3rd Beloved

I sometimes think about the fact that there will never be anyone again who will know exactly what I know, have exactly what I have, know exactly who I know, and be exactly who I am. The same applies to everyone reading this of course. The thought is both harrowing and comforting to an extent. Our ability to form specific memories is what helps us find a purpose for each little action we take.  Not everyone is as lucky as us though. You may have seen the movie Finding Nemo or its sequel Finding Dory, featuring our favorite. In these movies, the character Dory is faced with short-term memory loss or the psychological term anterograde amnesia. Anterograde amnesia is the inability to form or hold new memories for more than a short period. As you may be able to tell, Dory can remember how to perform basic actions like swimming, talking (fish can’t talk, but it’s a Pixar movie), and more. However, she cannot remember basic facts like the name of someone she just met or what she ate durin...

Kavanaugh // Unsplash Looking into possible subjects for my blog this week led me down a rabbit hole of memory studies, eventually until I stumbled upon the multi-store memory model , developed by Richard Atkinson and Richard Shiffrin in 1968. This structural model offered a pretty substantial beginning for the rest of my understandings in memory and its processes this week, and would then transition interestingly into different other offshoots as I found potentially and somewhat related other studies. To start, the multi-store model establishes that memory is divided into three stores, those being a sensory register, short term memory, and long term memory. Atkinson and Shiffrin would go on to develop each section's own specific and characteristic details revolving around the conceptualization of three main factors. One such factor is encoding, indicated as the way information is changed such that memory stores it, having the potential to be encoded as a visual, picture, or semant...

I was never a big fan of conspiracy theories. Many of them lack concrete evidence, and the fact that they make you question your surroundings and even your own perception is quite frankly a little offputting. That’s why I was initially so surprised by how popular the Mandela Effect was. It’s based entirely on questioning people’s perceptions, with many who experience it seemingly sharing the same false memories.  The term was first coined by self-proclaimed paranoia researcher Fiona Broome in 2009 . Broome realized that both she and many other people had thought that Nelson Mandela died in prison in the 1980s when he was still alive at the time (he later died in 2013). However, the phenomenon seemed to grow more and more credible as more instances of it were discovered in popular culture. Personally speaking, I first began buying into the phenomenon when I read about the many reported instances of it in famous media . For example, in the iconic Darth Vader line, “I am your father...

Sahana Narayan - Week 13: Memory Through Music – 3/23 [ 9:08 PM ] Of the thousands of different emotions and feelings that are expressed through music, I would have to say nostalgia is my favorite one. As a child, music always surrounded me and every aspect of my life. Birthday parties, car rides, summer days all were so deeply entrenched with the notes of various songs. As I grew up, I started to shape my own taste, diving into all types of genres to find these perfect little moments in songs that make me go… sigh. I started to associate moments and memories in my life with music. If I ever want to experience another feeling again, go through another moment again, all I have to do is click that tiny little play button, and it’s as if I've been transported somewhere else. Here is a list of some of the long list of songs that have the power to transport me to some of my most significant memories and feelings. All The Stars by Kendrick Lamar ft. SZA It was dark. Smelled like popc...

Image Credits: https://lifeafterdogma.org/2018/10/24/crimes-of-emotion/ After reading the first few chapters of Beloved, I immediately noticed that one prominent theme was the repression of painful memories. Seethe has faced a lot of pain in her life, and she seems to be repressing some of her most traumatic memories. To better understand what she and other trauma survivors go through, I decided to research the repression and suppression of memories.  Image Credits: https://www.verywellmind.com/repression-as-a-defense-mechanism-4586642 According to VeryWell Mind , repression and suppression are both “defense mechanism[s]” that help protect your mind from “feelings of guilt and anxiety.” The difference is that repression is when the brain unconsciously blocks unwanted memories, whereas suppression is “deliberately trying to forget” painful memories.  As we all know, the human mind is very powerful, and our brains can actually “‘ wall off’ memories of particularly harm...

     The phonological loop is one of the most important aspects of the working memory model. It is an area where verbal information is pre-stored combined with a rehearsal mechanism. In simple terms, some verbal information that is received is repeated in the brain several times, and the result is that the information becomes more memorable. Because of this, it would be preferable for information that we give out to bounce around in the phonological loop. But how do we do this?     Take a look at some of the most prominent and memorable company names: Coca-Cola, Bed Bath and Beyond, M & M, Paypal, Google, and Samsung. Can you see the main similarity behind all of these names? The answer is alliteration. The reason why some words/phrases stick better with us is that the information is bouncing around the phonological loop and the key is to create the repetition. The number one way to make words/phrases bounce around the phonological phrase is using alliterat...

