I'm currently finishing the related work of my PhD thesis which deals with memory, so I want to chime in to say that some studies [2] have tested this, i.e. that memory recall is tied to the linguistic environment in which the learning took place.
[0] https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.1242
[1] https://doi.org/10.1037//0096-3445.129.3.361
[2] Nevertheless, I am usually dubious about multiple experiments confirming related things from the same author(s).
I think I read here on HN a theory that memories are like encoded and as we grow the encoding changes and we forget how to access certain memories, this was a theory of course. Probably explains people with Dementia (I think?) where they randomly remember something and a ton of joy rushes them, but they also get very confused as well, probably trying to decode memories but they cannot, they instead seem to ramble and get angry.
I dont remember the thread but the context I think was regarding reading memories digitally somehow.
I am slowly becoming convinced of this the more I hear about it. We encode and store memories, we decode them, but as we grow and adapt our thinking, we forget. I wonder if revisiting memories often enough will reencode them before they are lost?
> I dont remember the thread but the context I think was regarding reading memories digitally somehow.
Funnily enough, apparently the language in the different parts of memory process (i.e. encoding+storage+retrieval) stems exactly from "digital computer memory" :), psychologists in the 40s/50s looked at the development of computers and started making analogies with the brain.
> I wonder if revisiting memories often enough will reencode them before they are lost?
Well, you have Ebbinghaus' forgetting curve, which shows how (in this case, semantic) memory decays with time but, with rehearsal, the memory trace (i.e. the neural substrate) gets "stronger" ("neurons that wire together fire together") and lasts longer in memory.
There are multiple types of "forgetting" (Schacter's "The Seven Sins of Memory"), what we usually mean by it is the "transience sin", i.e. forgetting because of elapsed time. There are several views why it happens, mainly storage failure, i.e. that memory trace getting weaker, or retrieval failure, being unable to get the right "memory cue" to retrieve that memory.
So, probably, if you start associating one particular [0] cue with the memory, and training that over time, yes, it should be possible to not-lose the memory (I don't think it will help with Alzheimer's, though).
The funny thing is that every time you retrieve a memory from long-term storage, it gets re-encoded before it goes back to storage so, basically, every time you remember you are modifying the memory a bit with your current biases (another sin!), thus also forgetting :).
[0] And choosing the best cue is already a hard topic, as it should be different enough as to not trigger many different memories ("cue overload principle" from Surprenant and Neath's "principles of memory"), and the memory should be not so different enough that you may get the risk of other singular memories interfering with it.
> every time you retrieve a memory from long-term storage, it gets re-encoded before it goes back to storage
I don't know how literal you're being (e.g. read once, fully overwrite previous), but it's a good model for "reinterpreting past events, with a new perspective".
This may be a tool/strategy for therapists -- I've spent zero hours in clinical psychology classes.
But anecdotally, very few people are open to reflecting on past events with greater charity for the remembered villain of the story. :)
Well, another one of the "sins of memory" (categorised along the sins of <i>comission</i>, instead of <i>omission</i>) is <i>bias</i>, which means modifying the actual transpired event with our beliefs and previous knowledge, either at encoding or during retrieval.
So, if at retrieval time, your beliefs (e.g. now you support legalisation of marijuana) and knowledge are different than what they were during the memory encoding (e.g. you didn't support legalisation of marijuana), because you see yourself as "consistent" you may actually remember the memory tinted with your actual beliefs (e.g. you were a supporter all along).
Furthermore, as we lose the complete experience details from our episodic memories, we start filling the gaps with our current knowledge and beliefs, too, to achieve some consistency of the event...
Quite interesting, but obviously, lots of variables and different things come into play in this topic.
> I wonder if revisiting memories often enough will reencode them before they are lost?
There's work that suggests our memories are kinda like magnetic core memory[1] in that a read operation is destructive and requires a rewrite.
I heard about it in the context of phobia therapy, where participants would get some drug that for a short term prevented new memories from forming, and then exposing them to their phobia. That would trigger a recall but not the rewrite thanks to the drug, and after just a couple of such sessions their phobia would be gone as there was nothing to recall.
I have a couple of distinct but mundane memories from early childhood, when I was 1-2 years old. I'm nearing my 50s and they're not nearly as vivid now as when I was a teenager say, but I've long suspected that the reason I can still relive them is because I kept recalling those moments.
I've heard of beta blockers, specifically propranolol, being used in this way in an experimental PTSD therapy protocol, I think back in the 80s or 90s. It didn't seem to go anywhere, or at least I stopped hearing about it.
This 2016 metareview suggests the reason is insufficient evidence of efficacy, for that and a couple of other anxiety indications: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4724794/
The explanation can't be that neat. You can have a stroke and lose language and still retain and form memories. Maybe there's a subtle effect but that's very different.
> The explanation can't be that neat.
It's not an absolute, I was telling OP that, in fact, there was some research on what he mentioned. Basically, that memory is linguistic-context dependent, but as a subset of cognitive-context dependent (as well as physiological-, affective-, and several types of context). This doesn't mean that memories are ONLY linked to language, they have lots of different associations, things that work as a cue of the memory, this (language) is only one of them.
> You can have a stroke and lose language and still retain and form memories.
What does it mean to "lose language"? Are you unable to speak, to express yourself, to comprehend others, all together? What memories do you retain and form? Are you talking about semantic memories, or episodic memories? How do you measure that those memories are retained and formed, if you cannot test the subject due to the impossibility of communication?
It's a lot more difficult than absolutist statements.
Edit: typo (thinks->things)