Content-type: text/html Downes.ca ~ Stephen's Web ~ The Brain ‘Rotates’ Memories to Save Them From New Sensations

Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community

The word 'rotate' here is a metaphor for what is actually happening, but it's a useful metaphor because it allows us to imagine the process in concrete terms (such as the rotated writing on the paper letter, illustrated). The idea is that the brain protects older perceptions from being 'overwritten' (again, a metaphor) by newer perceptions by 'rotating' them. This gives is a better mechanism to think of things like short- and long-term memory, and also to understand how new learning interacts with existing knowledge. Ultimately, this is probably just the leading edge of a wave of research that will be based on networks of diverse, rather than uniform, neurons.

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
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Last Updated: Nov 21, 2024 3:42 p.m.

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