Memories and memory

Our understanding of the brain keeps progressing (although we are still quite far from saying that we understand it). Two years ago researchers at MIT have identified the area where memories are stored (in a mouse) and have experimentally proved that memories are stored as a network of neurones. If you activate (as they did with a laser) that network you (the mouse) remember a specific memory. If you remove those neurones you remove that memory.
The discovery requires some invasive surgery and so far has involved only mice but according to researchers it is very very likely that our brains work in exactly the same way.
Now I run across another news, this one recent, December 10 2014, where researchers at the University of California – Santa Cruz- are reporting on their study on the effect of storing information on a computer on the way we can remember information. 
Here the gist of it: a set of students was asked to look at a list of names on a file (A) for 20" and then asked to look at another list of names in a second file (B). They were then asked to write down the names they remember from file B. And here comes the interesting discovery.
Those students that were asked to simply close file A remembered fewer names from file B than the students who were told to save file A before closing it. Remarkably, those students that were told to save file A but were given the hint that they might not be able to retrieve file A again scored in the same range as those that were not asked to save file A.
The meaning of the experiment (that was repeated several times with different students) is quite clear. Our brain once knowing that it can relay on a computer memory to remember "things" shift its attention to remember those things that are not stored (the one in file B). If you are saving "stuff" on your computer you are providing your brain more "room" to store other information. It will just need to remember that if it needs some information it can easily go "on-line" and get them. An amazing example of integration of our life with the digital ambient, of memories with memory; again another, more subtle but very powerful example of "blended life".

About Roberto Saracco

Roberto Saracco fell in love with technology and its implications long time ago. His background is in math and computer science. Until April 2017 he led the EIT Digital Italian Node and then was head of the Industrial Doctoral School of EIT Digital up to September 2018. Previously, up to December 2011 he was the Director of the Telecom Italia Future Centre in Venice, looking at the interplay of technology evolution, economics and society. At the turn of the century he led a World Bank-Infodev project to stimulate entrepreneurship in Latin America. He is a senior member of IEEE where he leads the New Initiative Committee and co-chairs the Digital Reality Initiative. He is a member of the IEEE in 2050 Ad Hoc Committee. He teaches a Master course on Technology Forecasting and Market impact at the University of Trento. He has published over 100 papers in journals and magazines and 14 books.