By Gary Stix Lawyers and philosophers have already begun debating the ethical implications of an incipient future in which a memory is simply overwritten as if it were a digital file destined for the trash icon on your desktop. Biologists who still work with mice and other living things that don’t function like four-legged flash drives are often left to simply roll their eyes. On Friday, SUNY Downstate’s Symposium on Neuroethics of Memory illustrated the lingering disparity between the two cultures, as C.P. Snow might have phrased it. David Wasserman, the director of research at the Center for Ethics at Yeshiva University, raised the issue of when it might be appropriate to implant a “prosthetic” memory to enhance the verisimilitude in recalling a grandparent whose memory had faded into near oblivion. After hearing this, David Glanzman, a researcher at UCLA who works on testing whether old memories can be damped down in sea slugs, pointed out a couple of oft-cited figures: the human brain has 100 billion neurons, each of which typically extends 10,000 connections to other neurons. Identifying the location of a specific memory to delete would be an overwhelming challenge. Integrating a new memory of grandma into this dense web of neural wiring would be a graduate project for the year 2250 or beyond. “It’s hard for me to understand how you’d add specific memories,” Glanzman commented. “That seems to me impossibly hard.” Downstate had good reason to consider organizing such a conference, however. One researcher there, Todd Sacktor, has done pioneering studies of a biomolecule known as PKMzeta, which serves as a kind of memory preservative. Once a memory is formed, PKMzeta ensures that it persists without degradation over the long haul. © 2011 Scientific American,

Related chapters from BP6e: Chapter 17: Learning and Memory
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 13: Memory, Learning, and Development
Link ID: 16163 - Posted: 12.19.2011

By Charles B. Brenner and Jeffrey M. Zacks The French poet Paul Valéry once said, “The purpose of psychology is to give us a completely different idea of the things we know best.” In that spirit, consider a situation many of us will find we know too well: You're sitting at your desk in your office at home. Digging for something under a stack of papers, you find a dirty coffee mug that’s been there so long it’s eligible for carbon dating. Better wash it. You pick up the mug, walk out the door of your office, and head toward the kitchen. By the time you get to the kitchen, though, you've forgotten why you stood up in the first place, and you wander back to your office, feeling a little confused—until you look down and see the cup. So there's the thing we know best: The common and annoying experience of arriving somewhere only to realize you've forgotten what you went there to do. We all know why such forgetting happens: we didn’t pay enough attention, or too much time passed, or it just wasn’t important enough. But a “completely different” idea comes from a team of researchers at the University of Notre Dame. The first part of their paper’s title sums it up: “Walking through doorways causes forgetting.” Gabriel Radvansky, Sabine Krawietz and Andrea Tamplin seated participants in front of a computer screen running a video game in which they could move around using the arrow keys. In the game, they would walk up to a table with a colored geometric solid sitting on it. Their task was to pick up the object and take it to another table, where they would put the object down and pick up a new one. Whichever object they were currently carrying was invisible to them, as if it were in a virtual backpack. © 2011 Scientific American,

Related chapters from BP6e: Chapter 17: Learning and Memory
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 13: Memory, Learning, and Development
Link ID: 16154 - Posted: 12.15.2011

By Sandra Upson If there is one general rule about the limitations of the human mind, it is that we are terrible at multitasking. The old phrase “united we stand, divided we fall” applies equally well to the mechanisms of attention as it does to a patriotic cause. When devoted to a single task, the brain excels; when several goals splinter its focus, errors become unavoidable. But clear exceptions challenge that general rule. Two weeks ago, thousands of computer game enthusiasts descended on a convention center in downtown Providence, Rhode Island, to observe some of these exceptions in action. They were attending the championships of one of the world’s hottest computer games, StarCraft 2. Hands fluttered over keyboards like hummingbirds mid-hover at about fifty computers set up in a dimly lit open hall. Players, many of whom flew in from South Korea to compete, vied to advance through their brackets to the finals. This game is no joke, with the prize money to prove it—$50,000 went to the winner, a 16-year-old Korean who goes by the name Leenock. The agility on display in Providence —as seen in the players’ multitasking, their nonstop decision-making, and the stunning speed of their fingers—has not gone unnoticed by cognitive scientists. For decades, a different game, chess, has held the exalted position of “the drosophila of cognitive science”—the model organism that scientists could poke and prod to learn what makes experts better than the rest of us. StarCraft 2, however, might be emerging as the rhesus macaque: its added complexity may confound researchers initially, but the answers could ultimately be more telling. © 2011 Scientific American,

