Loving your child's mind: Alana explores memory

Hey, Ilana, can you hear me now?

Yes, I can hear you. Can you hear me?

And I can hear you! It's always frustrating when technology doesn't work. It's always nice when it does work because I could hear your— I could see your lips moving, but I couldn't hear you. So glad that we're back. Are you having a happy Father's Day so far?

I am.

What are you guys going to do for Father's Day?

Well, I really don't know.

Okay, well, I'm wondering about memory today. What do you think memory is?

Memory is like thoughts. Maybe you remember something really fun that you did, maybe going to the pool, or maybe going to A birthday party. Some memories can be bad. Maybe you had a really bad dream that you remember. Maybe you saw something scary on a movie or something.

Those are all fantastic examples. Do you remember everything or do you only remember some things?

For me, I mostly remember everything, but sometimes I don't, and sometimes I just basically forget about them and then you just go pop to make room for new ones.

Do you remember what you did for Father's Day last year?

I think last year during first grade, um, we had to make like these like ties for our dads and we got to decorate them and stuff.

Very cool. So it sounds like you remember it pretty clearly. Do you remember what you did for your birthday last birthday?

Oh, when I turned 7, which I am right now, I was in Barcelona.

Well, what did you do in Barcelona for your birthday?

When I woke up, I think my parents were already up. Logan might have been up too. And they already had like wrapped gifts for me on the table. And I remember that the previous day, Dad and Mom bought some churros that they had out.

Wow, that's a lot of detail. That's great. Do you remember— so today is Sunday. Do you remember what you did last Sunday?

Last meal, well, I had the call with you. Yeah. No, I don't.

Okay, so why do you think you remember some things but not other things?

Maybe, I don't know, but what I'm guessing is Is that maybe you just forget about all that and then you just make room for new ones? Just forget about all that.

But do you think it's just random? Because, you know, there's some things, you know, you remember something about Father's Day a whole year ago, but you can't remember a Sunday just a week ago. So why is it that you remember some things from a long time ago, but some recent things you don't remember?

Yeah, maybe it's random. Maybe You just like, since it's the next week, you maybe need time to remember that.

Um, what's the happiest memory you have? Um, uh, or one, it doesn't have to be the one happy memory.

One of my happiest memories was when we were in Oh wait, so one of my happiest memories was when we were in Cinque Terre and I was in the water.

And you were swimming and playing?

Mm-hmm.

That's very cool. And how long ago was that?

I think that was last year.

So you have a memory from— another memory from a whole year ago. How about one of your saddest memories? What is one of your saddest memories?

Saddest memories. Hmm. I don't know.

Okay, well maybe you don't have very many sad memories, which is good. Do you have any scary memories?

Um, not that I can think of, but I have some.

Okay. You mentioned like nightmares and stuff. Oh yeah. Can you remember any nightmares?

Nightmares. Oh, here's one that I remember. So me and my friends were running through Balboa Park. Something was chasing us like a monster of some sort. It's like black and white. It was just scary. It had multiple eyes. It had tentacles. It still had arms, but it had wings and it could run super fast. So they caught up to us and one by one it captured one of us and then my— and then the dream ended.

Did it capture you?

No.

Okay. Well, that sounds like a scary dream to me. Do you know about roughly how long ago you had that?

Dream? I'm guessing that was last year too.

Wow. So I have a theory that we tend to remember things better if they are emotionally intense, that if something doesn't touch our emotions, we don't remember it so much usually, but if something has some emotional charge, we're more likely to remember it. Do you think that might be true?

Yeah.

See, you know, I think Father's Day is probably a happy thing, which is why you remember a year ago Father's Day, Your birthday is a happy thing, which is why you remember a year ago your birthday. That nightmare definitely sounds scary, which is why you remember it a year ago. And, you know, maybe last Sunday was fine, but maybe last Sunday didn't have anything, you know, emotionally intense or super different emotionally. Do you think that might be a way that our memories are stored?

