Is Human Memory Selective?

[cacian]

Do we chose to subconsciously to remember things?
In other words is our brain such that it does 'store things' because at one moment in time we are going to need to use it?

or

Is our brain adaptable to memorise anything and everything we challenge it to remember regardless on wether it is useful or not?

An example
Mental Arithmetic
Remembering numbers and how they function in real life.
Our memory picks up on adding for example quickly it because of the concept of 'Money'.
But, there is always a but,
One is not so quick at picking up the concept of 'dividing' numbers because it is not something we use everyday when it comes to spending money.

[BookBeauty]

Well, from my scant memory(bahaha) of psychology classes, I retained that we have different categorical ways in which our memories work, at least upon our human understanding of the definition. Basically, we have long term memory, which is how our brain perceives important or significant information that must be remembered. Riding a bike, writing, these skills are long term based memories that we don't forget because they were meaningful, or practiced over and over.

There is short term memory, items of insignificance, at least to our brains, or, indeed, our subconscious, that they do not become stored. This could be as simple as what we ate for breakfast three days ago, to as complex as a phrase we read in a book.

Then there is the theory that our brains compile information, store things away, and throw unimportant things away while we sleep.

Although much of what we do does not seem to have anything to do with control, it would surprise you how much you can remember if you really let yourself be mindful of your thoughts and actions for a lengthy period of time. Truly, the human brain is a powerful thing, and upon intent, we can remember or forget anything.

I truly believe that as long as we practice using our memories and mindful skills, our intelligence and usefulness will continually improve, even as we age.

[Kingbob]

Our memory is not selective，but our mind controls it. For example，if we want to forget something，the more we do，the more impressive we become.

[cacian]

Well, from my scant memory(bahaha) of psychology classes, I retained that we have different categorical ways in which our memories work, at least upon our human understanding of the definition. Basically, we have long term memory, which is how our brain perceives important or significant information that must be remembered.

Interesting about the importance of remembering something, but how does the brain know it is important?



Riding a bike, writing, these skills are long term based memories that we don't forget because they were meaningful, or practiced over and over.
I wonder if this means that both our body language and memory are connected so that once you learn to ride a bike then you won't forget.
Something to do with brain coordination of body and mind?


There is short term memory, items of insignificance, at least to our brains, or, indeed, our subconscious, that they do not become stored. This could be as simple as what we ate for breakfast three days ago, to as complex as a phrase we read in a book.
I am not convinced about short term memory because once you have seen something it is stored, like if you take a picture you get a negative with it.
It all depends on whether gets the opportunity to reignite and remember.
They do say memor is triggered by things and actions.

Then there is the theory that our brains compile information, store things away, and throw unimportant things away while we sleep.

Although much of what we do does not seem to have anything to do with control, it would surprise you how much you can remember if you really let yourself be mindful of your thoughts and actions for a lengthy period of time. Truly, the human brain is a powerful thing, and upon intent, we can remember or forget anything.

I truly believe that as long as we practice using our memories and mindful skills, our intelligence and usefulness will continually improve, even as we age.

I agree memory is linked to language and intelligence is a lot with how our memory works.

[BookBeauty]

Interesting about the importance of remembering something, but how does the brain know it is important?

It depends upon the individual, generally. Our experiences shape the importance of events throughout life.


I am not convinced about short term memory because once you have seen something it is stored, like if you take a picture you get a negative with it.

This has a lot to do with our subconscious memory, which is an entirely different ballgame, and one I failed to mention. Short term, and long term memories are recalled, while subconscious memories may not necessarily be recalled consciously.

However, I think that it's more than possible for our minds to 'blank out' certain details. Everyone has their own perception, and much of our memories are simply filled in and improvised automatically when the details are fuzzy.

For example, when a police officer has 10 witnesses to a theft, and each one sees that the perpetrator had a different coloured shirt, and was standing in a certain place. Many would feel adamant that what they saw was truth, when truly, it was their own personal truth, and not necessarily reliable, or exact. :D

[Patrick_Bateman]

Memory is about repetition and I think we can recall anything from our STM and LTM. For example with being able to recall certain individuals' phone numbers. (Not so relevant today with modern technology and mobile phones) It used to be that you would dial a number every time that you wanted to contact someone. The repetition of the dialling embedded the numbers and their order in your memeory so that you eventually no longer need to look through your phone book.

STM and LTM are memory you can 'train' but, like another poster stated, unconscious memory is something different altogether.

On that particular point I believe unconscious memory is selective. It has to be since it cannot be recalled consciously. Unconscious memory is dependent upon experiences and is not something you can influence (at least not consciously.) Essentially the unconscious memory free license to absorb the information it wants.

[cacian]

Memory is about repetition and I think we can recall anything from our STM and LTM. For example with being able to recall certain individuals' phone numbers. (Not so relevant today with modern technology and mobile phones) It used to be that you would dial a number every time that you wanted to contact someone. The repetition of the dialling embedded the numbers and their order in your memeory so that you eventually no longer need to look through your phone book.
True to a certain extent but one must not forget one is using one's hands to remember.
As one dials a number one is using eyesight to reinforce memory and process numbers.
It would be different if one is to memorise numbers or names without puttting a figure to them or using other means of memorisation.
It is a totally different ball game.

STM and LTM are memory you can 'train' but, like another poster stated, unconscious memory is something different altogether.
For memory to be a memory at all it has to be active.
Unconscious memory is void to me.
It is a bit like someone being unconscious they are not using their senses and therefore cannot intervene in acts nor communicate and so are unable to process the action of remembering.
Unconscious memory is not memory.
Well at least that is what I think.

On that particular point I believe unconscious memory is selective. It has to be since it cannot be recalled consciously. Unconscious memory is dependent upon experiences and is not something you can influence (at least not consciously.) Essentially the unconscious memory free license to absorb the information it wants.[/QUOTE]
Well memory can be compared to a computer memory.
One tells it the mind/computer to remember for it to be saved.
How can something unconscious activate the energy of memory?
I do not get it.

[OrphanPip]

Memory is a weird thing. At a physiological level it seems to have to do with a protein mediated remodelling of synapses, and it's not well understood. One thing we can be sure of though, is that memory does not have to do entirely with experience. It has been shown that we can remember things we didn't experience. One example of this seems to be early child hood memories, many people feel like they can remember experiences from the uterus to 1 year old. However, children at that age do not form conscious memories, they certainly learn things (like language and mechanical skills) but they don't remember experiences. That doesn't stop adults from feeling like they remember things from those periods.

There are other weird things like recognition, which is part of memory, that can be effected by brain trauma. People can lose the ability to feel familiarity, the sense that someone is a family member or a close friend, despite objectively recognizing them as such.

The whole point of my post, I guess, is that memory involves several complex brain functions, and it is still poorly understood.