Committed To Memory 記憶的祕密

Book Name : Committed To Memory 記憶的祕密

Author : Rebecca Rupp

What is it about : Seventy Seven short passages detailing "How we remember" and "Why we forget". The author examined the amazing feats memory performed by living organisms as well as the astonishing fallibility of our memory as we used imagination and creativity to fill the voids of memory gaps, to make us feel better and even to re-write parts which we would like to forget. To quote Mark Twain "... I could remember anything, whether it happened or not ...". The best advice the book gave to forgetful people - interactive learning to make a deeper impression on the mind and by understanding what you try to remember, would go a long way to hold on to what we remembered. Also, an important finding resulted from one of the experiments - keeping up the process of learning and re-learning during the age between 50-60 years would be vital in maintaining memory at senility - a new chess game, a new language and new crossword puzzles could all help prevent memory loss at old age.

Some thoughts after having read the book : Hats off to all those lab rats who aided our scientists figure out how our memory worked by having their tiny brains sliced left, right and center, had all sorts of tracing elements injected as well as taking all those drugs and chemicals while STILL managing to perform the maze tests. The book reminded readers "don't believe everything you see" because seeing would be one thing, remembering quite another; and also even though many "in the room" witnessed the same incident, the testimonies afterwards would give varying accounts to the event as we all remember in different ways and paid attention to different aspects and objects. Not only that, various suggestive words might also induce and evoke totally different memory to the same chain of events.

Would I recommend this book to you : Good book on the Subject with witty and thought-provoking quotations from all walks of life - Twain, Dickens, Confucius, Homer, Kipling and Machiavelli etc. This would be just the book if you want a comprehensive, fairly in-depth and amusing account on this interesting topic. I learnt a great deal having read it.