Remember the Alamo

Remember the Alamo? Not really.

Nicole Dudukovic, Ph.D. — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 19:28:28 +0000

Although the name of my Psychology Today blog is Remember the Alamo (a name not chosen but approved by me), I recently realized that I didn't remember much at all about the Alamo. I knew it involved a famous battle in Texas with an outcome that was memorable, at least to some people, but that's about all I could have told you. Luckily, a quick search on Wikipedia helped me fill in the rest of the details.

The trouble I have remembering historical facts may not concern you, but it concerns me. After all, I took history courses throughout high school and even into college, and I did well in them. Why have I forgotten so much history in the intervening years?

My amnesia for history disturbs me even more when I think back to my childhood. I would often ask my parents questions from my history homework or talk to them about what I'd learned in class. They always knew the answers and were familiar with everything I was learning. Even my dad, who didn't move to the U.S. until he was in his twenties, seemed to know more about U.S. history than I do now.

The gaping holes in my historical knowledge may reflect a change in the educational system, which these days places less of an emphasis on memorization and more of an emphasis on critical thinking skills. My mom can still recite all of the Presidents of the United States in order, whereas I have trouble remembering who half of them even were. I haven't forgotten them so much as I never learned them in the first place. However, if you gave me a work of historical non-fiction to read, I bet I could give you a more thorough analysis of the historian's thesis than my mom, as this was something I practiced many times in my schooldays.

Is a shift in education from rote repetition and recitation to critical thinking and analysis necessarily a bad thing? Now that we have the internet at our fingertips maybe there is no need to memorize history. A recent article in Newsweek discussed the possibility that today's youth aren't dumber, they've just learned different types of cognitive skills. These new ways of processing information are necessary to thrive in today's electronic era.

Maybe so, but I would still feel better about myself if I didn't have to use the internet every time I wanted to know something about history. It seems sad to me that one day my children will ask me about the U.S. Civil War, and I'll have to say "go look it up on the computer," rather than have a ready answer.

I am not despairing yet. Recently, my mom reminded me that she took a U.S. history class when I was growing up, oddly enough in order to reestablish her teaching credentials as a French teacher. Around that same time, my dad became a U.S. citizen and took a U.S. history class as part of the citizenship process. Maybe a history refresher course is all I need. In the meantime, there's always Wikipedia.

Are All Memoirs Fiction?

Nicole Dudukovic, Ph.D. — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 00:15:39 +0000

A few years ago Oprah Winfrey famously criticized James Frey for fabricating large parts of his memoir A Million Little Pieces, the story of his recovery from drug addiction. Since then, the veracity of memoirs has become a hot topic, calling into question how truthful any memoir really is. For example, Augusten Burroughs' memoir Running with Scissors provoked a lawsuit that resulted in him changing the label of his work from memoir to book. More recently, Love and Consequences: A Memoir of Hope and Survival, the "non-fiction" story of a half Native American foster child growing up in a gang in south central L.A., turned out to be written by a Caucasian woman who was raised by her biological parents in the San Fernando Valley.

Completely fabricating your identity and/or major life events and calling it a memoir is unethical. But is the line between fact and fiction always that clear? Remembering by its very nature is a reconstructive process that often leads to distortion. We piece together our memories from the fragments of life's events that we've retained. We don't have exact copies of events stored in our brains. Our memories of life experiences are influenced by our unique perspective during the experiences as well as at the time of remembering. The myriad of events that occur and the vast knowledge that we gain throughout our lives influence our memories of the past. If our autobiographical memories are always reconstructed and influenced by our current perspective, is writing an accurate memoir ever possible?

If writing an accurate memoir isn't feasible, we have the difficult task of determining which memoirs contain an acceptable number of inaccuracies and exaggerations and which we can call a hoax. Then we have to decide what to do with the hoaxes. I question whether a piece of literature that is labeled and marketed as non-fiction should entirely lose its value when its validity is called into question, particularly when the lines between fact and fiction are often murky. You could argue that readers will falsely believe information in the work is true, but research has shown that people can also pick up false information from stories they know are fictitious.

Maybe the problem is that we don't like to feel like we're being lied to, understandably so. But since our own memories do sometimes deceive us, shouldn't we be accepting of the inaccuracies found in memoirs? Perhaps the memoir genre is a dying breed and memoir writers would be better off labeling their work as fiction. Then they run the risk of being criticized for basing their work solely on reality and lacking creativity, but at least they won't be called liars.

