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Emotionally arousing images that are remembered more vividly were seen more vividly. This may be because the amygdala focuses visual attention rather than more cognitive attention on the image.

We know that emotion affects memory.

Each memory experience biases how you approach the next one

A new study provides evidence that our decision to encode information as new or try and retrieve it from long-term memory is affected by how we treated the last bit of information processed.

Our life-experiences contain a wealth of new and old information. The relative proportions of these change, of course, as we age. But how do we know whether we should be encoding new information or retrieving old information?

Second language processing differs for negative words

A study involving Chinese-English bilinguals shows how words with negative emotional connotations don’t automatically access native translations, while those with positive or neutral emotions do.

Here’s an intriguing study for those interested in how language affects how we think.

Walking through doorways causes forgetting

A series of experiments indicates that walking through doorways creates event boundaries, requiring us to update our awareness of current events and making information about the previous location less available.

We’re all familiar with the experience of going to another room and forgetting why we’ve done so. The problem has been largely attributed to a failure of attention, but recent research suggests something rather more specific is going on.

Repetition is behind our improved memory for emotional events

A new study concludes that positive events tend to be remembered better than negative, but the more important finding is that being repeatedly reminded of the event is the main factor behind improved memory for emotional experiences.

Certainly experiences that arouse emotions are remembered better than ones that have no emotional connection, but whether negative or positive memories are remembered best is a question that has produced equivocal results.

Memory genes vary in protecting against age-related cognitive decline

New findings show the T variant of the KIBRA gene improves episodic memory through its effect on hippocampal activity. Another study finds the met variant of the BDNF gene is linked to greater age-related cognitive decline.

Previous research has found that carriers of the so-called KIBRA T allele have been shown to have better episodic memory than those who don’t carry that gene variant (this is a group difference; it doesn’t mean that any carrier will remember events better than any non-carrier).

Another challenge to idea that men are better at spatial thinking

A cross-cultural study finds a significant gender difference on a simple puzzle problem for one culture but no gender difference for another. The difference was only partly explained by education.

Here’s an intriguing approach to the long-standing debate about gender differences in spatial thinking. The study involved 1,279 adults from two cultural groups in India. One of these groups was patrilineal, the other matrilineal.

Brain flexibility predicts learning speed

New analytic techniques reveal that functional brain networks are more fluid than we thought.

A new perspective on learning comes from a study in which 18 volunteers had to push a series of buttons as fast as possible, developing their skill over three sessions. New analytical techniques were then used to see which regions of the brain were active at the same time.

Working memory has more layers than thought

A new study provides further support for a three-tier model of working memory, where the core only holds one item, the next layer holds up to three, and further items can be passively held ready.

Readers of my books and articles will know that working memory is something I get quite excited about. It’s hard to understate the importance of working memory in our lives.

New insight into insight, and the role of the amygdala in memory

A new study suggests that one-off learning (that needs no repetition) occurs because the amygdala, center of emotion in the brain, judges the information valuable.

Most memory research has concerned itself with learning over time, but many memories, of course, become fixed in our mind after only one experience. The mechanism by which we acquire knowledge from single events is not well understood, but a new study sheds some light on it.

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