Memories are Made of This: How Memory Works in Humans and Animals (Maps of the Mind) Book

In Memories Are Made of This, Rusiko Bourtchuladze, a Georgian research scientist now working in America, produces an eminently readable synthesis of what is known about memory for the general reader. Poets and philosophers have known for thousands of years that we are our memories, without them we could barely exist as individual people. In the 4th century BC, the Greek dramatist Aristophanes recognised the existence of short and long-term memory. And yet we still do not fully understand what exactly memory is and how it comes about. Memory is a problem. According to Bourtchuladze, too much of it produces people who have "enormous difficulty making even simple decisions, because at the same time they can think of 50 different options to choose from". Equally, losing our memory is tragic and tends to dehumanise us: "Memory defines who we are and who others are in our own minds. Memory shapes our intellectual and moral personality, the way we think, smile, say hello and behave in day-to-day life. Indeed it would be impossible to live as one person, with an individual history... without the memory threads that constantly link our present to our past and prospective future". The discoveries of the scientists who have worked on the problem of memory makes for fascinating reading with many deeply moving stories. For instance, certain brain damage can cause a loss of ability to recognise faces while other visual skills remain intact. In extreme cases people suffering from prosopagnosia, as it is called, cannot even recognise their own faces. And yet tests have shown that sometimes there is recognition at some unconscious level which just cannot surface, suggesting that face recognition is executed by a chain of commands or subprocesses, some of which continue to work but cannot be accessed by the victim. Most of us will have to face up to memory loss sooner or later, either in ourselves or in someone dear to us. Read this book for a better sympathy of the problem and understanding of what memory is. A scattering of excellent black and white illustrations and diagrams help with some of the more technical points along with notes, references and an index but do not be put off, Memories Are Made of This is perfectly accessible to the general reader.--Douglas PalmerRead More