Sleeping Your Way to a Better Memory

Nicole Dudukovic, Ph.D. — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 22:23:42 +0000

Sleep deprivation abounds this time of year on the college campus where I teach. The students are like zombies, gulping from their cans of energy drinks in between yawns. If you're lucky, they look up at you in class through bleary, red eyes. If you're unlucky, their eyes are closed, or they don't even show up to class. Final exams are still a few days away, and I wonder how some of these poor sleepless souls are going to last through three hour exams without falling asleep, let alone actually do well on them. Why is it that at the times that we need the most sleep, we're sleeping the least?

Marathon runners would never starve themselves before a race, a time when they need all the energy reserves they can get, yet that's the equivalent of what most of us do by cutting back on sleep when we have a big deadline approaching. We all know the benefits of a good night's sleep, even if we're not currently experiencing them. You feel more energized, your mood is improved, and you can think more quickly and clearly, leading to better performance both on the job and at home.

Our memories may be one of the most significant victims of sleep deprivation, making it even more ironic that at the times we need our memories the most, we choose to forgo sleep. Recent studies have shown that not only do we learn new information better when we aren't sleep deprived, but sleep also stabilizes our recent memories making them more resistant to forgetting and interference. Our memories may be reactivated and reorganized while we sleep, allowing us to be more efficient at learning and remembering the next day.

I discussed these research findings with my students, the optimistic (read: unrealistic) part of me hoping that they'd rush back to their dorms to sleep. "But, wait," one of them said, a bit hesitantly, "If we have a lot of stuff to study, wouldn't it be better to study it all and not get any sleep than to get a full night's sleep but not study it?" Chagrined, I had to admit he had a point. If you're way behind on your work, there may be times when you'd be better served completing it in a sleep-deprived state than not working on it all.

The rest of the time (and hopefully that's the majority of your time), we should put more emphasis on a getting a solid night's sleep. As much as we treasure our memories and they provide us with a sense of identity and purpose in life, we should do our best to sleep well and preserve our daily memories as best we can. Maybe with better and more efficient memories, we'd be less likely to find ourselves behind in our work.

This Is Your Brain...On Anti-Drug Campaigns

Nicole Dudukovic, Ph.D. — Fri, 16 May 2008 04:18:59 +0000

"This is your brain on drugs. Any questions?" For anyone who watched TV in the late 1980s, that phrase should bring back memories of an egg in a frying pan. As a child, that anti-drug commercial was, if not powerful, at least memorable. I didn't really understand how my brain would ever be anything remotely like a fried egg, but I certainly got the message that drugs weren't good for me.

Nowadays, anti-tobacco ads are filled with cartoon characters and sing-a-longs, part of the tongue-in-cheek efforts of the Sunny Side of truth ad campaign. Recently, I was watching one of these TV ads and found myself humming along to "The Magical Amount" song, which satirically suggests that tobacco companies have manipulated the level of nicotine in cigarettes to the extent that you'll be addicted but not have any adverse health effects. Was I thinking about this as I hummed? No, to be honest, I had little awareness of the actual point of the commercial. After seeing it several times, I was surprised that an anti-tobacco commercial would try to convey its message through songs whose lyrics communicate the opposite message. As a memory researcher, I question whether the actual message will be as memorable as the campaign hopes.

What inspired this new approach? What happened to traditional negative campaigns, where you bash your opponent in the clearest possible terms? Sure, we're all rightfully annoyed by negative political campaigns, particularly when the truth behind many of the attacks is dubious. Yet, research has shown that negative ads do work. One of the reasons for this may be because people tend to believe that repeated statements are true, regardless of their actual truth, a phenomenon known as illusory truth effects. If you tell me enough times that Product A is less desirable in some way than Product B, I'll start to believe it. Through repetition, this statement becomes so familiar that I eventually remember the claim but forget that the source of it (Company B) may not be credible. Even posing a question, such as ‘Did Senator X lie about Y?', can later be remembered as ‘Senator X lied about Y.' Although unethical people could exploit this memory phenomenon through the repetition of false statements about their competitors, certainly anti-smoking or anti-drug campaigns, in which the claims against the enemy are backed by scientific evidence, should take advantage of the fact that repetition breeds familiarity.

