Short on Short-Term, Long on Long-Term
May 14th 2008 09:14 pm
I’m 64 years old now, and I’m beginning to have some minor problems with short-term memory loss.
Actually, memory of events has never been my strong suit. I know all the words to all the songs from The Mikado and The King and I and Oklahoma! I can recite Dr. Seuss’s The Sneetches, the whole thing, word-perfectly, but I have to stop and think about what I had for lunch yesterday. I suspect that I’ve always been this way; but, frankly, I don’t remember.
Here’s my question: If I can’t remember what I had for lunch yesterday, will I be able to retrieve that information when I’m 84? In 20 years, yesterday’s lunch will be long-term memory. Will I get that information back? Or is it gone forever because I don’t have it readily available today? Does anybody know?
Cameron responded on 25 May 2008 at 1:41 am #
When I ponder my long term memories, many of them are things that I doubt I remembered the next day (yesterday’s lunch). Obviously there are some traumatic experiences that I recall distinctly and could recalled recently after they occurred. The are also stupidly boring and mundane things in my long term memory too…things I can’t imagine having been able to recall the next day or two after the occurred.
Memory is such a strange thing. What biologically decides what sticks around for recollection decades later and what evaporates minutes later? I’ve always kind of thought that many long term memories are actually memories of memories. It’s as though you remember remembering something in the spirit of hearsay.
Incidentally, I am in the prime of my youth and can’t remember what I had for dinner yesterday. I really can’t.
Sharon responded on 27 May 2008 at 2:57 pm #
A variation of what you’re saying is what I think of as “implanted memories.” For example, I clearly remember my mother, when I was 7 or 8, telling neighbors about something that had happened to me when I was 4. Now, I think I can remember the incident from when I was 4. However, since I can remember almost nothing else from that time, I suspect that hearing my mother talk about it created a implanted memory.
Being emotionally involved in an incident fixes it in our memories, too. As you mentioned, trauma stays with us. I remember stepping on the scorpion barefoot, even though I was very young.
But what we had for dinner 2 days ago doesn’t involve much emotion.