Related chapters from BP6e: Chapter 18: Attention and Higher Cognition; Chapter 17: Learning and Memory
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 14: Attention and Consciousness; Chapter 13: Memory, Learning, and Development
Link ID: 16101 - Posted: 12.03.2011

By GRETCHEN REYNOLDS To learn more about how exercise affects the brain, scientists in Ireland recently asked a group of sedentary male college students to take part in a memory test followed by strenuous exercise. First, the young men watched a rapid-fire lineup of photos with the faces and names of strangers. After a break, they tried to recall the names they had just seen as the photos again zipped across a computer screen. Afterward, half of the students rode a stationary bicycle, at an increasingly strenuous pace, until they were exhausted. The others sat quietly for 30 minutes. Then both groups took the brain-teaser test again. Notably, the exercised volunteers performed significantly better on the memory test than they had on their first try, while the volunteers who had rested did not improve. Meanwhile, blood samples taken throughout the experiment offered a biological explanation for the boost in memory among the exercisers. Immediately after the strenuous activity, the cyclists had significantly higher levels of a protein known as brain-derived neurotrophic factor, or BDNF, which is known to promote the health of nerve cells. The men who had sat quietly showed no comparable change in BDNF levels. For some time, scientists have believed that BDNF helps explain why mental functioning appears to improve with exercise. However, they haven’t fully understood which parts of the brain are affected or how those effects influence thinking. The Irish study suggests that the increases in BDNF prompted by exercise may play a particular role in improving memory and recall. © 2011 The New York Times Company

Related chapters from BP6e: Chapter 17: Learning and Memory
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 13: Memory, Learning, and Development
Link ID: 16099 - Posted: 12.01.2011

By LAURA BEIL Witness testimony has been the gold standard of the criminal justice system, revered in courtrooms and crime dramas as the evidence that clinches a case. Yet scientists have long cautioned that the brain is not a filing cabinet, storing memories in a way that they can be pulled out, consulted and returned intact. Memory is not so much a record of the past as a rough sketch that can be modified even by the simple act of telling the story. For scientists, memory has been on trial for decades, and courts and public opinion are only now catching up with the verdict. It has come as little surprise to researchers that about 75 percent of DNA-based exonerations have come in cases where witnesses got it wrong. This month, the Supreme Court heard its first oral arguments in more than three decades that question the validity of using witness testimony, in a case involving a New Hampshire man convicted of theft, accused by a woman who saw him from a distance in the dead of night. And in August the New Jersey Supreme Court set new rules to cope with failings in witness accounts, during an appeal by a man picked from a photo lineup, and convicted of manslaughter and weapons possession in a 2003 fatal shooting. Rather than the centerpiece of prosecution, witness testimony should be viewed more like trace evidence, scientists say, with the same fragility and vulnerability to contamination. © 2011 The New York Times Company

Related chapters from BP6e: Chapter 17: Learning and Memory
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 13: Memory, Learning, and Development
Link ID: 16088 - Posted: 11.29.2011

