Memory and the Senses: Hear the Difference

The Rich Sounds of Memory

When we talk about memory we are referring to the complicated process of retrieving bits and pieces of information collected at another point in time.    Some memories are very powerful and easy to recall and others seem to fade into the background.

It makes sense that those pieces of information with more hooks – context, background info, emotional factors – are stronger.   Those memories are filled with all kinds of emotional and intellectual information all triggered by sensory data.   Think about it.   We define moments in context and that context is filled with sensory data – sights, sounds, smells, tastes, feel.   The “things” that make a memory rich are in the sensory data associated with the event.

When you take away chunks of sensory data, you definitely lose value.   Smells, for example, are great triggers – new car smell, the scent of fall, popcorn, and the smell of new vinyl all can bring in a rush of memories.

Sounds do the same.   Today when I walked through the grocery store parking lot it was the sounds that made the moment:

• the Salvation Army bell ringer,
• cars driving through the puddles,
• recess at the pre-school across the street,
• a woman on her cell phone,
• the soles of my shoes crunching through a pile of dried leaves,
• a yellow lab panting at the window of the car as he waited, not so patiently,
• the sound of the broken wheel on the grocery cart I took from the middle of the lot

The sounds of my life made that mundane moment both rich and memorable.   In short, take away or diminish my hearing and my life loses a depth and quality that I would sorely miss.

Hearing loss is a big issue for my generation.   I spent my younger years with a transistor radio attached to my head; my teen years no more than a foot away from a set of speakers; my early adult years at concerts and bars with loud music or with headphones blasting sounds directly onto my eardrums; and now not a day goes by when I am not piping music or spoken word into my ears through highly tuned ear buds or incredibly cool headphones.   I know I need to be careful or I will lose one of those things that make my life so rich.

Hearing loss, unlike the sense of smell or taste, is something you can do something about and still retain dignity.   The first step is to find a professional and get a hearing test.   Next, if you or someone you know has hearing loss, look into getting some help.   Hearing aides are now almost undetectable.   Check out a few here.   They are not like my grandmother’s hearing aids or even my mom’s.

I guess our memories are our own personal body of work.  They are all those events that make us who we are and brought us to this moment in time.   Creating good, strong rich memories means engaging your senses and the best way to do that is collect as much information as you can.    The sounds of your life are too precious to lose.

So, speak up if you keep hearing “what did you say” or if you get blank stares at the dinner table this holiday season and recommend a hearing test.

Even though I wrote this piece while participating in a campaign by BOOMboxNetwork.com on behalf of ASHA and received payment for my participation, I jumped at the chance to Speak Up about hearing loss and will continue to do so.   Needless to say, all opinions stated within are my own – wouldn’t have it any other way.

Engage Your Senses

Build Your Cognitive Reserve: Part 3

Adults tend to primarily use only one or two senses to understand the world.   You can both heighten an experience and build up your reserves by simply engaging your senses more fully.   Close your eyes and experience the rest of the world – hear the sounds; feell the textures, the temperature, and the shapes; taste the flavors; and take in all the aromas.

When you enhance experiences from a sensory perspective, you create new information processing pathways in your brain.  Think about it.   Information is processed in different parts of the brain – vision and hearing process so much information they have their own compartments (visual cortex and auditory cortex).

Stop and smell, feel, and taste the roses!

Here is the much simplified version of what happens.  Information comes in through our senses and is sorted and routed, via neural pathways, to the part(s) of the brain that can handle the information best.   When you just see an item (a rose), the associated information is sent on that path for processing – this is a perfectly formed, pink rose.   Smell it and the information must be sent on a second set of routes for processing.  Feel and taste the petal and you have now opened up an entire network of neural pathways.  By creating a fuller sensory experience you are feeding those parts of the brain (and those pathways) by keeping them active.  However, you not just sending the information down separate sensory pathways – you are also creating associative pathways.  You now have a perfectly formed fragrant, pink rose with silky petals that taste slightly bitter but floral.  From this one experience, you gathered pieces of information that were processed separately through a series of neural pathways and a string of associative information that travelled through a network of pathways as well.

Tuning in to your senses will allow you to make new associations and activate multiple parts of the brain while doing something restful and nourishing!

Spice up your sensory life with flavors.

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