3 ARTICLES

1. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/090429091806.htm

I chose to write a summary on this article because it is based on the theory that short-term memory isn’t less precise over time, instead it just shuts down completely. Weiwew Zhang with Steve Luck had this idea because of tests they made; these tests consisted in measuring two things and the accuracy of short-term memory with the possibility that the memory still existed. Twelve different adults took this test; the first showed three squares of different colors on a computer, then a wheel showing all spectrums of colors and later the three squares appeared again. Once the squares reappeared they had no color and only one was highlighted. The adults being tested had to remember and click on the part of the wheel that matched the color of the highlighted square; they repeated the test 150 times. The results were: when the adults remembered the color, it was because the matching color was very close. This made Zhang and Luck identify how the accuracy had to do with the distance between the click and the actual color. But, in other cases when color was not remembered, these chose a random color in the wheel. Then there was a second test; this test was mimicked the first but it had to do with shapes instead of colors. The conclusion from these two tests was final; people either have a memory or don’t. These results point out how memories don't actually fade away, they shut down completely.

2. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081028103111.htm

The University of Queensland’s Neuroscientists conducted an experiment that discovered why very poignant events usually cause trauma on our long-term memory. This experiment states that the brain tends to remember fear or trauma for a long time. This has been crucial to our long-term survival causing a negative reaction rather than a learning experience. It is said that in the back part of the brain in a so-called “amygdale” releases a stress hormone when we encounter another traumatic event like the ones that we had before. A paper by Dr Louise Faber and part of her co-workers published in The Journal of Neuroscience shows how the brain's "adrenaline” negatively affects the amygdale because of the influence of chemical and electrical pathways to the parts of the brain that are linked to the formation of memory. These results help us by informing about the effects of a traumatic event can affect memory and deeply understand the treatment patients with post-traumatic stress or anxiety disorders should have to really and thoroughly help them.

3. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070815105026.htm

This article issues on how memories linked to any visual aids or emotional ones are very hard to forget. Keith Payne and Elizabeth Corrigan found that many negative or mild emotional events are really difficult to leave behind. This article argues what people do to try to forget information. First of all they mentally isolate the event or thing and after they completely block off the info; emotion kicks-in in this because it makes these simple two steps hard to make because the memories become hard to isolate even worse, erase. The UNC made a study, which consisted in 218 participants remembering pictures instead of texts; this study says how a violent word can probably create fear while a violent picture will creates a more fearful emotion. One of the conclusions of this study was that people could not forget memories that were emotionally involved in contrast to ordinary events that are erased easily. These results help understand the important role emotion has on memory.