A Note from A Leading Memory Scientist: Forget It

Prof. Yadin Dudai from the Weizman Institute in Israel breaks the boundaries of memory. He has already succeeded in erasing memories and can play around with the emotions they evoke. He examines children and knows they remember things differently to their parents. He looks at his computer and knows that one day he will able to connect it to his brain and download his memories. For the past is merely raw material. The key destination of our memory is actually in the future.

Is Memory the peak of brain activity?
All of the main brain activities involve memory. From writing poetry to watching a movie, falling in love or enjoying a walk. I think one of the implications of memory – being able to imagine – is the peak of brain activity.

“It is not necessarily a good thing to enhance memory. People who suffer from over-remembering find it hard to generalize. Nature makes us forget certain details so we can see the wood from the trees.”
Dudai admits that “most people who had their memory injured would be happy to improve it, but the laboratory currently focuses on memory-erasing. “We are interested in erasing emotionally painful memories which come up in cases of post-trauma (abuse, sexual assault, accident, war). These memories come up so powerfully, they make the person relive the experience so intensely, that it feels like going back to the primal experience.

“To be more accurate, we are not trying to erase the memory, but the emotion that accompanies it. I would like to remove the terror of a war victim every time they hear a door slammed, without erasing the memory of the combat. Since the discovery we have moved forward in understanding the mechanism and sensitivity of the memorial system.

“I believe that in the future our brains will interface directly with information technologies. It is already happening to a certain extent – when you are using a smart phone with an enhanced reality application. The brain is not directly connected to the system but apparently that is soon to come.”

Will it be like “The Matrix”, we can stop learning and simply download all the information into our brain?
“I do not think that will be possible, but I do believe in memorizing. Learning requires an information basis. It can change our learning process – schools will have to explain how use information and how to raise it to the surface, rather than teaching it.”

Computers make us remember more and less
“Technology is not only the future of memory. It also changes it significantly in the present. That is mainly relevant to working memory – a part of short-term memory enabling us to perform tasks Ad hoc. Working memory is comprised of a limited number of information units, therefore if you are distracted in the middle of performing a task, your performance will be compromised.”

How does multitasking affect working memory?
“Today there is no point in remembering phone numbers, addresses and dates. How will that affect us? I think some of our memory systems will experience less workload and others will have to face more demands. The workload of factual memory, for example, has indeed lessened as we Google the facts we once had to remember. However, the need to quickly adapt to procedures increased the workload on automatic memory – which enables us to perform tasks without thinking. If I, for instance, come into a new work place, where I have to use a new computer system which I have never worked before, it will put my memory under a lot of strain. Our children must be superb in learning and quickly implementing procedures of that kind. Who ever claims that computers are destroying our kids’ brains are mistaken. The computer simply gives them a work environment where demands of the neuro-system and cognition are different. They are less needed to know facts, but to quickly trace them and adapt to new work procedures which are constantly updated.

Working memory also suffers a lot of pressure nowadays. We become excellent in multi-tasking, especially children. It is wrong to think that is creates Attention Disorders. They just use their system’s capacity to do many things simultaneously, which put a lot of strain on working memory.”

They say Napoleon could perform seven tasks at once and that it indicates genius. Are we becoming smarter thanks to multi-tasking?
“I would say we are becoming more skilled. Assuming you succeed in performing a task, multi-tasking helps accomplishing assignments demanded by modern society. Even the most trivial demands have changed: Reading the signs in a train station while speaking on the phone is something people were not faced with 50 years ago.”

What is the capacity of human memory?
“It is very hard to evaluate. There are numerous studies and a lot of controversy about it. Estimations vary from a few thousands memory items to a few millions. Apparently experiential recollection is much smaller than we imagine, and it consists of only few thousands of experiences. The rest of the information is completed by us.”