By R. Douglas Fields WASHINGTON, D.C.—One of the most difficult tasks to teach Air Force pilots who guide unmanned attack drones is how to pick out targets in complex radar images. Pilot training is currently one of the biggest bottlenecks in deploying these new, deadly weapons. So Air Force researchers were delighted recently to learn that they could cut training time in half by delivering a mild electrical current (two milliamperes of direct current for 30 minutes) to pilot's brains during training sessions on video simulators. The current is delivered through EEG (electroencephalographic) electrodes placed on the scalp. Biomedical engineer Andy McKinley and colleagues at the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright–Patterson Air Force Base, reported their finding on this so-called transcranial direct current stimulation (TDCS) here at the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting on November 13. "I don't know of anything that would be comparable," McKinley said, contrasting the cognitive boost of TDCS with, for example, caffeine or other stimulants that have been tested as enhancements to learning. TDCS not only accelerated learning, pilot accuracy was sustained in trials lasting up to 40 minutes. Typically accuracy in identifying threats declines steadily after 20 minutes. Beyond accelerating pilot training, TDCS could have many medical applications in the military and beyond by accelerating retraining and recovery after brain injury or disease. The question for the Air Force and others interested in transcranial stimulation is whether these findings will hold up over time or will land in the dustbin of pseudoscience. © 2011 Scientific American,

Related chapters from BP6e: Chapter 17: Learning and Memory
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 13: Memory, Learning, and Development
Link ID: 16076 - Posted: 11.26.2011

By Laura Sanders WASHINGTON — Like the fictional detective Carrie Wells on the TV show Unforgettable, some real-life people can remember every day of their lives in detail. Those superrememberers have more bulk in certain parts of their brains, possibly explaining the remarkable ability to recall minutiae from decades ago, researchers said November 13 at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience. One brain region involved in such incredible recall has been implicated in obsessive-compulsive disorder, hinting that OCD and superior memory might have a common architecture in the brain. Scientists have long studied people with memory deficits, but there haven’t been many studies on people with exceptional memories. “Looking at memory from a deficit gave us a lot of insight into memory,” said study coauthor Aurora LePort of the University of California, Irvine. “Looking at memory from a superior perspective gives us a new tool. It may just broaden our knowledge and ability to know what’s going on.” In 2006, UC Irvine neuroscientist Larry Cahill and collaborators published a report on a woman who could remember detailed accounts of her life. Cahill and colleagues then began hearing from many people who claimed to have extraordinary memories. After sifting through and eliminating the impostors, the team was left with 11 people who scored off the charts for autobiographical memory. These people could effortlessly remember, for instance, what they were doing on November 2, 1989, and could also tell you that it was a Thursday. “They’re not going home and saying ‘OK, let me write down what I did today and memorize it,’ ” LePort said. © Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2011

Related chapters from BP6e: Chapter 17: Learning and Memory; Chapter 2: Functional Neuroanatomy: The Nervous System and Behavior
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 13: Memory, Learning, and Development; Chapter 2: Cells and Structures: The Anatomy of the Nervous System
Link ID: 16032 - Posted: 11.14.2011

Ian Sample, science correspondent A professional cellist who lost nearly all of his memory after a virus destroyed parts of his brain has astonished doctors with his remarkable recall of music. The 71-year-old, known only as PM, had played with a major German orchestra before contracting the infection that devastated his brain's memory centres in 2005. The illness left the musician with such profound amnesia he could remember almost nothing of his past and was unable to plan for the future. The only people he recognised were his brother and a care worker. "He can hardly remember a thing. He has no memory of any personal or professional events," Carsten Finke, a neurologist at Charité university hospital in Berlin, told the Guardian. "He is living in the moment, more or less. He has lost his whole life." Doctors made their discovery when they tested PM's ability to recall musical information and found he could identify the scales, rhythms and intervals of pieces they played him. The man went on to score normally on a standard test for musical memory. But it was later tests that surprised doctors most, when the cellist showed he could learn new pieces of music, even though he failed to remember simple information, such as the layout of his flat, who his doctors were and what medicines he should take. Neighbours said the man still played the cello in his apartment, but he refused to play in front of doctors, perhaps because he felt he was no longer any good, Finke said. © 2011 Guardian News and Media Limited

