Can you recall when the Boxer Rebellion occurred but forget where you left your car keys? Do you remember the name of the 13th president but have a hard time bringing a specific word to mind when you need it? You may be suffering from too much memory.

Research at the Columbia University Medical Center indicates that the growth of new neurons in the hippocampus, the part of the brain where learning and memory are seated, can actually cause you to experience more limited working, or short-term, memory.

Apparently, forgetting some information is essential to being able to access short-term memory. Storing too much information interferes with working memory. In experiments in which mice had the neurogenesis in the hippocampus blocked, they were better able to navigate a maze and locate food in the maze.

The researchers suggest that forgetting some older and useless information makes room for newer and useful information such as where your car is parked in a large lot.

But which information is useless, and is all older information just taking up storage space you could use for something newer and more immediate? It is said of Albert Einstein that he was often distracted and forgetful. He described his wild hairstyle as simply the result of doing nothing with it. But the man who reportedly never untied his shoes because he couldn’t remember to tie them again, was busy pondering the nature of the universe.

According to The Association for Distracted People, “distractedness actually reflects a high level of concentration (on something else)”.

Research has shown that playing video games sharpens vision. New studies done in Tel Aviv now indicate that playing specific types of computer games can sharpen your mind.

MindFit computer software was specifically designed to take advantage of the plasticity of the brain and using cognitive training, improve mental abilities such as short-term memory, auditory short term memory, location memory, spatial orientation, planning, speed of reaction and hand-eye coordination.

The studies conducted at the Tel-Aviv Sourasky Medical Center of Tel- Aviv University in Israel, involved two groups of subjects age 50 and older who were assigned to spend 30 minutes, three times a week, playing either the MindFit software or sophisticated computer games.

All the participants benefited from playing the computer games but those using the MindFit software made greater gains in cognitive performance.

The research proves that seniors and boomers can significantly boost cognitive ability and preserve mental function through the use of cognitive training. Because those with lower baseline cognitive performance made greater gains than those with normal cognition, it could also prove to be a defense against age-related decline.

From the time I was a child I can remember my mother sprinkling her communications to me with words that you wouldn’t expect a child to understand, but when she labeled me dilatory or exasperating, I understood very well what she meant.

I have been told one or two times that I shouldn’t speak in adult language to children because they don’t understand. But how do children learn any word, indeed, how do they learn language? By hearing it spoken. When I speak in Spanish to my 7-year-old son, people ask in amazement “Does he speak Spanish”? I usually answer, “No, not yet”.

Now some research done by a Johns Hopkins undergraduate shows that toddlers learn words faster if they learn by inference rather than instruction. Letting children puzzle out the meaning of a word for themselves leads to longer lasting knowledge than teaching by instruction only.

Meredith Brinster worked with children 36 to 42 months. By introducing objects and names for them in two ways, she measured how quickly children learned new words and which method helped them remember what they had learned.

Using a familiar object, say a ball and a second, unfamiliar object such as a tool, Brinster introduced a nonsense word like “blicket” and ask children to point out the object that went with the word. Because the ball was familiar and the children knew the name for that object, they were able to infer that the unfamiliar object was the “blicket”.

A second group of children was shown an object and told that it was a “blicket” using a direct instructional form of teaching.

Later when children were asked to point out the “blicket” it was clear that those children who had used reason to determine which object was the “blicket” remembered the information better and longer than those who had simply been taught the name of the object.

Undergrad: Kids Learn Words Best by Working out Meaning Study by New Jersey senior shows inference is best strategy for toddlers

Is forgetting what you have learned ever helpful? A study appearing in the January, 2007 issue of Psychological Science says that when it comes to learning a second language, at least in the beginning, the answer is yes.

While learning a new language, our native language words may distract us and inhibit our ability to express thoughts in a new tongue. In the study, University of Oregon psychologist Benjamin Levy and his colleague Dr. Michael Anderson asked native English speakers who had completed at least one year of Spanish to repeatedly name objects in Spanish. The more the students were asked to repeat the Spanish words, the more difficulty they had in producing the corresponding English words for the objects. The more a person immerses in a second language the more the brain inhibits native language - a phenomenon known as first-language attrition - making it possible to forget words one has used all one’s life.

Researchers found that the more fluent bilingual students were less prone to first-language attrition suggesting that the phenomenon assists the brain in the first stages of second language learning but becomes less necessary as the student achieves fluency.

Although the value of suppressing previously learned knowledge to learn new concepts may appear counterintuitive, Levy explains that “first-language attrition provides a striking example of how it can be adaptive to (at least temporarily) forget things one has learned.”

Association for Psychological Science