Memory and its environment

When we mobilise our attention to listen to a conversation or watch a film on television or at the cinema, we focus our full attention on what we are listening to or watching. Without realising it, all sorts of things happen in the background to keep up our attention and to ensure that our recollection will be faithful. Some of the elements that make up this background activity are: the ambient noise in which we concentrate on the conversation, the interest we take in the subject which relates to what we have read previously, the desire to remember what is being said so as to discuss it with our colleagues, the comfort of the seats in the cinema, the business of finding a parking spot near it, our familiarity with the actors who remind us of earlier films and other places with other people… This environment is constantly influencing the quality of our attention and our memory. Three surveys have thrown some light on the influence of this environment

Three survey to help understand

- - - - - - Survey 1

Asked whether there had been “events which had affected their current memory problems”, 4 people out of 5 answered yes, describing the nature of the even and when it happened. What event seem to be important in the history of our memory problems ? Events which upset us, which unbalance us. Also quoted are: an illness, the loss of a dear one, moving house, forced retirement, undergoing anaesthesia once or more. We now know that this background in the story of our lives can be a long-term handicap for the proper function of our memory. So there would be quite useless to try and solve our memory problems with a lot of exercises. We need to get back our internal balance, and once freed, our memory will play its role without our even being aware of it.

- - - - - - Survey 2 : Memory and relationships

A large-scale survey in Peru let the experts to seek what relation there could be between the memory and our usual relationship with our environment. The result is shown in the following table Notes for a memory questionnaire   Average of the social integration rating   0 à 9 10 à 19 20 à 29 30 à 39 40 à 50 50 à 61  9,50 13,71 14,26 17,29 17,87 19,52  Statistically, where the memory is poor, social integration, or the quality of relationships with others and the surrounding social milieu, is low. As the quality or relationships improves, the memory performs better. Frequently we find that the memory does not let us down, even if that is the symptom affecting us. We are more alone, our friends are far away, work relations have ceased since retirement, moving house has meant being cut off from our family and friends. Little by little we demand less from our memory and it gradually slows down, shrinking like a tyre that deflates when pierced by a nail. It is an illusion to think that memory exercises are going to act like a patch and solve our problem. It will be more important to find out how to rebuild a network of relations which give us many opportunities to listen, see, remember, discuss and respond. The memory needs this activity to maintain its capacity. We see here how some situations are in themselves machines causing memory loss: solitude, absence of conversation, lack of social purpose…

- - - - - - Survey 3 : Memories at risk

“The unemployed are a population at risk” Are there some people who are in greater danger than others to see their memories fail with time ? To find out, we did a major survey of more than 1500 people, those still working, retired people and the unemployed. It turned out that the group that had the highest risk that their memory would fail was not the older people, as most people think, but the unemployed. Marginalised and often with a strong feeling of uselessness and rejection, they are more at risk than pensioners. When they realise they have these problems, which come on top of their professional difficulties, they risk becoming really discouraged and this could compromise their efforts to find work. In fact, their memory problems are not the sign of an unavoidable deterioration, but of a breakdown of their relation with the environment. Neither calls for extra effort nor exercises will give new energy to this memory bogged down in failure. Working towards overcoming the vicious circle of failure, restoring self-confidence, finding support in new relationships : neighbours, shopping, holidays, training, clubs … Days spent improving our network of encounters will constantly stimulate our memory function. This is the best way to mobilise our neurones again, that had become unemployed as well, for lack of opportunities to use them. Dangerous jobs: Leaving the workforce is a break with a milieu that is a constant stimulant for the memory. Contact with others, work practices, professional commitments of which we can never lose sight: program, telephone, clients’ names, are all opportunities to mobilise, quite unconsciously, a memory that functions more or less well, but with which we have lived since childhood. Losing these ties as well as opportunities to remember serve to break down a the permanent stimulation which we found in the workplace. At work, I had a remarkable memory. I knew by heart the names of everyone who worked in my company. The telephone numbers of clients registered in my mind without effort. The code numbers of more than 2000 articles in our catalogue were no secret to me. On the other hand, family memories were absent: I could only just remember the main birthdays. Remembering the menu of the last birthday party was beyond my ability. Luckily I had my wife. She saw to everything and remembered everything. After retiring two years ago, I no longer have a professional memory and I still have no family memory. I’m a man without a memory.   There are greater risks for some professions than for others: those which at the same time involve a major emotional commitment constantly provide opportunities to work our memories. The teacher who listens to the news or reads documentation while thinking how he will use this information in lessons is living for his class in some ways. The nurse who remembers her patients’ names and illnesses and the medication she has to give them, constantly having to retain new information, is memorising all the time, simply to be able to do her job with grace. When they retire and they have no more students or patients, the permanent memory trigger disappears as well as the urgent need to update knowledge. Other triggers will have to take over, otherwise the memory performance will gradually decline and moments of depression will cause significant memory loss.