Blog Post #9-Memory

Memory is definitely important in defining who we are as human beings. Everything we have done in our past is a memory and because we remember such things, we learn and grow through our experiences. If we didn't have a memory, we obviously wouldn't know how to do the average everyday things that we do. I don't know how people would go on with their lives, if everyone really didn't know what they were doing.

Clive Wearing is a very talented musician, whether it come to conducting, composing, singing, or playing an instrument, he can do it all. One day he had a headache which turned into an ongoing fever and then he began to forget things, even his own daughter's name. The doctors then realized that his left, right, and frontal lobes were messed up, hence his forgetfulness. Wearing often repeats himself. His life involves only one moment, whatever is happening around him. It hits his brain and then it will fade away. He has no past memories and no future to look forward to. He will look at his watch to record the time and what he is doing, but then when he looks back at it, he talks himself into that he was unconscious when he wrote it, and then he'll just rewrite what he wants it to say. Music comes to him automatically though, it's the one thing that is a safe for him, but once the music stops, he starts to have convulsions. My sympathy goes out to Clive's wife like no other. I give her MAJOR props for sticking it out, knowing that her husband has no idea what is truly going on in his world. If I were in her shoes, I would probably go crazy. I like to think of my memory as being pretty good, so this case makes me appreciate it that much more, getting to remember even then little details from memories.

I am thinking differently of our memories now, because I always used to think that it was there to help us remember things and there was nothing more to it than that. In the book, memory is defined as the persistence of learning over time through the storage and retrieval of information. I didn't really understand that pretty much everything that we can sense in our environment can be put into our mind's memory. That is my breakdown of what automatic processing is. I still think of my memories the same, I just can understand why they can be so detailed now, I have always thought of myself as having a good memory (unless it comes to something I just choose not to remember). I did the "Recognition" exercise. You were given 16 different pictures of pennies and you had to choose what the actual penny looks like, it took me about 7 tries to get it right. This goes to show that everyday things, a penny in this case, you see all the time don't register in your brain and you don't remember exactly what it looks like. Another example could be the design on a pop can, such as Coca-Cola.

I found it intriguing to read about Jill Price, a woman who just can't forget. I feel really bad for her actually, you would have to find that annoying after awhile. In the book, it was mentioned that, "If we remembered everything, we should on most occasions be as ill off as if we remembered nothing." I completely agree with this. Yes, you obviously would be sick if you had no memory, that is definitely a more common case in today's world (such as amnesia). People don't really stop and think though if it was just the other way around, what would happen if we remembered EVERYTHING about our lives?