a college student looking back on my early years of life, I believe that I am able to remember and recall many things that have happened to me during my lifetime. This would be considered using my memory. Memory can accurately be defined as the persistence of learning over time, through storage and retrieval of information. I remember things such as shore trips with my family, falling off of my bike when I first learned how to ride it, and many magical trips to Disney World. We create memories every day that we look back on and cherish with friends and family. We are reminded of these memories by pictures, souvenirs, and even people talking to us about it. Have you ever wondered if you actually remember something from your early childhood or if you can only recall it because you were constantly reminded of it?

False-memory syndrome is when the creation of inaccurate of false memories through the suggestion of others often while the person is under hypnosis. This makes it easy to recall some real memories, yet easier to create false memories. When I was two years old, my whole family went to Disney World. We all went and saw the movie Honey I Shrunk the Kids. I remember at the very end of the movie, the dog sneezed and real water came out of the screen and splashed me. I cried for a straight ten minutes afterwards because I was so scared. Now for the longest time I thought I just had a great memory and was able to remember everything about that moment. Looking back at it now, I am unsure if I actually remember it, or from hearing my parents constantly tell me could be what I remember. It can’t be said as to which one is accurately is, but it is something I like to think about because now that I am older, it makes me laugh.

Memory can best be described as the persistence of learning over time through active encoding, storage, and retrieval of information. Memories are things we hold dear to us and are things we cannot possibly forget: the good, the bad, the crazy, etc. But can we truly recall all of our “memories?” The answer to this question is no; even the first memory we can think of may not actually be from our personal memory storage systems. Someone might have told us about it. These memories are called False Memories.

When I was younger, around the age of 5, my parents took me to Disney World for the first time. We rode all sorts of different rides at all the different parks, but my favorite ride was Splash Mountain in Magic Kingdom. The ride tells a tale of Brier Rabbit getting chased by Brier Fox and Brier Bear because Briar Rabbit decides to run away form home. Every time I go on that ride, the song “Zip-a-dee Doo-da” always gets stuck in my head. It’s a very catchy song. Anyway, the best part of that ride is the very high fall into the brier patch. There are always moments of suspense slowly riding up to the top. To this day, Splash Mountain is still my favorite ride in all of Disney World.

Even though I thought I was recalling this from my own personal memory storage system, I might also have been remembering my parents telling me about my experience at Splash Mountain back then. It is impossible to ever know for sure. Although my parents could be telling me the wrong thing, they are my parents, so I do not think they would do that. Whether I am recalling the actual memory or whether I am recalling my parents telling me about the experience, I am happy either way to know of this memory somehow.

We continue to see how memory can be stored as well as effected throughout time in class. Time, random stimulus, and injury are all variables that can lead to memory loss, or degradation of memory function. As we all know as well, memory is based off recreating an event in our mind by building around pieces of the memory together with other sensory information. With time or injury, those pieces can be altered or lost completely and there are holes in our memories. But we can get change those pieces and recreate those memories through certain processes.

I played a lot of sports on middle and high school, and I continue today through I.M. sports. I sadly no longer compete physically on varsity or junior varsity teams because of back injuries. The majority of those sports were heavy physical contact sports like football and hockey. I always played the positions that involve the most contact with opposing players and usually paid for it with heavy bruises, broken bones, and most of all, concussions. Lately in the sports world there has been a lot of discussion about how concussions can effect players not just in their sport but in their everyday life. in my junior year of high school I was playing in a varsity hockey game, and playing defensemen. I went to try and take the puck away from an opponent and was hit hard against the boards, there was no whistle, so I kept playing. I was mad, because I let the player who hit me get the better of me on a defensive play. I went after that player on the next possession and hit him hard. So hard in fact that I hurt my self when I hit him, specifically my head. I was diagnosed with a concussion and was forced to sit out the rest of the game. I went home after the game, and fell asleep quickly. When I woke up, I had no memory of what I had done the last few days. The game, going to school, everything, was gone. I was worried and told my parents that I couldn’t remember what happened. I went to the doctor and he said I had a much more serious concussion than previously thought. We tried everything to get my memory working again, but time, the doctor said was best. I was at home, trying to catch up on homework, but it wasn’t going well. I was in a psych class that year, and decided to skip ahead to the chapter about memory. I learned that memory is a constructive process, and that sometimes, we need to experience the familiar stimulus to jar memory info back. So my idea was to go and skate, have a stick in my hand, and puck on the ice. And it worked, overtime, my memory came back to me, the hits, the whistles, whether or not my team won (we did), everything. So now, whenever I feel like I can’t remember anything, I go skate, and its helped me improve my memory over time.

Angel Lazu

Blog 2(A)

March 3, 2014

Basket of memories

Memory is a very important aspect used in people’s lives. There are three forms of memory, which are known as information processing. These three forms of memory consist of sensory, short-term, and long-term memory. Sensory memory is immediate, brief recording of sensory information. The scent of a body odor is an example of sensory memory. Next, short-term memory holds a few items for a short period of time. For example, memorizing a phone number given to you in a voice mail and you quickly dial it. Lastly, long-term memory is relatively permanent and limitless storage. An example would be remembering your prom night in high school or a graduation. Long-term memory is primarily used in my life and those who are involved in a profession such as doctors. Long-term memory applies to me everyday because I am in Athletic Training major. Therefore, all of my classes are memory based. For example, my major relies heavily on the anatomy of the body, so all of my classes include anatomy. I am required to memorize the origins, actions, insertions, and what nerves innervates all of the muscles in the body. There are six hundred and forty two muscles in the human body and each muscle has multiple actions that it performs. Six hundred and forty two muscles plus an additional two to four actions that it performs, requires a lot of memorization on my part. In the field of athletic training or any other kind of medical field, long-term memory plays a huge role. Doctors, nurses, surgeons and many more rely on their past knowledge of medicine in order to perform their jobs. Furthermore, long-term memory allows me to recall my knowledge of the body and injuries that affect the body. Without the use of long-term memory, a medical profession such as athletic training would be nonexistent. Every human being uses long-term memory in everyday life, whether it is work related or for personal memories. All three forms of memory are commonly used in people without them even noticing, memory is an important aspect of life and without it everyone would be lost.

When I was only about 4 years old, I have some vivid memories of a drowning experience in my Uncle Matt’s massive pool. I can recall floating in my purple octopus inner tube in the shallower part of the pool all by myself. I can recall waves splashing me as people started to jump into the pool. And, I can recall slipping through my inner tube underneath the waves and sliding to the bottom of the deepest end. However, one faulty piece of information I always seem to recall is that, while in the bottom of the pool, I was swimming along the bottom. There is no explanation as to why I always seem to recall this even though it never happened. Reflecting back on it now, I would probably guess it has something to do with the misinformation effect of memory construction. When recalling our memories, we fill in missing pieces of information to make what we try to remember more clear. What tends to result from this is the misinformation effect. This is incorporating misleading information into one’s memory of an event.

Perhaps I liked the thought of me swimming along the bottom of the pool, or perhaps one of my friends implanted the idea, whatever it may be, I know for certain there was no way that could have occurred. I’m already aware that some of the memories from that day had to be from my parents and other family members telling me about what happened because I know what happened when I was unconscious as if I were really coherent while it was all happening. I’ve incorporated details people have told me into my own memory to make it like it’s all part of what I experienced. Even though the memory of me swimming along the bottom of the pool and the details of the event from when I was unconscious are not my own, I still believe most of what I remember from that day is from my own experience. Combined with what I did and didn’t actually know, this memory I’ve constructed is still one of the most significant of my life, regardless of the misinformation effect.

Anne Klepeiss