Related chapters from BP6e: Chapter 17: Learning and Memory; Chapter 9: Hearing, Vestibular Perception, Taste, and Smell
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 13: Memory, Learning, and Development; Chapter 6: Hearing, Balance, Taste, and Smell
Link ID: 16029 - Posted: 11.14.2011

By TARA PARKER-POPE Sometimes even a healthy brain doesn’t work the way it’s supposed to. Nobody may know that better than Rick Perry, the Texas governor, who suffered an embarrassing memory lapse during the Republican presidential debate on Wednesday. Mr. Perry stops midsentence as he struggles to remember the name of the Department of Energy, one of three federal agencies he has often said should be eliminated. A pained look crosses his face. He stammers. He starts over. He changes the subject. But the words don’t come. How the gaffe will affect Mr. Perry’s political aspirations isn’t known. But among brain researchers, the moment is a fascinating display of a common human experience: the brain freeze. “There are a lot of potential explanations for why it happened,” said Daniel Weissman, a University of Michigan neuroscientist who studies attention. “A lot of things are going on when we try to recall memories, and problems at any stage could lead to failure.’’ Mr. Perry is not the first public figure to suffer an embarrassing memory lapse. Earlier this year, the singer Christina Aguilera forgot the words to the national anthem as she performed at the Super Bowl. And Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. misplaced a word in the oath at the swearing-in ceremony for President Obama, prompting him to readminister the oath the next day. © 2011 The New York Times Company

Related chapters from BP6e: Chapter 17: Learning and Memory; Chapter 18: Attention and Higher Cognition
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 13: Memory, Learning, and Development; Chapter 14: Attention and Consciousness
Link ID: 16023 - Posted: 11.12.2011

By Gary Stix A recent study showed that certain brain areas expand in people who have greater numbers of friends on Facebook. This was welcome news for online social network addicts, particularly teenagers: "Mom, I'm not just on Facebook; I'm doing my temporal lobe calisthenics." There was a problem, though. The study, in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, was unable to resolve the question of whether "friending" plumps up the brain areas or whether people with a type of robustness in brain physiology are just natural social butterflies. "Our own previous study on Facebook could only show correlation between social network size and the brain, but we could not determine the direction of causation between social brain regions and social network size," notes Ryota Kanai of University College London, one of the researchers on the study. To resolve that question would have required locking varying size groups of college students in separate rooms for a year or more to see whether larger groups altered brain structure in some way. Such a proposal would never come within a 100-mile radius of the institutional review boards that examine ethical issues related to research studies. But with the help of a few monkeys in England, teenagers everywhere may now have more ammunition to use against parents. A study published in the November 4 issue of Science studied 23 macaques assigned to live either alone, with a friend or in a groups of from three to seven fellow primates. The upshot: the monkeys in the larger groups had more gray matter in brain areas linked to processing social information (the middle superior temporal sulcus, amygdala and rostral prefrontal cortex, two of which overlap with those reported on in the Proceedings B study). © 2011 Scientific American

Related chapters from BP6e: Chapter 17: Learning and Memory
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 13: Memory, Learning, and Development
Link ID: 15985 - Posted: 11.05.2011

By Wynne Parry Marijuana hurts memory and cognition, and a new rat study indicates this is because it causes once-coordinated brain regions to fall out of sync with each other. The result resembles the effects of schizophrenia, the neuroscientists found. The researchers measured the electrical activity in nerve cells of rats given a drug that mimics the effect of the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, called tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). The drug had only subtle effects on individual brain regions; however, it disrupted the coordinated activity between regions of the brain. Specifically, they found the drug disrupted the coordinated fluctuations in electrical activity -- called brain waves -- across the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex. The result resembled two instruments within an orchestra playing out of sync. A lack of synchronization between the hippocampus and the prefrontal cortex -- areas of the brain associated with memory and decision-making -- is also associated with schizophrenia. A group of severe brain disorders, schizophrenia causes people to interpret reality abnormally. Its symptoms may include a combination of hallucinations, delusions and disordered thinking and behavior, according to the Mayo Clinic. As a result of the disruption to their brain activity, the rats became unable to make accurate decisions when navigating around a maze. © 2011 CBS Interactive Inc

