Articles

Planning memory contains your plans and goals (such as, “I must pick up the dry-cleaning today”; “I intend to finish this project within three months”). Forgetting an appointment or a promise is one of the memory problems people get most upset about.

People are poor at assessing their own memory

One thing research seems to show rather consistently is that, for older adults in particular, beliefs about one's own memory performance have little to do with one's actual memory performance¹. People who believe they have a poor memory are usually no worse at remembering than those who believe they have a good memory.

K. Anders Ericsson, the guru of research into expertise, makes a very convincing case for the absolutely critical importance of what he terms “deliberate practice”, and the minimal role of what is commonly termed “talent”. I have written about this question of talent and also about the principles of expertise. Here I would like to talk briefly about Ericsson’s concept of deliberate practice.

I was listening on my walk today to an interview with Edward Tufte, the celebrated guru of data visualization. He said something I took particular note of, concerning the benefits of concentrating on what you’re seeing, without any other distractions, external or internal. He spoke of his experience of being out walking one day with a friend, in a natural environment, and what it was like to just sit down for some minutes, not talking, in a very quiet place, just looking at the scene.

What do we mean by word-finding problems?

Here are some examples:

• increasing use of circumlocutions rather than specific terms (e.g., "I wonder where the thing that goes here is")
• use of empty phrases, indefinite terms, and pronouns without antecedents (i.e., referring to something or someone as "it" or "him / her" without first identifying them by name)
• increased frequency of pauses

These problems are all characteristic of Alzheimer's, but also, to a much lesser extent, of normal aging.

Movement with Meaning: A Multisensory Program for Individuals in Early-Stage Alzheimer's Disease

Those of us in the field of dementia care are reexamining our philosophical beliefs and exploring practical, hands-on approaches in our relationships with individuals living with Alzheimer's disease. We are creating innovative programs and developing a new framework for preserving the emotional health, autonomy, and dignity of those who need us to walk hand in hand with them, witnessing the process of their experiences with empathy and respect.

Intelligence in a cultural context

One theory of intelligence sees intelligence in terms of adaptiveness. Thus: "What constitutes intelligence depends upon what the situation demands" (Tuddenham 1963). Intelligence in these terms cannot be understood outside of its cultural context. Naturally to us it may seem self-evident that intelligence has to do with analytical and reasoning abilities, but we are perceiving with the sight our culture taught us.

I’ve recently had a couple of thoughts about flow — that mental state when you lose all sense of time and whatever you’re doing (work, sport, art, whatever) seems to flow with almost magical ease. I’ve mentioned flow a couple of times more or less in passing, but today I want to have a deeper look, because learning (and perhaps especially that rewiring I was talking about in my last post) is most easily achieved if we can achieve "flow" (also known as being ‘in the zone’).

Let’s start with some background.

Back in 2010, I read a charming article in the New York Times about a bunch of neuroscientists bravely disentangling themselves from their technology (email, cellphones, laptops, …) and going into the wilderness (rafting down the San Juan River) in order to get a better understanding of how heavy use of digital technology might change the way we think, and whether we can reverse the problem by immersing ourselves in nature.

What are external memory aids?

External memory aids include such strategies as: