Q. i heard that there is work going on to increase the amount of short term memory that is retained in long term memory. Is this a good thing? I would like to forget my past traumas and painful experiences. Can i do it w/o using some of the powerful drugs that are around today?
A. One of the most important things that our brain does is to "forget". We'd soon be overwhelmed if we didn't have the ability to forget or to not even remember in the first place, most of what we are bombarded with, every day.
A "cautionary tale", is the true story of Solomon Shereshevsky, a Russian journalist and mnemonist, or someone who can remember things really, really well. He met the famous neuropsychologist, Alexander Luria, who later studied and wrote a book about him, while attending a work meeting. Shereshevsky had been reprimanded for not taking any notes (this was 1920 in the USSR). In defense, Shereshevsky then recited the entire speech word-by-word.
Just for clarification, "photographic memory", (precise visual recall w/control) is different from "eiditic memory" (perfect recall of all sensory inputs w/o control). Folk w/eiditic memory have great difficulty functioning due to total overload.
The eiditic Shereshevsky also had five-fold synesthesia - a stimuli in one sense produced a reaction in the other senses. Music produced color, touch produced taste, etc.; this was an great aid in remembering things. He may have also used a famous mnemonic technique - the "Method of loci", which associates items to be remembered w/physical locations, like places in a house or room.
Shereshevsky, who demonstrated only average intelligence, was overwhelmed by all of these memories. At one point he said "This is too much. Each word calls up images; they collide with one another, and the result is chaos. I can't make anything out of this." He was unable to do a "normal" job, so became a professional mnemonist.
Cognitive neuroscientists at places like Stanford and Cambridge are now understanding much of the neural circuitry which creates the ability to "willfully" forget. Much of this work focuses on controlling unwanted memories so that strong self-referential thoughts will not arise with subsequent excessive "rumination" which leads to depression.
As we saw in a previous blogpost, "nondual awakening and autism...the battle of the "blah, blah" and "tasking" networks", if one is unable to suppress the activity of the "blah, blah" default mode network (DMN), it can overwhelm the "tasking" network (TCN), so that tasking is highly compromised, as Shereshevsky found.
At left, accuracy and reaction time degraded as the DMN became "dominant" over the TCN. At right, as the TCN became stronger relative to the DMN, accuracy and reaction time improved. This network "battle" has been identified as a possible cause of ADHD and some autism spectrum disorders.
As we meditate for longer times, as discussed in "Folk who meditate decrease mind wandering", the DMN is deactivated, not only during meditation, but after meditation. There is even a "monitoring and control" network generated, apparently to ensure that the DMN remained suppressed/deactivated.
The centers creating this "suppression" network are the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and the lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC). The LPFC is described as "the highest cortical area responsible for motor planning, organization and regulation".
Robert J. Bjork at UCLA, who runs the eponymous (today's new word) "Bjork Learning and Forgetting Lab" has a host of publications. He basically created this area of research with the discovery in 1970 that instructions to forget some learned items could enhance memory for others. Forgetting was found to be the basis of a superior intellect, not a demonstration of an inferior one. Forgetting prevents thoughts no longer needed from interfering with the handling of associated, currently needed, information.
Bjork stated that "When people voice complaints about their memory, they invariably assume that the problem is one of insufficient retention of information. However, the problem may be at least partly a matter of insufficient or inefficient forgetting."
In the 90's, Bjork, his wife and a grad student, Michael Anderson, identified this phenomenon of "retrieval-induced forgetting". This is deliberately revisiting certain stored information to impede later recall of material very similar to it. This reduces the strength of memories that are now less important, and which are most likely to interfere with ones that are now more important.
The centers believed to be responsible for this memory suppression are in the PFC. This is a passive inhibition of unwanted memories which occurs out of our conscious awareness and control.
However, Michael Anderson wondered if it was possible to "will ourselves to forget"? Could we deliberately suppress unwanted memories? Through clever work on word pairs, Anderson, now at Cambridge's Memory Control Lab (he's done well), demonstrated that active suppression does work. Anderson's work has been widely covered in mainstream media and scientific press.
Anderson, et al. found that the more times subjects consciously tried to block the memory of a word pair, the weaker that memory was. The more they tried to forget, the more they did. Conversely, if it was recited, rather than suppressed, recollection improved.
Anderson and others demonstrated that this memory suppression was associated with increased activity in the PFC, along with decreased activity in the hippocampus (responsible for binding components of memory together and reactivating it) and the amygdala (key center for processing emotions).
Interestingly, actively using "thought substitution" by replacing the memory you don't want with another one, which is popular in some circles, does not work nearly as well as suppression.
