Blog Post #9

I think that memory is really important in defining who we are as human beings. Without our memory we would not be able to survive. If you think about it, over the years of life and way back in the beginning of time, people were able to learn and grow from that learning. They learned to hunt and fish and gather food. Without memory they would not be able to survive because they would not remember how to do things to survive. I think we take our memory for granted sometimes, we never actually worry about our memory and how good our memory is unless it is important to us, like studying for a test. We never actually worry about forgetting our past, our name, or any other simply little things that mean everything. When I watched the video about Clive Wearing I was completely shocked. I didn’t think there was ever a disease that could cause you memory loss like he had. I couldn’t even image living like who Clive did. You always think about being forgetful and not remember something that you were going to do, but I could never image never knowing again what I was doing or who I was seeing. I can only image who frustrating that would be, not just for me, but the people around me. A memory of only 20 seconds, would be about the scariest things I could image. You never think, hey, what happens if I can never remember anything ever again? This reminds me of a radio commercial I hear a lot about Diet Mountain Dew. The list a bunch of facts and one of the facts was that a gold fish has a memory span of about 3 seconds. That’s really short! Then the commercial goes on and has a guy say “Hey, what’s up?” and 3 seconds later “Hey, what’s up?” I never would think that it could really happen to someone, where they completely forget everything ever 20 seconds and start fresh and new ever 20 seconds.
If I was Clive’s wife, I would have to have a lot of patience. I think it would be very different married to a man who whenever I walk into the room, he has no idea who I am. I think she handles herself very well, for having to go through so much. She was supportive and tries to help Clive understand and she is able to be patient with him and help him understand. Even if it’s only for a short while.

This makes me feel really grateful for my memory capacity that I am able to remember things even little details. I think we underestimate the importance of everything and how it works with our memory, even the simplest thing of how a flower smells. I think it’s amazing how powerful our minds are and how much we can come to appreciate what we do have to knowledge and memory.

I believe that I do have a different outlook on memory in general. I will not trust my memory all the time anymore, considering that I now know that my memory is sometimes not the greatest, but something to cherish and appreciate. I already know that a lot my memories are fuzzy and I may have them wrong, but it makes me wonder how many of my other memories that I think I have perfect and to a T are wrong. I think I trust some of my memories, I don’t think you can give up completely trusting your memories, because not all your memories are or can be false. You just have to realize that sometimes our memories are altered because of our surroundings or our relation towards that memory. I did all of the activities on memory, I was surprised at how poorly I did the activities, I was able to figure out how different ideas enter my head. I did on activity where you had to look at 7 pictures of 15 seconds then try to remember what you saw, then you had to look at 7 words for 15 seconds and try to remember them. The last one you had to do was listen to 7 words and remember. I found out that it is easier to remember pictures than it is to hear spoken word. I did another activity that showed the differences it makes when you have distraction and are trying to memorize something. This activity I thought was really hard because they gave you a lot of numbers and then had static and interferences that affected how well I could remember.

I think in general the whole idea of memory is significant, because there is so much to it that makes it interesting and confusing at the same time. I think some of the most fascinating things were about how we perceive things. How we remember things and how our memory can be changed. I feel that our memory is not always understandable. In this section I learned that our memory is easily changed and that when we look at things we automatically try associate them with something. The significant thing would have to be how we perceive things. When you look at two different faces that only have a slight change one can look happy and the other angry, but when flipped they changed the one is happy and the other changed to angry. Things like when we look at a picture and we try to remember a face from our past, it is hard to know exactly if it’s the right face. Like Jennifer in her case she was sure that it was Ron Cotton who raped her and she had set herself and her mind up to believing that it was true and there was no way it could be anyone else. She conditioned her memory to picture Ron because he was the one that had to closest resemblance to her actual offender Bobby Poole. I find it striking that our minds are so quickly changed into seeing something one way than other. I can apply this to daily life by think about how accurate my memories are and how well I recall an even or action that takes place. We use our memories everyday in school, when trying to remember what we have to do, the classes we have and how to do the work we are giving. Our memoires affect everything we are and do and without them we would be completely lost in a daze forever like Clive Wearing. I am glad I have my memory and that it is fairly decent. At least I think it’s fairly decent. I think this section was really intriguing and enjoyable to learn about.