          Lakshmi Manasa Maddi - Week 13: Retention of Memories Usually we hear that clear differences in the quality of one’s memory are typically seen between two divisions of younger and older individuals. As we as human beings let new brain cells get produced and integrated into our mind, the memories that people envision are created and not easily found. We tend to experience our lightest peak of memory around our 20s, and this slowly declines as we age into our 50s and 60s.  The location where these neurons where we store information and memories is called the dentate gyrus which slowly declines in its activity overtime. Within this region in our brain, the hippocampus functions to produce many more cells that aid in improving your ability to retain information faster and for a longer period of time. However, when you grow older as years pass by, a substance called Dementia forms within the nerves of your cells which causes different types of protein...

 Memory of a Goldfish Practically every single country in the world has their own translation of sorts for this common belief. China has "金鱼的记忆," and France has "Avoir la mémoire d'un poisson rouge." In fact, I know that Angelica, a dear friend of mine,   considers herself to have the memory of a goldfish. However, this is nothing more than a myth, a lie that has spread to the four corners of the Earth and taken up residence in the recesses of our brains. Research conducted by "Culum Brown, an expert in fish cognition at Macquarie University in Australia," has led to the conclusion that goldfish have extremely impressive memories: "weeks, months, and even years." In fact, they are so superior to other fish at memorization that they are used in experiments and act as the base model for other studies on the basis of fish memory; goldfish are the baseline for memory, and they set that bar extremely high. They are not the forgetful fishes that we...

 Avery Sun  Week 13 Getting my Foot Stuck in an Escalator in Korea! I’ve been saving this story since we started blogging since I thought it would be most relevant for the theme of Language and Memory. Now that we’re finally here, it’s time for my favorite story that I’ve told countless times and many of you may have already heard it.  I’m sure, when we were little, most of our parents have told us to stand still on escalators and keep away from the edges. For good measure, my mom often told me stories about people in China who’ve died when their entire body was consumed by an escalator (I think of escalators as metal monsters). Obviously, from the title of this blog, I never heeded her advice.  On the first day in Korea, me and my parents were trying to get to a river cruise tour (spoiler I never made it). While traveling to the port, I playfully pretended that the black bristles at the edge of the escalators in the subway station were cleaning my shoes (I was weari...

Over the last few weeks I’ve been learning about Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs in my AP Psychology class. It’s a diagram that is familiar to most, considering we spent a good amount of time on it during our one-semester Health class. According to Mr. Maslow, the order of needs that humans have starts with physiological needs, then safety needs, then belongingness and love, and right there above belongingness are esteem needs. Esteem stems from a personal feeling of accomplishment which can be induced both by inner feelings as well as outside recognition and praise. Most people in our grade are accomplished in their own right objectively speaking. However many of those people still find themselves inexplicably weighed down by a low-self esteem. In our current stage of lie we're still trying to figure out ourselves adding to the nuances and niches of each of our personalities, values, and interests. This leads to a great deal of comparison from person to person. Comparison leads to e...

The Sierra National Forest, located in between the Yosemite and Kings Canyon National Parks, was recently the subject of a power struggle between local legislators and environmentalists. The Unite the Parks campaign, started by national park ranger Deanna Lynn Wulff, is aiming to officially change management of the forest from the U.S. Forest Service, which essentially functions as an agent of the logging industry , to the National Park Service. By converting the forest, it would connect it to its neighboring national parks, collectively creating the“Range of Light” national moment that would span over three million acres. via the U.S. Forest Service The campaign would still allow recreational use and tourism, with the main difference being the banning of commercial logging in the forest. Because of the policy, Wulff has faced backlash. Following the start of her campaign, dueling groups representing people both for and against the campaign have each attracted thousands of followers. H...

Image Credits: https://www.grammar-monster.com/glossary/connotation.htm As APENG students, when examining a writer's diction, we often focus on a word’s connotation. As a quick refresher, a word’s denotation is the word’s literal meaning. In contrast, a word’s connotation refers to the positive or negative association of the word or its emotional implication.  But what really, is the impact of saying “thin” instead of “skinny” or “vintage” instead of “ancient?” Do people really notice connotations when not thoroughly analyzing a piece? For this week’s blog, I decided to evaluate the power of connotations by examining how politicians and businesses utilize the power of connotations for their own benefit. Image Credits:  https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/09/28 /donald-trump-congress-cap-candidate-age-column/1441913002/ Politicians often use words with strong connotations “in order to dictate the emotional response of” their audiences and persuade them to support t...

Sahana Narayan - Week 12: The Power of a Headline – 3/2 [ 6:55 PM ] There has always been a certain power in which the news has influenced the way people think about an event. And that power lies in the specific words and phrases that the author chooses to put in their article. While a journalist is usually not supposed to show bias, especially on an informational article, they can still include phrases and keywords that point to one side of thinking. These keywords are not just limited to the text of the article, but are often prominent in the headline itself.  In the context of the Ukraine-Russia conflict currently, I have gathered three headlines each from three different newspapers to try to observe the narrative that each group of titles form. And as you will see, that narrative is going to tell me a lot about the newspaper’s opinions on the war and what content I could probably see from them in the future.  The New York Times Opinion | War Between Ukraine and Russia Wo...