Bill-Drayton

Memory, Cognitive Abilities and Executive Functions

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Thinking menA mis­con­cep­tion we encounter often is that “mem­o­ry” is the only, or most impor­tant, “thing” that our brains do. And the only one we need to care for.

We have a vari­ety of cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties, from atten­tion to pro­cess­ing speed to prob­lem-solv­ing to emo­tion­al self-reg­u­la­tion to, yes, mem­o­ry. (And more). Even mem­o­ry is not one whole thing, but has dif­fer­ent types and process­es: work­ing mem­o­ry vs. long-term, audi­to­ry vs. visu­al, events vs. facts vs. skills.

I say this in the con­text of this arti­cle and video you may already have seen, where a young chimp dis­plays amaz­ing visu­al work­ing mem­o­ry capa­bil­i­ty, beat­ing humans.

- Read insight­ful blog post here. Quote

“This study shows that chimps can mem­o­rize at a glance the numer­als pre­sent­ed [Read more…] about Mem­o­ry, Cog­ni­tive Abil­i­ties and Exec­u­tive Functions

TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury), Iraq and neuropsychology

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You prob­a­bly have seen the news about Bob Woodruf­f’s own recov­ery and his arti­cles now to raise aware­ness about the plight of Iraq veterans.

In the arti­cle “A First­hand Report on the Wounds of War”, we learn how

  • “Woodruff, 45, is launch­ing a mul­ti­me­dia cam­paign that includes appear­ances Tues­day with Oprah Win­frey and on “Good Morn­ing Amer­i­ca,” and the release of a book (In an Instant) writ­ten with his wife, Lee, about their ordeal.”
  • “Woodruf­f’s report­ing packs an emo­tion­al punch because he is, quite sim­ply, a man who cheat­ed death. Nev­er before had an anchor for an Amer­i­can broad­cast net­work been injured in war. Woodruff instant­ly became a sym­bol of the dan­gers that jour­nal­ists face in Iraq, and is try­ing to use his high­er pro­file to illu­mi­nate the plight of sol­diers who strug­gle with these injuries far from the spotlight.”

This is not an iso­lat­ed exam­ple but part of a larg­er, and grow­ing, prob­lem. The Dis­cov­er Mag­a­zine arti­cle [Read more…] about TBI (Trau­mat­ic Brain Injury), Iraq and neuropsychology