By Bob Yirka — MedicalXPress, 22 November 2021
A team of researchers at Zhejiang University in China has found evidence suggesting that the brain blocks retention of some memories even when a person actively attempts to remember them. Common sense suggests that human beings should be able to better remember things about given events when they focus on them while they are occurring. In this new effort, the researchers have found evidence that suggests that might not always be the case, because the subconscious brain knows that the information will not be needed again.
The experiments involved asking volunteers to look at various objects and to focus on certain elements while ignoring others, such as focusing on their colour while ignoring their shape. Other tests showed volunteers similar objects and then asked them if they had changed in shape or colour. The researchers ran all of their experiments on multiple groups of people of different sizes and ages. They discovered that the volunteers were often distracted by things they were told to ignore and often forgot those things they were asked to focus on so that they would remember them later.
The researchers suggest some of their findings indicate that the unconscious mind is involved in filtering some of the information presented to the brain because it knows that the information will not be needed later. They believe that their findings could have practical applications, such as in the way people are treated for PTSD or how to better interpret information given by eyewitnesses to crimes.