Psychology in Action

Category: Memory

  • Forgetting More, Remembering Better: Memory as You Age

    Forgetting More, Remembering Better: Memory as You Age

    As we age, memory becomes more selective and value-directed, focusing on information that matters most. The aging brain increasingly prioritizes high-value, goal-relevant information, directing attention and cognitive resources toward what is most important. These changes highlight the adaptive nature of human memory and suggest that aging is not something to fear. Memory remains flexible, continually…

  • Why Your Brain Refuses to Forget That One Awkward Moment

    Why Your Brain Refuses to Forget That One Awkward Moment

    Dan Vy Tang (author) and Karina Agadzhanyan (mentor) Remember that time you got called up to the board for not paying attention and had no idea how to solve the problem? Or when you thought you were muted on Zoom but weren’t? Chances are, that moment is still burned into your memory as if it’s…

  • Improving our memory in educational settings

    Improving our memory in educational settings

    Do you have midterms or final exams coming up? We’ll go through a few different types of studying scenarios together to truly answer the question: How can you optimize your study sessions this semester? Spacing Effect: How often you study matters 1. Studying You have your exam coming up in a couple of days, and…

  • Metacognitive Illusions & The Font Size Effect

    Metacognitive Illusions & The Font Size Effect

    Have you ever done your assigned reading and thought, “I’ll definitely remember this, it’s in HUGE, BOLD LETTERS” and then failed to recall anything on your quiz the next day? This feeling of disconnect between what we think we know and what we actually know can be explained by the human ability to monitor and…

  • The Psychology of Grocery Lists: Why We Forget the Milk

    The Psychology of Grocery Lists: Why We Forget the Milk

    How limited is our working memory capacity? While often described as fixed, research shows its boundaries depend heavily on the factors present during encoding and retrieval. Under the right conditions, we may be able to surpass what once seemed like hard limits.

  • How our perception of time influences the memory of events

    How our perception of time influences the memory of events

    When remembering a moment in life, does it ever feel shorter or longer than what actually occurred? Research shows that our brain’s chemistry might unlock the secret to why this is, and how that influences our memory of the event later on.

  • Trauma and the Brain: How Childhood Experiences Affect Your Memory

    Trauma and the Brain: How Childhood Experiences Affect Your Memory

    This article delves into the profound impact of traumatic childhood experiences on an individual’s cognition and memory. It discusses how childhood trauma can lead to memory retrieval problems, such as dissociative amnesia, and impairments in working memory, emphasizing the need for effective interventions and therapeutic approaches to assist survivors in improving their mental well-being.

  • Lying Can Reconstruct Memory: How We Come to Believe Our Own Lies

    Lying Can Reconstruct Memory: How We Come to Believe Our Own Lies

    The article discusses how lying can lead to the subconscious reconstruction of memories, causing individuals to believe their own falsehoods and blur the line between truth and deception. It explores factors like fabrication inflation, the anchoring effect, and motivated forgetting, highlighting the malleability of memory and the potential consequences of false memories resulting from deceptive…

  • Looking Down the Memory Barrel: Does the Weapon Focus Effect Impact our Legal System?

    Looking Down the Memory Barrel: Does the Weapon Focus Effect Impact our Legal System?

    The weapon focus effect can help us understand how people remember highly emotional events. Could this change how we think about eyewitness testimony?

  • What Makes Information More Memorable: The Influence of Emotionality on Memory and Metacognition

    What Makes Information More Memorable: The Influence of Emotionality on Memory and Metacognition

    Have you ever questioned why some information is recalled better than others? Research has shown that people have a tendency to predict a higher memory and better recall emotional information. Read about the potential mechanisms that could explain the influence of emotion on our beliefs and memory.