New Study Finds Humans Have "Astonishing" Memories
"If human memory were truly digital, it would have just received an upgrade from something like the capacity of a floppy disk to that of a flash drive. A new study found the brain can remember a lot more than previously believed."
LiveScience reports that in a recent experiment, people—aged 18 to 40—who viewed pictures of thousands of objects for over five hours were able to remember astonishing, minute details afterward about most of the objects, far beyond what scientists had imagined.
"People had never tested whether people could remember this much detail about this many objects," said researcher Timothy Brady, a cognitive neuroscientist at MIT. "Nobody actually pushed it this far."
Motivation also seemed to play a role in the memory recall. "You have to try," said MIT co-author Talia Konkle. "You have to want to do it."
Brady agreed and was quoted as saying we can remember most things we put our minds to, if we invest enough attention and effort into trying to store them in the first place.
The study was reportedly funded by the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, a National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship, and a National Research Service Award, and was detailed in the Sept. 8 issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