Related chapters from BP6e: Chapter 17: Learning and Memory; Chapter 4: The Chemical Bases of Behavior: Neurotransmitters and Neuropharmacology
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 13: Memory, Learning, and Development; Chapter 4: The Chemistry of Behavior: Neurotransmitters and Neuropharmacology
Link ID: 15956 - Posted: 10.27.2011

by Chelsea Whyte Ever wondered how you can make your way down a dark hallway in the night without stubbing your toe? New research in mice has shown for the first time that the cerebellum – an area of the brain that is known to control motor learning – plays a crucial role in this type of navigation. Another area of the brain, the hippocampus, is known to house a kind of mental map, created by three types of cell: "place" neurons that fire when an animal is in a specific location and only that location; "head direction" cells that fire when the animal is facing a certain direction; and "grid" cells that fire at regular intervals as the animal moves, leaving a virtual "breadcrumb trail" that helps to create a sense of location relative to other places visited. But until now there has been no evidence that the cerebellum is a partner in creating the representation of the body in space. "We never knew that the cerebellum and hippocampus communicated," says Christelle Rochefort at Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris, France, who worked on the study. This new finding reveals that there are networks in the brainMovie Camera that haven't yet been explored, she says. "It seems that there is some crosstalk between the two structures," says research team leader Laure Rondi-Reig, also at Pierre and Marie Curie University. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Related chapters from BP6e: Chapter 17: Learning and Memory; Chapter 11: Motor Control and Plasticity
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 13: Memory, Learning, and Development; Chapter 5: The Sensorimotor System
Link ID: 15930 - Posted: 10.22.2011

By Linda Searing, THE QUESTION:Does Vitamin B12, known for its aid in making red blood cells and DNA, play a role in memory and cognition skills in older people? THIS STUDY: Analyzed data on 112 men and women 65 and older (average age, 79) who were given a battery of 17 tests of their memory and other cognitive skills; had blood drawn and were tested for five markers that reflect the presence of Vitamin B12; and were given an MRI scan to assess their brain volume, or size. Those whose blood indicated a Vitamin B12 deficiency, based on high levels of four of the five markers, also had lower scores on the memory and cognitive tests and smaller brain volumes. WHO MAY BE AFFECTED? Older people, who sometimes become deficient in Vitamin B12 because their stomachs can no longer absorb the nutrient as it occurs naturally in foods. To counter this, health experts suggest that they eat fortified foods (such as cereals) or take a dietary supplement because the stomach generally can still absorb the vitamin in those forms. Most people younger than 50 get plenty of B12 from their diets. It’s present in meat, fish, poultry, eggs and dairy products; beef liver and clams are considered the best sources of Vitamin B12. CAVEATS: The study involved a fairly small number of people. It did not test whether increasing Vitamin B12 levels would improve people’s memory and cognitive ability. FIND THIS STUDY: Sept. 27 issue of Neurology (www.neurology.org). © 1996-2011 The Washington Post

Related chapters from BP6e: Chapter 17: Learning and Memory; Chapter 7: Life-Span Development of the Brain and Behavior
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 13: Memory, Learning, and Development; Chapter 13: Memory, Learning, and Development
Link ID: 15897 - Posted: 10.11.2011

By Rick Nauert PhD Senior News Editor Provocative new research suggests the brain has an optimal rhythm or frequency that influences how we remember things. The brain learns through changes in the strength of its synapses — the connections between neurons — in response to stimuli. Now, in a discovery that challenges conventional wisdom on the brain mechanisms of learning, UCLA neurophysicists have found there is an optimal brain “rhythm,” or frequency, for changing synaptic strength. And, like stations on a radio dial, each synapse is tuned to a different optimal frequency for learning. Researchers believe the findings may lead to a unified theory of the mechanisms that underlie learning in the brain – a discovery that could possible lead to new therapies for treating learning disabilities. The study appears in the current issue of the journal Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience. “Many people have learning and memory disorders, and beyond that group, most of us are not Einstein or Mozart,” said Mayank R. Mehta, Ph.D., the paper’s senior author. “Our work suggests that some problems with learning and memory are caused by synapses not being tuned to the right frequency.” © 1992-2011 Psych Central.

