Blog Post #9

Memory is very important in defining who we are because, without it, how would we know who we are? We wouldn't be able to know our favorite music or learn any subject becasue we couldn't remember even the simplest facts like 2+2=4. We wouldn't be able to play sports let alone create them and artwork and music would most likely be nonexistant as well. We wouldn't remember what substances we are allergic to and frankly we wouldn't be able to tell whether foods and such are toxic to our bodies. Clive Wearing almost isn't a person, without memory you lack what is needeh to be yourself. He couldn't remember who his wife is or what he did the day before or who his friends are. I would probably just try and work on his memory if I was in his wife's shoes, and study things about the memory to see if I could at least somewhat revive his memory. This makes me very greatful for my memory ability because not remembering the people I care about most wouldn't be pleasant for me. Though if I was in his shoes I wouldn't know any better.

Truthfully I have never really thought about how memory works before this chapter. I always remeber things differently than my friends, and sometimes I have a hard time remeber what it was exactly that I was discussing with a person a couple hours ago. I guess I kind of still trust my memories for certain things though I probably can't trust my short term because I tend to have a terrible short term memory and short term memory is limited not only in duration but also in capacity, typically storying about secen bits of information. Both children and adults have short-term recall for roughly as many words as they can speak in 2 seconds.

One interesting concept is the retrieval of memory. It is important because if we just stored the memories they wouldn't be useful to us, we need a way to retrieve the stored memories so that these memories can be used. Well I suppose I apply retrieval of memory to my everyday life through remembering information fabout a certain subject for quizzes and tests, reading books, remembering my favorite music and such as well as what annoys my friends or not and who is my friend.