1 INTRODUCTION Close your eyes What do you see Perhaps you're thinking back to something that happened this morning how your dog jumped on your bed and licked your face or how your brother hogged the bathroom when you needed to get in Or maybe you're remembering something that happened in the more distant past the fun you had on a family trip or how sad you felt at your great- grandmother's funeral Memories are like houseguests They turn up sometimes uninvited And like houseguests some memories are fun to have around Then there are others we can't wait to get rid of How does memory work What is happening inside your brain when you are remembering Why do we remember some things and forget others Perhaps you and your best friend have entirely different memo- ries of the day you met why is that and whose memory is right Why does your grandfather forget the way back to the house he's lived in for 50 years Are there tricks to help you memorize the math formulas for next week's test Is there such a thing as photographic memory So many questions Most people associate memory with being grown up or downright old But kids have memories too And as you will learn in this book memories can be an important source of creative inspiration All kinds of artists including authors filmmakers and even chefs often get ideas from their memories Here's hoping that by reading this book you'll learn how memory works tricks for improving memory to help you on that math test and perhaps even ways to use your own memories as a basis for a work of art perhaps a story video or meal
2 10 1 HOW MEMORY WORKS God gave us memory so that we might have roses in December -J.M. Barrie 1860-1937 Scottish novelist and creator of Peter Pan Let's say I ask you to remember your last birthday I bet a picture is forming in your mind Perhaps you see yourself surrounded by friends and family opening gifts Do you hear your friends singing Happy Birthday Can you almost taste your chocolate cake Or maybe you are remembering remembering the feeling of your grandfather holding you close as he hugs you or the sulfury smell when you blow out the candles and make a wish Memories have a way of popping up in milliseconds That's superquick considering that a millisecond is one thousandth of a second о
3 How Memory Works WARNING WHAT COMES NEXT IS PRETTY TECHNICAL What exactly is going on inside your brain when you remember remember The answer is a lot And we don't understand all of it Although scientists have spent years investigating how the human brain makes memories they still have many unanswered questions Here's what they've figured out so far Memory is the result of the activity of neural circuits in our brains Now you must be wondering what neural circuits are They're groups of neurons connected by synapses that carry out specific functions Neurons send information to different parts of the brain using electrical impulses and chemical signals As for synapses they're pockets of space between two cells We also know there are three steps to remembering encoding storing and retrieval ENCODING STORING RETRIEVAL
