Easter's greatest trick is not that a body was resuscitated. Heck, any old medicine man can perform that trick, and they do in hospitals every day around the world. No, the trick at Easter is that this Jesus was so special that, even after all these years, we still remember him.
The more complex a task was, the more strongly the bilingual kids out-scored their monolingual counterparts.
Will the same folks who are fascinated by super memory heroes start on their own quest to rev up their recall, keeping their keys in better check and getting names the first time around?
Sometimes Alzheimer's patients who can't even recall whether they had lunch -- let alone what they ate -- can remember the melodies of songs from their youth and young adult years. Anyone who has observed a sing-along in a nursing home has seen this.
This past weekend I had the unique opportunity to participate in the annual USA Memory Championship.
What's going on in all of these cases, and how can our understanding of these extremes of human memory inform the function of memory in all of us?
The more vivid and concrete an image is the more likely it is to stick in the mind. Elaboration is the key to the memory palace. Some people's memory palaces are rather barren, however. Notably, people who suffer from serious depression.
Jussi Hovenen sings songs that few people care to hear nowadays. He's the last rune singer in Finland -- the only living man who can still sing most of his ancestors' great ballads and epics from memory.
Here's the thing: Despite being U.S. memory champions, Kolli, Dellis, and I occasionally misplace our car keys, just like everyone else. We don't actually have great memories.
You probably think that memory is the exact opposite of creativity. After all, the things you memorize already exist, they're not new. And creativity is all about a new idea that didn't exist before... right?
Why should we when we can outsource it to our cell phones? Our brains, honed to remember key people in our lives, cannot possibly remember the myriad numbers of celebrities and acquaintances we meet, which is why we call in Google.
Losing your memory is sort of like gaining weight; you don't quite know how it happened but one day your zipper won't quite zip. And the same thing happens mentally.
The El Greco fallacy is a peculiar kind of illogical thinking, which is highly intuitive but obviously wrong once it's illuminated. It may be keeping alive one of the most popular -- but questionable -- ideas now current in the field of human perception.
A good portion of my day is spent talking with women my age. More often than not, we are reaching for the title of that book we loved or fumbling for the name of that actor who co-starred in that movie with what's-her-face.
Since computers have evolved from room-sized mainframes into menageries of smart phones and tablets and office desktop machines, interoperability has become a watchword for forward-thinking communications experts.
you don't need any "miracle" supplements or expensive brain-training games to keep your mind sharp. All it takes is a set of healthy habits.
It is interesting to note that Mitra's TEDTalk is titled, "The Future of Learning" rather than "Education." This distinction seems like the heart of the issue, not only for self-organized learning environment, but more widely.
Why isn't memory a better system, more efficient and organized, if remembering is so crucial to daily functioning and future planning? Why do we remember so many trivial and irrelevant things?
A bat and a ball cost $1.10 in total. The bat costs $1.00 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost? Your answer to this question will help me guess whether you believe in God.
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