There’s something for almost everyone in this new study about an adventure involving ringtones and frog-eating bats: “Long-Term Memory in Frog-Eating Bats,” M. May Dixon, Patricia L. Jones, Michael J. Ryan, Gerald G. Carter, and Rachel A. Page, bioRxiv, 2022. The authors report: We captured 49 wild adult T. cirrhosus, individually marked them, and trained […]
It seems that a lack of sleep may prevent the brain from forgetting unimportant information. A lack of sleep may also prevent the brain from remembering important information. How can scientists make sense of this seemingly-nonsensical seeming-contradiction? Imagine you just met your child’s teacher, who is named Gwen. The name Gwen, however, is firmly associated […]
“We investigate the anecdotal belief that end users will pick up and plug in USB flash drives they find by completing a controlled experiment in which we drop 297 flash drives on a large university campus. We find that the attack is effective with an estimated success rate of 45–98% and expeditious with the first […]
“What, specifically, do you want to know?” is a question no one needs ask about this study. The answer is in the title: “Aggregated Effects of Combining Daily Milk Consumption And Aerobic Exercise on Short-Term Memory and Sustained Attention Among Female Students,” In-Tyng Leong, Sedigheh Moghadam and Hairul A. Hashim [pictured here], Perceptual and Motor Skills, […]
Does this study seem familiar to you? Did you move your eyes while trying to remember? “Why do we move our eyes while trying to remember? The relationship between non-visual gaze patterns and memory,” Dragana Micic, Howard Ehrlichman and Rebecca Chen, Brain and Cognition, 2010 Dec;74(3):210-24. The authors, at City University of New York (CUNY), […]
Who remembers memorable music? This study examines one aspect of that question: “A Song to Remember: Emerging Adults Recall Memorable Music,” Julia R. Lippman and Dara N. Greenwood [pictured here], Journal of Adolescent Research, vol. 27, no. 6 (2012): 751-774. BONUS: Professor Greenwood’s “Joking in the face of death: A terror management approach to humor production”
Comes now (or came in 2010, anyway), an only partial explanation of a phenomenon: “Why do we move our eyes while trying to remember? The relationship between non-visual gaze patterns and memory,” Dragana Micic, Howard Ehrlichman and Rebecca Chen, Brain and Cognition, 2010 Dec;74(3):210-24. The authors, at City University of New York (CUNY), report: “reasons […]
Finger foods need not be memorable to be chosen by people whose memories no longer work well, suggests this study: “Attractiveness and consumption of finger foods in elderly Alzheimer’s disease patients,” Virginie Pouyet, Agnès Giboreau, Linda Benattar, Gérard Cuvelier, Food Quality and Preference, epub January 3, 2014. The authors, at Centre de Recherche de l’Institut […]
Yet another tiny research tentative discovery about possible small biomedical effects of coffee and/or tea: “Post-study caffeine administration enhances memory consolidation in humans,” Daniel Borota, Elizabeth Murray, Gizem Keceli, Allen Chang, Joseph M Watabe, Maria Ly, John P Toscano and Michael A Yassa [pictured here], Nature Neuroscience, epub 2014. The authors, at Johns Hopkins University […]
Computer access to a stack of photos can be used to boost one’s mental calculating ability, suggests this paper. Do pay attention to the thought in parentheses, at the very end of this quotation: “Multiplying 10-digit numbers using Flickr: The power of recognition memory,” Andrew Drucker [pictured here], 2011. The author, at MIT, explains: In […]