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Ignoring useless information aids memory: study
(Reuters)
Updated: 2005-11-24 09:15
Filtering out useless information can help people increase their capacity to
remember what is really important, researchers said on Wednesday.
Kashmiri children meditate in the southern
Indian city of Bangalore September 22, 2005. Filtering out useless
information can help people increase their capacity to remember what is
really important, researchers said on Wednesday.
[Reuters] |
Scientists at the University of
Oregon in the United States have demonstrated that awareness, or visual working
memory, does not depend on extra storage space in the brain but on an ability to
ignore what is irrelevant.
"Until now, it's been assumed that people with high capacity visual working
memory had greater storage, but actually it's about the bouncer -- a neural
mechanism that controls what information gets into awareness," said Edward Vogel
who headed the research team.
The findings reported in the journal Nature would overturn the accepted
concept of memory capacity, which has suggested that how much a person can
remember depends on the amount of information crammed into the brain at one
time.
Vogel and his team believe the results could lead to better ways to enhance
memory and improve the diagnosis and treatment of cognitive problems such as
attention deficit disorder and schizophrenia.
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