The key facts
- Psychiatrist Nadezhda Solovyova: memorizing information helps brain function, even if the facts are never needed in life
- She commented on the 'Ingeborga Dapkunaite effect' flash mob
- For a memory workout, the doctor recommends learning poems and conversing on a variety of topics
Memorizing even 'useless' data trains the brain
Memorizing information is beneficial for the brain, even if these facts are never needed in everyday life, said psychiatrist Nadezhda Solovyova in an interview with 360.ru. According to her, retaining new data in memory promotes the formation of neural connections. 'The more information we memorize, the more useful it is for forming neural connections and for our brain to work,' the doctor noted.
Comment against the backdrop of a flash mob
This is how the specialist commented on the flash mob 'the Ingeborga Dapkunaite effect': its participants share words and phrases that keep popping into their heads, even though they have nothing to do with their lives. One of the most frequent examples was the actress's name. For a useful memory workout, Solovyova recommended learning poems and memorizing other texts, as well as conversing on a variety of topics.
Memory is not a video recording
It is also worth remembering that the brain is capable of supplementing memories with details that never actually existed: memory does not reproduce the past like a ready-made video recording, and with each recollection the picture is assembled anew. The gaps may be filled with plausible fabrications — this mechanism is linked to the Mandela effect. This means that even active memory training does not make memories verbatim accurate: memorizing texts supports neural connections, but the brain does not guarantee the accuracy of details of the past.
