Theta brainwaves improve remembering

September, 2011

New research suggests that successful retrieval depends not only on retrieval cues, but also on your preceding brain state.

What governs whether or not you’ll retrieve a memory? I’ve talked about the importance of retrieval cues, of the match between the cue and the memory code you’re trying to retrieve, of the strength of the connections leading to the code. But these all have to do with the memory code.

Theta brainwaves, in the hippocampus especially, have been shown to be particularly important in memory function. It has been suggested that theta waves before an item is presented for processing lead to better encoding. Now a new study reveals that, when volunteers had to memorize words with a related context, they were better at later remembering the context of the word if high theta waves were evident in their brains immediately before being prompted to remember the item.

In the study, 17 students made pleasantness or animacy judgments about a series of words. Shortly afterwards, they were presented with both new and studied words, and asked to indicate whether the word was old or new, and if old, whether the word had been encountered in the context of “pleasant” or “alive”. Each trial began with a 1000 ms presentation of a simple mark for the student to focus on. Theta activity during this fixation period correlated with successful retrieval of the episodic memory relating to that item, and larger theta waves were associated with better source memory accuracy (memory for the context).

Theta activity has not been found to be particularly associated with greater attention (the reverse, if anything). It seems more likely that theta activity reflects a state of mind that is oriented toward evaluating retrieval cues (“retrieval mode”), or that it reflects reinstatement of the contextual state employed during study.

The researchers are currently investigating whether you can deliberately put your brain into a better state for memory recall.

Reference: 

[2333] Addante, R. J., Watrous A. J., Yonelinas A. P., Ekstrom A. D., & Ranganath C.
(2011).  Prestimulus theta activity predicts correct source memory retrieval.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 108(26), 10702 - 10707.

Related News

Research into the effects of cannabis on cognition has produced inconsistent results. Much may depend on extent of usage, timing, and perhaps (this is speculation) genetic differences.

In the study, two rhesus monkeys were given a standard human test of

In the experiment, rats learned which lever to press to receive water, where the correct lever depended on which lever they had pressed previously (the levers were retractable; there was a variable delay between the first and second presentation of the levers).

I’ve always felt that better thinking was associated with my brain working ‘in a higher gear’ — literally working at a faster rhythm.

Trying to learn two different things one after another is challenging. Almost always some of the information from the first topic or task gets lost. Why does this happen?

I’ve spoken often about the spacing effect — that it’s better to spread out your learning than have it all massed in a block.

In a recent study, 40 undergraduate students learned ten lists of ten pairs of Swahili-English words, with tests after each set of ten. On these tests, each correct answer was followed by an image, either a neutral one or one designed to arouse negative emotions, or by a blank screen.

Childhood amnesia — our inability to remember almost everything that happened to us when very young — is always interesting. It’s not as simple as an inability to form long-term memories.

As we get older, when we suffer memory problems, we often laughingly talk about our brain being ‘full up’, with no room for more information. A new study suggests that in some sense (but not the direct one!) that’s true.

It’s well-established that feelings of encoding fluency are positively correlated with judgments of learning, so it’s been generally believed that people primarily use the simple rule, easily learned = easily remembered (ELER), to work out whether they’re likely to remember something (as discuss

Pages

Subscribe to Latest newsSubscribe to Latest newsSubscribe to Latest health newsSubscribe to Latest news
Error | About memory

Error

The website encountered an unexpected error. Please try again later.