When it rains, our memory performs better and red wine protects the brain against stress. Much is known about how our brain works. With some tricks you keep your memory in top condition.
With the years you come less quickly on the right name. You start to mix up memories more often. According to researchers, the problem is usually in working memory. This is the memory with which you briefly remember a telephone number. You also use working memory so that you don’t get lost when you dig into your permanent memory. Fortunately, you can improve working memory very well by using it train.
Practice makes perfect
Our visual memory keeps getting better. It’s no surprise that we can do better. What you practice gets better, so does the brain. The more visual society is, the more we think in images and remember images. The researchers from University College London, who made this discovery, make a comparison with the IQ test. Each generation scores better on this than the previous one. The IQ test is regularly made more difficult, because otherwise the scores would get higher and higher. Memory tests also need to be adjusted, the researchers say.
Older brain superior
When you’re young, it’s easy to remember names. When you’re a little older, you better remember what clothes the guests are wearing at a party. Young people remember better what they want to remember – they use their explicit memory. Older people use their implicit memory better – they remember the whole picture and also pick up on the hidden details: that the hostess and the host are wearing the same shoes, for example.
In 2011, researchers from the University of Toronto had a group of young people (average 19 years) and a group of elderly (average 69 years) take a word test. They were asked to pay particular attention to the colors of the letters. In the exercise that followed, they had to finish words. The older ones did this more skillfully, because their brains soon realized that they could use the words from the first exercise. The researchers think that older people remember better what they see, hear and smell.
Playing with information
The more influence you have on what you learn, the better you remember it. In 2010, subjects at the University of Illinois got hold of a computer mouse and viewed various utensils on a computer screen that moved one by one along the image. Half of the group could slide the objects back and forth with the mouse, the other half had no influence on the movement. The first group was later able to remember the objects and their order better than the second. During the experiment, their memory centers were also more active. The brain stores actively obtained information better. Learning is easiest when you can play with the information.
Second language helps
People who speak two languages are more likely to come up with words that occur in both languages. For someone who speaks Dutch and English, this applies, for example, to the words: ‘film’, ‘experiment’ and ‘computer’. This was discovered by psychologists from the University of Ghent. Apparently a second language is also active if you speak your mother tongue and helps to find the right word.
As changeable as the weather
In sunshine we remember less well. Researchers at the University of New South Wales in Australia discovered this when they tested random customers in a newsstand. There were ten items on the counter, including a piggy bank and a toy car. Once back outside the kiosk, customers were asked to name the items on display.
On rainy days, the score was three times higher than on sunny days. What the subjects remembered was also more reliable, they had fewer ‘false’ memories of objects that were not on the counter at all. Customers no longer stayed at the kiosk in bad weather, so that was not the issue. The researchers suspected that memory is related to mood. Rain makes you grumpy and that sharpens the brain.
Objective view of life
We naturally have a sharp memory for negative experiences. The image we retain of the past is therefore often negatively colored. But older people remember positive experiences just as well as negative ones, researchers at the University of Alberta found. They had subjects rate photos. Did the photos give a positive or negative feeling?
Forty-five minutes later, they were unexpectedly asked which photos they remembered. The young subjects mainly mentioned the negative pictures, while the older ones were not selective. This is because the memory of the elderly is no longer so strongly linked to the emotional centers. Their memory only kicks into action when the first emotional response has passed, allowing them to recall more objectively.
Relaxed recovery
The substance resveratrol in red wine protects the memory against stress. The substance activates a gene (SIRT1) that researchers at the University of Toronto discovered last year that, in addition to the heart, also helps memory cells to recover after a high dose. stress hormone. The researchers now want to see whether they can treat people with memory problems by activating the SIRT1 gene. A glass of red wine can also contribute to this. The alcohol in the wine also has a positive effect. Implicit memory works better under the influence of a little alcohol. But don’t overdo it, because the alcohol does disrupt explicit memory.
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- Plus Magazine
