For most people with good memories, remembering some information in clear detail for long periods of time seems easy. For neuroscientists, the inability to remember represented a failure of the brain’s mechanisms to store and retrieve information. Now, a new study carried out by two scientists from the University of Toronto (Canada) proposes an alternative theory: the objective of memory is not to transmit the most precise information over time, but to guide and optimize decision-making intelligent clinging exclusively to valuable information.
“It is important that the brain forget irrelevant details and instead focus on the things that are going to help make decisions in the real world,” says Blake Richards, co-author of the work.
The article, which has been published in the journal Neuron , examines the literature on the persistence of memories, as well as forgetfulness or transience. The recent surge in research on the brain mechanisms that promote forgetting reveals that forgetting is as important a component in our memory system as recall.
“We found abundant evidence from recent research that there are mechanisms that promote memory loss and that these are distinct from those involved in information storage,” says study co-author Paul Frankland.
One of these mechanisms is the weakening or elimination of the synaptic connections between the neurons in which memories are encoded. Another mechanism is the generation of new neurons from stem cells. Thus, as the new neurons integrate into the hippocampus, the new connections overwrite the memories stored in those circuits, hence children forget so much information, as their hippocampi do not stop producing new neurons.
Using the principles of learning IA, i will dentificaron the argument that the interaction between remembering and forgetting in the human brain allows us to make smarter decisions based on memory.
First, forgetting allows us to adapt to new situations by letting go of outdated and potentially misleading information that can no longer help us.
Second, forgetting allows us to generalize past events to new ones ; what in artificial intelligence is known as regularization and works by creating simple computer models that prioritize basic information, but eliminate specific details, allowing a broader application.
Memory in the human brain works in a similar way. Hence, a constantly changing environment may require us to remember less (example: a supermarket cashier),
“One of the things that distinguishes an environment where you are going to want to remember things rather than an environment where you want to forget things is this question of how consistent the environment is and how likely things are to come back into your life. “. Richards clarifies.
Referencia: Neuron (2017). DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2017.04.037 . cell.com/neuron/fulltext/S0896-6273(17)30365-3
