From Borges to Jennifer Aniston: Science begins to illuminate the mysteries of memory

"Funes could learn languages and recite books from memory. Recalling a single day took him an entire day, as every detail accumulated itself in his mind in its most meticulous insignificance. The poor wretch saw this as a gift, but as his story unfolds, it reveals itself more as a curse, for remembering in such detail prevented him from distinguishing the essential from the superfluous."

"The brain is programmed to forget, he explains in an interview with this newspaper. There are so many reasons for doing so that it's truly a miracle we can remember anything at all. The scientific study of memory often focuses on how we learn, how short-term memories are consolidated into indelible ones. Less attention is paid to the important capacity to generalize and forget to how our brain discards less relevant information."

"Ranganath is a pioneer in the use of MRI to study how we remember past events. And he has found that we do so in a constantly changing way. Our present somehow modifies how we interpret our past. Every time we recall an event, we see it from our current perspective, he points out. So, for example, if you were to recall a recent breakup, you would evoke it very differently than if you were to recall it many years later."

A man with extraordinary memory could learn languages and recite books, yet perfect recall consumed him and prevented separating essential from trivial. Forgetting contributes to memory formation by discarding less relevant information and enabling generalization. The brain appears programmed to forget for many adaptive reasons, making retention itself remarkable. Scientific study often emphasizes how short-term memories consolidate into lasting ones while paying less attention to forgetting. MRI-based research shows memories continuously change because current perspective reshapes recollection. Recalling an event updates its representation, so memories can be reframed over time—from raw trauma to narratives of survival. Memory is fallible and ever-changing.

Read at english.elpais.com