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Articles by Richard Restak M.D
Eyewitness Testimony and Internal States
Is it possible for someone to know something but not know that they know it? If so, how would such a person be distinguished from someone who knows something but lies about it when asked? Interrogators and criminal investigators are faced with such conundrums all the time. What is State-Dependent Learning?
Eyewitness Testimony and Internal States
State-dependent learning can explain why witnesses may forget details, not necessarily deceive. Recognition tests, like multiple choice, reveal knowledge even when direct recall fails. No objective test, including lie detectors, reliably identifies deception in courtrooms. Is it possible for someone to know something but not know that they know it? If so, how would such a person be distinguished from someone who knows something but lies about it when asked?
Ways to Create a Dynamic Memory
In a previous post, I suggested a memory exercise based on mentally composing a two-act play and incorporating the items one wishes to memorize. Some readers objected to the additional requirement of remembering not only the items but also incorporating them into a play, a separate cognitive act not everyone is comfortable with. So here is an equally effective alternative method that does away with the need to mentally compose a new play each time you want to memorize a list of items.
Ways to Create a Dynamic Memory
The "magic number 7" is a cognitive limit for items held in short-term memory. Grouping information with familiar frameworks, like phone numbers, boosts memory capacity. The loci method links familiar places with vivid images to aid in recalling lists. In a previous post, I suggested a memory exercise based on mentally composing a two-act play and incorporating the items one wishes to memorize.
The Promise and Perils of Brain Research
A common theme traceable back at least 2,000 years holds that neuropsychiatric illnesses are the result of an excess of substances (humors) within the body. Black bile was considered responsible for melancholia (depression); yellow bile produced a choleric explosive temperament; excess of blood led to a sanguineous confident disposition; and phlegm induced inactivity and passivity.
The Promise and Perils of Brain Research - Richard Restak M.d
What Is Psychopharmacology? Take our Do I Need Therapy? Find a therapist near me Brain research advances often follow unpredictable, serendipitous paths. The discovery of new brain drugs must be guided by scientific experience, not expediency. Non-expert oversight of research funding could stifle unforeseen breakthroughs. A common theme traceable back at least 2,000 years holds that neuropsychiatric illnesses are the result of an excess of substances (humors) within the body.
Superagers May Hold Answers to Lifetime Cognitive Ability
Superagers show the memory capacity of people decades younger, challenging aging stereotypes. Superager brains have twice as many immature neurons in the hippocampus as peers' brains do. Intense, lifelong hobbies—“magnificent obsessions”—may help extend cognitive powers into old age. Most of us would welcome the prospect of an extended lifespan. But while entertaining such a prospect, we should also add two important caveats: good health in general and the retention of cognitive longevity.
Superagers May Hold Answers to Lifetime Cognitive Ability - Richard Restak M.d
Take our Positive Aging Test Find a therapist specialized in aging concerns Superagers show the memory capacity of people decades younger, challenging aging stereotypes. Superager brains have twice as many immature neurons in the hippocampus as peers' brains do. Intense, lifelong hobbies—“magnificent obsessions”—may help extend cognitive powers into old age. Most of us would welcome the prospect of an extended lifespan.
Smarter People Tend to Possess Enhanced Working Memory
Wouldn’t we all like to be smarter? No matter how intelligent we actually are, we always know someone who at least appears to be smarter than we are (or so we believe). Whether or not intelligence can be increased as one matures has long been the subject of speculation and controversy. Is intelligence something we are born with, like eye color, which cannot be changed? Or is intelligence modifiable and, if so, how does one go about increasing intelligence?
Smarter People Tend to Possess Enhanced Working Memory - Richard Restak M.d
Thinking styles changed during the twentieth century. Thinking based on practical use has given way to abstract, symbolic, and scientific thinking. Wouldn’t we all like to be smarter? No matter how intelligent we actually are, we always know someone who at least appears to be smarter than we are (or so we believe). Whether or not intelligence can be increased as one matures has long been the subject of speculation and controversy.
A Reliable Memory Method Based on Ancient Practices
Memory is the premier determiner of who we are and how we think. As Samuel Johnson put it in 1759, “Memory is the primary and fundamental power without which there could be no other intellectual operation." One has to spend only a few minutes in conversation with someone unfortunate enough to be suffering from Alzheimer’s or one of the other dementias affecting memory to appreciate the accuracy of Johnson’s statement.
A Reliable Memory Method Based on Ancient Practices
Developmentally we can perceive and recognize before we can name. Temporary failures of naming are much more common than failures of identification. In forming memories, a picture really is more informative than a thousand words. Memory is the premier determiner of who we are and how we think.
