Blog Post #9

Memory is very important because it becomes a defining part of who we are. We remember how our actions were accepted and learn how to behave through others’ reactions. If we don’t remember, then we can’t determine how appropriate our behavior is. Our memory helps us understand how we feel about other people. Our encounters with other people build our feelings toward them. Each encounter strengthens our feelings for love, hate, fear, sadness, etc. If we can’t remember each encounter and build upon the previous encounters, then we cannot develop any type of relationship or determine how we can act around them. With no memory, we wouldn’t understand our world and wouldn’t know how to interact in it. We wouldn’t know sadness, sorrow, or happiness because we would not have any memory of what would trigger such emotion. For example, if someone you cared about died, you would not feel sad because you would not remember your relationship and times you’ve shared with them. On the other hand, you could experience excitement, like sledding down a hill for the first time. It would be the first time every time that you’ve done it, so you would feel the same thrill each time.

In the Clive Wearing situation, Clive really is no one to be described. He has no background knowledge to develop a character. He essentially is a new person each day. Clive’s wife is handling his situation with hope and faith. She believes he does remember in his own way and is optimistic that his condition will improve. In my opinion, she handles the situation really well. She keeps a positive attitude and does not show any sad emotions even if deep down she is feeling sad. She has a lot of guts to be able to handle the situation like that. If I was in her shoes, I would be very devastated. I don’t know if I would be able to handle the pressure of my loved one not remembering the times we’ve shared. It would be very frustrated to put up with because it gets aggravating for when someone doesn’t remember something, when you know it happened and you have the memory in your head.

This gives me a new appreciation of my own memory. It is something we take for granted and never imagine losing. Even though it gets frustrating to deal with bad situations, I know that I learn from them and can better decisions in the future. It would be hard for others around me to deal with. Before this video, I didn’t know there was such a condition and that people were living with it each day.

I never thought about how memory worked before. All I knew is that I didn’t have very good memory. However, I know that I have much more memory stored in my brain than I realize. I know that my brain works to piece my memory together and is able to pull out pieces of information that my brain has stored during times of need. Now that I read this chapter, I notice episodes of people having memory loss. For example, my cousin repeats the same thing to me several times and doesn’t realize he has told me if before. I now see my own memory as bits of data stored in a computer. It is an extremely organized mechanism. Most of the time I do trust my own memories. I realize though that they maybe altered, or influenced by other events around them. For example, if I hear a story from different people telling me it, I will take pieces of each story and create my own story even if it is not how the first story was. Another example is the Human Memory: Recall activity that I took. In this activity, you were supposed to listen to person reading off a bunch of words. After they have been said, you were supposed to write down as many words as you could. I thought this was very interesting. Even though I heard the words called, I forgot to write them down on my paper. There were also a few words I wrote that I heard wrong. During the reading of words, I made the connection that some of the words were fruits, directional terms, names, or money forms. I wrote down a wrong answer even though it associated with the type. For example, I wrote down dime because it associated with currency, but it was not said out loud. I also used things that resembled my life to remember the words. For example, my favorite color is red and they listed it so that is why I remembered it. This whole process demonstrates that our memory can be forgetful even if you are trying hard to focus and remember something.

One thing I have learned in this section is that there are different processing methods to form memories. There are visual, acoustic, and semantic encoding methods. In visual, we can remember things easier if we see them. Acoustically we understand better, if we hear them in rhyme or music. Semantic encoding is the understanding of what we hear. This is important to me because I personally can learn better from visuals than actually hearing things. This can help me learn through my strengths and use them to get a deeper understanding so that my semantic memory helps me understand and becomes embedded in me. I know that understanding something will help me remember better than just doing work to get it done without understanding it.