Yeah.

Long-term memory. Short-term memory might be different. So does it make sense we might have a difference between short-term memory and long-term memory?

Yeah, like maybe we have a little bit of both. Like sometimes it's just short-term, like you, you lose it the next day or next week. Some of it's long, you can just remember it for years and years and years.

Fair enough. And let me kind of play with an example of short-term memory. Suppose I gave you the number 703-395-0413. Can you remember that number?

Nope.

How about just the first 6 digits? 703-395. 703-395. 703-395. You got it?

7-3-3-9-5.

All right. How long do you think you're going to remember those numbers?

A few hours, I don't know.

Okay, so a lot of times things like that are, I think of that as short-term memory, where we can kind of put numbers like that in our head and remember them for a little while. But if they have no meaning and if there's no emotional charge, yeah, I think you'd be lucky to remember them for a few hours. Whereas other things you remember for a whole year. So that's why sometimes we talk about short-term memory and long-term memory. And I think it's short-term memory, it doesn't have to have an emotional charge. Just with repetition, we can kind of remember stuff. But once things have an emotional charge, we can remember them for a long time. Can you, can you remember anything from, say, 3 years ago when you were 4?

3 years ago?

Roughly, more or less.

I think in June something, I started jiu-jitsu then.

Aha, and you know what, that, I think that's probably a pretty emotionally significant event. Would you agree? See, you know, it's a theory, but you had said that you thought memories were random, And some things are random. So sometimes I think we all might just out of the blue, you know, remember something. Yeah. Actually, there's another theory. I'm very interested in memory and people, psychologists study it, people study it and so forth. There's another theory that sometimes smells can bring back memories. Have you ever been around like a perfume or a flower or something and remembered, like in Hawaii? I bet there are lots of smells in Hawaii that remind you of Hawaii. Is that the case?

Um, yeah, but I've never really smelled anything in Hawaii.

Okay. Are there any smells that remind you of things?

Um, ooh, mushroom smell. I love that.

But what does it remind you of when you smell mushrooms?

Sometimes I see in my mind just mushrooms, or sometimes when I also smell noodles, I just think of pasta.

Okay.

Or when I smell cheese, carbonara.

Got it. Sounds like you have a good appetite, which is a good thing. So yeah, you had thought that maybe memories were random, and I'm offering a counter hypothesis that at least long-term memories may be related to emotional charge some of the time. Do you think that— do you still think they're random, or do you think the emotional— you know what I mean by an emotional charge?

Yeah, yeah, I think it's, you know, yeah, I think it's that.

Okay, um, cool. So how do we learn then? Because, you know, if we're supposed to learn, when you learn things at school, do you learn through repetition? Do you learn through emotional charge? How do you learn?

What I think is that since you just keep doing that and doing that and doing that, just stays in your brain forever. Like 2 2 4.

So that's more repetition style?

Yeah.

So do you think that if every morning— you moved and I couldn't hear you. Are you still there?

Yeah.

Okay, something weird happened with the video. What I was saying is suppose if every morning you said 7:03, well, first of all, do you remember all 6 numbers?

7:03, 3, 9, 5?

Excellent.

Okay.

So if you said those numbers every morning, do you think you'd just remember them for a long time?

Yeah.

So do you think most of school learning is more like that?

Yeah, like, because like every day, like, you do the same routine, but maybe you learn different things. That's at different parts of the day, but like you practice, practice, practice the stuff that you did yesterday and the day before that. And maybe when you like, like master it, you can move on to something else.

Well, this is super fascinating. And I like to keep these short because people maybe don't want to watch too long videos, but I think we had a fun conversation on memory. And then learning is a kind of another thing. Memory and learning are related to each other. Now you're kind of beginning to develop a theory of learning. So how about we pause and let you have a great Father's Day, and maybe in the future we'll think more about learning. How's that sound?

Okay.

All right, thanks, Alana. Have a great day. Bye-bye.

Thank you. Bye.