Enhancing Our Power of Smell Improves Our Cognition
Our olfactory system, which originated millions of years ago, evolved to detect small changes in the chemical composition of the environment and thereby serve as a protective mechanism. Such a use remains operative today by enabling us to smell telltale odorants that may precede such things as an explosion secondary to a gas leakage. But the olfactory system comes with good things too: Responding to such pleasurable odorants as flowers or the aromas of newly cut grass. Chemicals are the key.
Enhancing Our Power of Smell Improves Our Cognition - Richard Restak M.d
Increasing olfactory memory strengthens memory in general. Taste and scent detection greatly overlap. Our olfactory system, which originated millions of years ago, evolved to detect small changes in the chemical composition of the environment and thereby serve as a protective mechanism. Such a use remains operative today by enabling us to smell telltale odorants that may precede such things as an explosion secondary to a gas leakage.
Olfaction Smell Is Our Most Neglected Sense
Most of us would feel pressed if someone asked us to come up with a word or phrase to describe our favorite perfume or cologne. For one reason, most of us pay little attention to smell and therefore have a stunted vocabulary when it comes to describing an odorant (an inorganic compound that produces a distinct smell or aroma). Our perception of our immediate surroundings is mostly determined by what we see, hear, and touch.
The Effects of Media Depictions or Mediaspeak on War
War is not a computer game or a movie. You don’t have to be mentally ill to be living in a fantasy world. Mentally transforming the horrendous into the non-disturbing can come at a high emotional cost. At the moment, our nation is at war. Much of what we may learn about this war will come from video imagery, which creates a problem that didn’t start with the Israeli-American war against Iran. Beginning with the Vietnam War, it became possible to view actual images of fighting, wounding, and death.
How Anxiety Can Increase the Likelihood of War
The world lives in an age of anxiety, marked by media depictions of horror and mayhem. It's important to distinguish anxiety, which is pervasive, from fear, which is immediate and specific. National leaders may induce a state of anxiety in the population to ensure compliance with their actions.
Carbon Emissions in a War-Torn World Threaten Brain Health
If we have any chance of prevailing against the life challenges we currently face (multiple wars, global warming, environmental pollution, and so on), we must train our brains in new ways of observing and thinking. What’s needed is to hone our ability to discover underappreciated links between seemingly unrelated forces.
How to Think About the Brain
Historical views of the brain reflect the biases of the time. The industrial age spawned mechanical explanations for the brain. Today, a new concept of the brain is well adapted to explaining and responding to 21st-century challenges. Displayed on a wall in my study is a diagram taken from a children’s encyclopedia dating from the 1930s.
The Effects of Extreme Heat on the Brain
Although the large majority of climate scientists hold firmly to the belief that the climate is heating up at an unsustainable rate, an undetermined segment of the population is convinced that global warming worries are overblown—a belief that runs counter to demonstrable scientific evidence, as well as everyday observation. In 1988, experts testified before Congress in the first congressional hearing about climate change.
The Importance of Watching the Watchers
Surveillance comes naturally to the brain because of its need for explanations for events and, most of all, for people, both individually and collectively. Why this? Why now? What does it all mean?—these kinds of questions. The brain thrives on information like the lungs thrive on oxygen. Nothing creates anxiety more than the unexpected and the unexplained. In general, the more we learn about a person, the more likely it is that the accrued knowledge can be put to some kind of use.
AI: Stimulus and Threat to Optimal Brain Functioning
Since the end of 2022, when the first chatbot (ChatGPT) was introduced, we’ve progressed from a “machine” capable of human-like speech and writing to realistic videos of people with movie-star good looks whom some people fall in love with, only to learn, alas, that they exist solely in the realm of computer code. Currently, AI is challenging some of our most basic notions.
Hearing Loss and Its Link to Dementia
Hearing loss increases dementia risk and affects millions of adults. Hearing loss has many social implications, including frustration and isolation. Treating hearing loss may help protect long-term brain health. What would be your best estimate of the number of people in the United States with significant hearing loss? You may be as surprised as I was to learn the answer: about 73 million, or approximately 1 in 5 persons.
The Destructive Effects of Misinformation on the Human Brain
The brain's power of logic and reasoning are dependent on receiving correct information. Thanks to the technology of the Internet and AI, misinformation is vastly increasing. Pulitzer Prize-winning political cartoonist Michael Ramirez recently depicted three scientists huddled together in a medical lab for The Washington Post. The first looks up from a microscope and ominously states, “It’s the most dangerous pathogen we have come across.” The second scientist, bug-eyed, inquires, “Bubonic plague?
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