MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences UnitA video of the annual joint British Psychological Society/British Academy lecture ‘Keeping a spotless mind: The neuroscience of motivated forgetting‘ presented by Michael Anderson is now available online. It was presented earlier this month at the British Academy in London. www.bps.org.uk/news/annual-bpsba-lecture-video-neuroscience-forgetting-available You can also read a report of the lecture in The Psychologist
The forgetful side effect of frequent recall
A study run here at the Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit in Cambridge has shown how intentional recall is beyond a simple reawakening of a memory; and actually leads us to forget other competing experiences that interfere with retrieval. Quite simply, the very act of remembering may be one of the major reasons why we […]
Now suppressing memories may help
New research shows that, contrary to what was previously assumed, suppressing unwanted memories reduces their influence on behaviour, and sheds light on how this process happens in the brain. The team at the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit and the University of Cambridge’s Behavioural and Clinical Neuroscience Institute (BCNI) have examined how suppression affects a […]
Forget to remember – Michael Anderson explains all
CBU’s Michael Anderson featured in a recent broadcast with Big Picture Science, a show that was broadcast on National Public Radio in the US this month (January 2014). He spoke about his research into why not remembering some things is key to remembering others. Hear it here
BBC featuring work of CBU scientists
The work of Adrian Owen and his team, ex of CBU and now at University of Western Ontario, focussing on their MRI work attempting to help communicate with vegetative state patients will be featured in an hour long BBC Panorama programme being shown on Tuesday 13th November. Much of the early work was conducted at […]
Suppression and Substitution: helping us forget
A team of researchers at the Medical Research Council (MRC) has discovered that the human brain can intentionally forget unwanted memories via two distinct and opposite processes. By improving our understanding of the brain mechanisms underlying these processes, known as ‘memory suppression’ and ‘memory substitution’, these findings may help explain why people can have problems […]