The bad news is that different folk have different abilities to actively suppress memories. Depressed folk and those with ADHD had the most trouble suppressing memories and dwelled the most on unwanted thoughts; this echoes the DMN/TCN work discussed above.
Folk with excellent "executive function", i.e. a high-functioning PFC, and who could remember the most words, were the best "forgetters". As Anderson said "Keeping things in mind is related to keeping things out of mind".
This ability to forget follows the arc of our lives; memory suppression improves between 8 and 12 reaching that of young adults. Later in life, forgetting becomes more difficult. That may be why young kids and older adults have problems remembering, and recovering from the difficulties of life.
IME, one of the most effective active-suppression techniques is just to say, internally, "Cancel, cancel, cancel", or "Delete, delete, delete". Some attribute this to the Silva Method for "Mental Housecleaning". It has become almost "urban slang". It does suppress memories that you just can't handle any other way, right now. It follows directly from Anderson's work.
The post "Painful Memories - Meditative Approaches and Neuroscience" discusses meditative and pharmaceutical approaches to releasing "bad" memories. Richard Miller's Yoga Nidra in "Lying-down meditation for nondual, self-inquiry...really?" describes a meditative approach w/much "real world" validation to deal with PTSD and other "must forget" memories.
There is much on "forgetting" in the Jan/Feb 2012 Scientific American Mind, including a detailed piece on pharma approaches, "Totaling Recall" (a little scary). IMHO, as a society, we go to pharma for the cure when there are often other effective approaches that don't bring w/them what pharma often does.
Suppression doesn't ultimately result in surrender, letting go, and persistent nonduality, freedom and blissful stillness. Another approach is ultimately necessary to remove whatever residue remains after "suppression".
As discussed in "Premature aging caused by mind wandering?", mindfulness meditation inhibits mind wandering and decreases telomere length, an indicator of aging. The meditation techniques in "Folks who meditate decrease mind wandering", and "What is the 'The Direct Path' to nondual awakening? What is self-inquiry?" are focused on deactivating the DMN meditatively as a "final" approach.
 |
| Solomon Shereshevsky |
A "cautionary tale", is the true story of Solomon Shereshevsky, a Russian journalist and mnemonist, or someone who can remember things really, really well. He met the famous neuropsychologist, Alexander Luria, who later studied and wrote a book about him, while attending a work meeting. Shereshevsky had been reprimanded for not taking any notes (this was 1920 in the USSR). In defense, Shereshevsky then recited the entire speech word-by-word.
Just for clarification, "photographic memory", (precise visual recall w/control) is different from "eiditic memory" (perfect recall of all sensory inputs w/o control). Folk w/eiditic memory have great difficulty functioning due to total overload.
The eiditic Shereshevsky also had five-fold synesthesia - a stimuli in one sense produced a reaction in the other senses. Music produced color, touch produced taste, etc.; this was an great aid in remembering things. He may have also used a famous mnemonic technique - the "Method of loci", which associates items to be remembered w/physical locations, like places in a house or room.
Shereshevsky, who demonstrated only average intelligence, was overwhelmed by all of these memories. At one point he said "This is too much. Each word calls up images; they collide with one another, and the result is chaos. I can't make anything out of this." He was unable to do a "normal" job, so became a professional mnemonist.
Cognitive neuroscientists at places like Stanford and Cambridge are now understanding much of the neural circuitry which creates the ability to "willfully" forget. Much of this work focuses on controlling unwanted memories so that strong self-referential thoughts will not arise with subsequent excessive "rumination" which leads to depression.
 |
| Default Mode Network |
 |
| Task Control Network |
As we saw in a previous blogpost, "nondual awakening and autism...the battle of the "blah, blah" and "tasking" networks", if one is unable to suppress the activity of the "blah, blah" default mode network (DMN), it can overwhelm the "tasking" network (TCN), so that tasking is highly compromised, as Shereshevsky found.
At left, accuracy and reaction time degraded as the DMN became "dominant" over the TCN. At right, as the TCN became stronger relative to the DMN, accuracy and reaction time improved. This network "battle" has been identified as a possible cause of ADHD and some autism spectrum disorders.
As we meditate for longer times, as discussed in "Folk who meditate decrease mind wandering", the DMN is deactivated, not only during meditation, but after meditation. There is even a "monitoring and control" network generated, apparently to ensure that the DMN remained suppressed/deactivated.