Related chapters from BP6e: Chapter 17: Learning and Memory
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 13: Memory, Learning, and Development
Link ID: 15879 - Posted: 10.06.2011

A new study has found birds learn the art of nest-building, rather than it being just an instinctive skill. Researchers from Edinburgh, Glasgow and St Andrews Universities studied film of southern masked weavers recorded by scientists in Botswana. This colourful species was chosen because individual birds build many complex nests in a season. Dr Patrick Walsh of Edinburgh University said the study revealed "a clear role for experience". The research has been published in the Behavioural Processes journal. Individual birds varied their technique from one nest to the next and there were instances of birds building nests from left to right as well as from right to left. As birds gained more experience, they dropped blades of grass less often. "If birds built their nests according to a genetic template, you would expect all birds to build their nests the same way each time. However this was not the case," added Dr Walsh. "Southern Masked Weaver birds displayed strong variations in their approach, revealing a clear role for experience. "Even for birds, practice makes perfect." BBC © 2011

Related chapters from BP6e: Chapter 17: Learning and Memory
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 13: Memory, Learning, and Development
Link ID: 15838 - Posted: 09.26.2011

By Leila Battison Science reporter Electrically stimulating the brain can help to speed up the process of learning, scientists have shown. Applying a small current to specific parts of the brain can increase its activity, making learning easier. Researchers from the University of Oxford have studied the changing structure of the brain in stroke patients and in healthy adults. Prof Heidi Johansen-Berg presented their findings at the British Science Festival in Bradford. The team at Oxford has been conducting research into how the structure of the brain changes in adulthood, and in particular what changes occur after a stroke. They have used an approach called functional MRI to monitor activity in the brain as stroke patients re-learn motor skills that were lost as a result of their illness. One of the major findings is that the brain is very flexible and can restructure itself, growing new connections and reassigning tasks to different areas, when damage occurs or a specific task is practised. As part of this research, they investigated the possibility of using non-invasive electric brain stimulation to improve the recovery of these motor skills; the short-term improvement in stroke patients had already been noted. BBC © 2011

Related chapters from BP6e: Chapter 17: Learning and Memory
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 13: Memory, Learning, and Development
Link ID: 15822 - Posted: 09.20.2011

By RONI CARYN RABIN “Can I draw something for you — what should I draw?” Lonni Sue Johnson asked, but she didn’t wait for an answer. She drew a squiggly line that became a curly halo of hair around the cheerful face of a seated man stretching one leg upward, balancing a large bird on his foot. Within minutes, she had added a cat wearing a necklace, stars and a tiny, grinning airplane. “I like this part, because you want people to be happy,” she said, beaming. “Every sheet of paper is a treat.” Ms. Johnson, 61, is an artist and illustrator whose playful, bright-hued and often complex work has appeared in a wide array of publications, from the cover of The New Yorker to children’s books to murder mysteries to The New York Times — even a physics textbook. All that changed in December 2007, when she was stricken with viral encephalitis, a life-threatening disease that did severe damage to parts of her brain — including the hippocampus, where new memories are formed. She survived, but remembered little about her life before the illness. Yet she is still able to make art, though it is simpler and more childlike than her professional work. Her case is rare, experts say, because few accomplished artists continue to create after sustaining severe brain damage. © 2011 The New York Times Company

Related chapters from BP6e: Chapter 17: Learning and Memory
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 13: Memory, Learning, and Development
Link ID: 15817 - Posted: 09.20.2011