The problem is that a negative ad that is confusing, or whose target is ambiguous, may be worse than no ad at all. I've seen some car commercials that attempted to point out the shortcomings of their competitor but were so poorly done that at the end of them I couldn't remember which of the two cars they were trying to sell. I'm concerned that the Sunny Side of truth ads may turn out to be ineffective for this exact reason. The worst-case scenario is that kids go away from them remembering that there is a magical amount of nicotine in cigarettes. More likely, the context of the message will be forgotten and they'll just be left with an irritating song in their heads. As much as I appreciate the novel approach that these commercials take, the satire behind cartoons and songs may not be nearly as transparent as the image of drugs turning your brain into a fried egg.

The (Un)bearable Lightness of Memory

Nicole Dudukovic, Ph.D. — Mon, 05 May 2008 06:57:40 +0000

Some memories are better off forgotten. Like your ex-boyfriend's phone number or the reason why you dated your ex-boyfriend in the first place. If forgetting can be a blessing, why do we more often think of it as a curse?

Many of us have the tendency to focus on what's absent in our lives rather than what's present, and memory is no exception. We notice the time our spouse/child/roommate forgot to take out the trash rather than the countless times they remembered to do the dishes. We agonize over the bills we forgot to pay rather than praising ourselves for the errands we did remember to run. I know many people who wish their memories were better, but I've yet to meet someone who wishes his memory was worse.

The latest edition of Wired magazine features ways to increase your brainpower, including improving your memory. One article highlights Piotr Wozniak, a man so obsessed with perfecting his memory that he has created a computer program called SuperMemo that calculates the ideal time to practice remembering every piece of information he wants to learn. His life is extremely regimented, with the computer dictating exactly when and what he studies. As you might imagine, all of this comes at a cost to his social life. Although he's married, it's unlikely you'd see him out at a party.

As much as most of us complain about forgetting, the idea of being slave to a computer program doesn't sound appealing, and we would never consider such an extreme approach to improving our memories. So why is forgetting still seen as the bad guy?

Consider the idea that forgetting liberates us. When I tried to recall an embarrassing memory to use in this blog, I drew a blank, evidence in itself of the sweet bliss of forgetfulness. Our ability to forget eliminates distractions that might otherwise dominate our thinking and allows us to focus on present and future events. Yet, these present events may one day be forgotten as well. Does forgetting an event render it meaningless? You could argue that memories that are forgotten might as well have not happened at all, that forgetting frees us from the past.

Maybe it is this freedom that we all fear. You only have to spend time with an elderly relative or a friend with Alzheimer's Disease to see that memory loss equals identity loss. By losing your memory, you lose your sense of purpose in life. For this reason, we will likely continue to cling to our memories, despite their lightness, and often fail to appreciate how bearable forgetting can be.

Eat Blueberries, Remember More?

Nicole Dudukovic, Ph.D. — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 01:34:44 +0000

Looking for any easy way to improve your memory? Try eating more blueberries or other "brain foods" believed to be effective at decreasing the forgetfulness that occurs as we age. Stuffing yourself with blueberry smoothies, pies, and cobblers could be the key to a better memory.

Before you go running to the grocery store, you might want to think about how well easy solutions have worked for another problem that plagues many Americans: obesity. Improving your memory is a lot like losing weight. There are a few basic rules to follow. To lose weight you need to eat less and exercise more. To improve your memory you need to pay attention, think deeply about the information you want to remember, form associations between concepts stored in memory, use visual imagery, and practice, practice, practice. Sounds pretty simple. So why are we all still looking for a magical solution, a pill to take or a food to eat, that will immediately make us thin and beautiful with the mind of a memory champion?

When it comes down to it, the main problem our memories and our waistlines face may be our own laziness. I don't doubt that there are foods that may contribute to memory improvements or a revved up metabolism, but I don't think a complex problem like memory loss or obesity has such a simple solution. Memory enhancers may prove to be beneficial for people with severe memory impairments, but like other psychoactive pills, they would work best in concert with behavioral changes. For those of us who only have mild memory frustrations or a few pounds to lose, we might be better off taking the time and energy to try to tackle the problem ourselves rather than waiting around to see what food or pill scientists will be touting next.

Unfortunately, this strategy really takes the fun out of my next blueberry muffin.