The centers creating this "suppression" network are the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and the lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC). The LPFC is described as "the highest cortical area responsible for motor planning, organization and regulation".
 |
| Prof. Robert Bjork UCLA |
Robert J. Bjork at UCLA, who runs the eponymous (today's new word) "Bjork Learning and Forgetting Lab" has a host of publications. He basically created this area of research with the discovery in 1970 that instructions to forget some learned items could enhance memory for others. Forgetting was found to be the basis of a superior intellect, not a demonstration of an inferior one. Forgetting prevents thoughts no longer needed from interfering with the handling of associated, currently needed, information.
Bjork stated that "When people voice complaints about their memory, they invariably assume that the problem is one of insufficient retention of information. However, the problem may be at least partly a matter of insufficient or inefficient forgetting."
 |
| The Other Bjork Neuroscientist Not |
The centers believed to be responsible for this memory suppression are in the PFC. This is a passive inhibition of unwanted memories which occurs out of our conscious awareness and control.
However, Michael Anderson wondered if it was possible to "will ourselves to forget"? Could we deliberately suppress unwanted memories? Through clever work on word pairs, Anderson, now at Cambridge's Memory Control Lab (he's done well), demonstrated that active suppression does work. Anderson's work has been widely covered in mainstream media and scientific press.
Anderson, et al. found that the more times subjects consciously tried to block the memory of a word pair, the weaker that memory was. The more they tried to forget, the more they did. Conversely, if it was recited, rather than suppressed, recollection improved.
 |
| Mike Anderson Cambridge |
Interestingly, actively using "thought substitution" by replacing the memory you don't want with another one, which is popular in some circles, does not work nearly as well as suppression.
The bad news is that different folk have different abilities to actively suppress memories. Depressed folk and those with ADHD had the most trouble suppressing memories and dwelled the most on unwanted thoughts; this echoes the DMN/TCN work discussed above.
Folk with excellent "executive function", i.e. a high-functioning PFC, and who could remember the most words, were the best "forgetters". As Anderson said "Keeping things in mind is related to keeping things out of mind".
This ability to forget follows the arc of our lives; memory suppression improves between 8 and 12 reaching that of young adults. Later in life, forgetting becomes more difficult. That may be why young kids and older adults have problems remembering, and recovering from the difficulties of life.
IME, one of the most effective active-suppression techniques is just to say, internally, "Cancel, cancel, cancel", or "Delete, delete, delete". Some attribute this to the Silva Method for "Mental Housecleaning". It has become almost "urban slang". It does suppress memories that you just can't handle any other way, right now. It follows directly from Anderson's work.
The post "Painful Memories - Meditative Approaches and Neuroscience" discusses meditative and pharmaceutical approaches to releasing "bad" memories. Richard Miller's Yoga Nidra in "Lying-down meditation for nondual, self-inquiry...really?" describes a meditative approach w/much "real world" validation to deal with PTSD and other "must forget" memories.
There is much on "forgetting" in the Jan/Feb 2012 Scientific American Mind, including a detailed piece on pharma approaches, "Totaling Recall" (a little scary). IMHO, as a society, we go to pharma for the cure when there are often other effective approaches that don't bring w/them what pharma often does.
Suppression doesn't ultimately result in surrender, letting go, and persistent nonduality, freedom and blissful stillness. Another approach is ultimately necessary to remove whatever residue remains after "suppression".
As discussed in "Premature aging caused by mind wandering?", mindfulness meditation inhibits mind wandering and decreases telomere length, an indicator of aging. The meditation techniques in "Folks who meditate decrease mind wandering", and "What is the 'The Direct Path' to nondual awakening? What is self-inquiry?" are focused on deactivating the DMN meditatively as a "final" approach.
I wonder if you could reduce mental "singing in your head" with the cancel cancel technique. I really like music and playing guitar but a lot of times I find that I have songs playing in my head and that its actually taking away the stillness that could otherwise be there...I also wonder if different peple have different levels of songs playing in their heads and if that could actually have an impact on their abillity to concentrate or be still.
ReplyDeleteHi Iftah,
ReplyDeleteThe best way to find out if "cancel, cancel, cancel" will work to reduce the "singing in your head" is to do it. you might also try chanting as it uses many of the same circuits in the brain. Sometimes asking, "To whom does this singing manifest?" can also work.
Yes, if you had a song "singing in your head", that would affect your ability to concentrate, just like self-referential narrative of any kind. Both are repetitive, and continuous, so virtually any of the self-inquiry techniques or affirmations should be helpful.
The recent blogpost on "Do sex, drugs, competition and meditation use the same 'pleasure' circuit?" discussed how these repetitive patterns become neurochemically-reinforced by dopamine and internally-generated opiods as pleasure is derived from their repetition. Substitute a better pleasure like nondual meditation and it should win out.
stillness
gary