Mo Costandi Research showing that action video games have a beneficial effect on cognitive function is seriously flawed, according to a review published this week in Frontiers in Psychology1. Numerous studies published over the past decade have found that training on fast-paced video games such as Medal of Honor and Grand Theft Auto that require a wide focus and quick responses has broad 'transfer effects' that enhance other cognitive functions, such as visual attention. Some of the studies have been highly cited and widely publicized: one, by cognitive scientists Daphne Bavelier and Shawn Green of the University of Rochester in New York, published in Nature in 20032, has been cited more than 650 times, and was widely reported by the media as showing that video games boost visual skills. But, say the authors of the review, that paper and the vast majority of other such studies contain basic methodological flaws and do not meet the gold standard of a properly conducted clinical trial. "Our main focus was recent work specifically examining the effects of modern action games on college-aged participants," says Walter Boot, a psychologist at Florida State University in Tallahassee, and lead author of the review. "To our knowledge, we've captured all of these papers in our review, and all of the literature suffers from the limitations we discuss." © 2011 Nature Publishing Group,

Related chapters from BP6e: Chapter 1: Biological Psychology: Scope and Outlook; Chapter 17: Learning and Memory
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 1: An Introduction to Brain and Behavior; Chapter 13: Memory, Learning, and Development
Link ID: 15809 - Posted: 09.17.2011

by Patti Neighmond We've all heard the theory that some students are visual learners, while others are auditory learners. And still other kids learn best when lessons involve movement. But should teachers target instruction based on perceptions of students' strengths? Several psychologists say education could use some "evidence-based" teaching techniques, not unlike the way doctors try to use "evidence-based medicine." Psychologist Dan Willingham at the University of Virginia, who studies how our brains learn, says teachers should not tailor instruction to different kinds of learners. He says we're on more equal footing than we may think when it comes to how our brains learn. And it's a mistake to assume students will respond and remember information better depending on how it's presented. For example, if a teacher believes a student to be a visual learner, he or she might introduce the concept of addition using pictures or groups of objects, assuming that child will learn better with the pictures than by simply "listening" to a lesson about addition. In fact, an entire industry has sprouted based on learning styles. There are workshops for teachers, products targeted at different learning styles and some schools that even evaluate students based on this theory. This prompted Doug Rohrer, a psychologist at the University of South Florida, to look more closely at the learning style theory. When he reviewed studies of learning styles, he found no scientific evidence backing up the idea.

Related chapters from BP6e: Chapter 17: Learning and Memory
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 13: Memory, Learning, and Development
Link ID: 15737 - Posted: 08.30.2011

by Brooke Borei Just one encounter with an aroma can sear the scent into your memory for years. The same thing happens in rats, and researchers from the University of Bordeaux in France have exploited this to gain important insight into memory formation. When the brain encounters an odor, it temporarily saves the data in the banana-shaped hippocampus. But it is the frontal cortex that eventually encodes the memory into long-term storage. To decipher how that process unfolds, neurobiologist Bruno Bontempi and colleagues took advantage of a rather rude behavior in rats: The rodents often smell the breath of their fellow creatures to determine whether a new food is safe to eat. A single encounter can generate a lasting memory of the agreeable meal. In their study, Bontempi’s team fed cumin-spiced food to a set of rats and then introduced them to another group, whose frontal cortex had been temporarily cut off from communication with the hippocampus. One week later, the altered rats still enjoyed grub flavored with the spice, as expected. A month out, however, their preference for cumin had vanished—confirmation that long-term memories cannot form without a link between the hippocampus and the frontal cortex. Bontempi proposes that the hippo­campus tags cells in the cortex at the moment of a memory-generating experience. Breaking communication between the brain regions may interfere with tagging and subsequently handicap long-term memory. For rats, that means forgetting a morsel is safe. © 2011, Kalmbach Publishing Co.

Related chapters from BP6e: Chapter 17: Learning and Memory
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 13: Memory, Learning, and Development
Link ID: 15736 - Posted: 08.29.2011