Memory: Forgetting Is the New Normal
Today in Digg, I found this interesting article by Sue Halpern for the Time Magazine
Memory researcher Dr. Scott Small would like to reassure you that you’re not losing your wits. Visit him in his lab at Columbia University’s Medical Center, tell him how the last time you went to a party, you couldn’t put names to faces, how telephone numbers slip your mind, and he’ll walk to his blackboard, pick up a piece of chalk and draw two lines. One, he will tell you, represents age. The other is memory. “As age goes up, memory goes down,” he says. “Memory decline occurs in everyone.”
Anecdotally, that’s no surprise. Approach middle age, and it’s hard not to notice that your recall is flickering. This, we’re reassured, is perfectly normal–all your friends are complaining about the same thing, aren’t they?–and yet it doesn’t feel normal. You don’t just have your mind, after all; you are your mind, and nothing threatens your well-being so much as the feeling that it’s at risk. What’s more, while most memory loss is normal, at least some people must be part of the unlucky minority that develops Alzheimer’s disease or other forms of dementia. Why not you?
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To read the rest of the article, please go here.
