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Posts Tagged ‘memory’

Landscapes Can Improve Cognition and Short Term Memory

January 9th, 2009 by Admin | 1 Comment | Filed in Uncategorized

Businesses, schools, homes for the elderly, and many offices could benefit the people who visit or work in them by having images of natural scenes decorating their walls. Is it possible that we can all improve our cognitive performances by displaying images of natural environments on our homes?

New studies again show that vision, and what one sees strongly impacts memory and cognitive ability.

At two studies conducted at the University of Michigan , Marc G. Berman and colleagues tested the effect of a walk’s scenery on cognitive function ( Berman, Jonides & Kaplan, 2008 ; PDF ).

In the first study participants were given a 35 minute task involving repeating loads of random numbers back to the experimenter, but in reverse order. After this special task in cognitive psychology the subjects went for a walk. One group walked around an arboretum and while the other walked down busy city streets. Both groups were tracked with GPS devices.

The memory tests were repeated upon their return.

The results showed that the test group which took a walk in the tree lined natural surroundings improved in memory performance by almost 20% The subjects who walked in the busy urban scene did not improve to a reliable extent.

The arboretum is located in the City, near the university as the selected urban street. Thus the traffic sounds, sirens and noise were similar. Being outside on the same day within walking distance the groups experiences the same weather, and many of the same scents.

Judy Rey Wasserman’s
Summer Tree Aleph

What differed significantly was what each group perceived visually.

Judy Rey Wasserman’s
Fall Tree Aleph

The second study honed in on that difference. This time participants remained in the lab. One group of participants was shown images of natural scenes of trees and fields while others looked at urban images of lampposts and streets.

Then they were again tested in relation on short term memory retention using random numbers.

Once again the study subjects who were exposed to the images of natural environments of trees and fields showed marked improvement over the other study group; however, the improvement was slightly less.

In the second study participants weren’t even allowed to leave the lab but instead some stared at pictures of natural scenes while others looked at urban environments. The improvements weren’t quite as impressive as the first study, but, once again, the trees and fields beat the roads and lampposts.

These results replicated a previous study by Berto (2005) , which concluded that just viewing pictures of natural scenes positively effected cognitive function. This study noted that an individual’s performance was soon restored by picture of trees, fields and hills, but not by streets, industrial units or even complex geometric patterns.

Clearly, our environments influence us visually. We can influence our own lives, and those of our family, friends, clients, customers and teammates by displaying images that do more than decorate. Once again, proof that art can change lives. Art can enhance brain functioning.

For information on how a new kind of art can easily and effectively change your life click here to download a free booklet.

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How Do Older Brains View Memory Differently Than Younger Ones?

December 22nd, 2008 by Admin | No Comments | Filed in Uncategorized

A study by neuroscientists from Duke University Medical Center reveals differences in how older and younger people use their brains when it comes to storing memories, particularly those associated with negative emotions.

Older adults, average age 70, and younger adults, average age 24, were shown a series of 30 photographs while their brains were imaged in a functional MRI (fMRI) machine. Some of the photos were neutral in nature and others had strong negative content such as attacking snakes, mutilated bodies and violent acts.

While in the fMRI machine, the subjects viewed the photos and ranked them on a pleasantness scale. Following that they completed an unexpected recall task following the fMRI scan to determine whether the brain activity that occurred while looking at the pictures could predict later memory. The results were sorted according to the numbers of negative and neutral pictures that were remembered or missed by each group.

The scientists believe that the study showed that the older adults have less connectivity between an area of the brain that generates emotions and a region involved in memory and learning. But they also found that the older adults have stronger connections with the frontal cortex, the higher thinking area of the brain that controls these lower-order parts of the brain.

“The younger adults were able to recall more of the negative photos,” said Roberto Cabeza, Ph.D., senior author and Duke professor in the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience. If the older adults are using more thinking than feeling, “that may be one reason why older adults showed a reduction in memory for pictures with a more negative emotional content.”

“It wasn’t surprising that older people showed a reduction in memory for negative pictures, but it was surprising that the older subjects were using a different system to help them to better encode those pictures they could remember,” said lead author Peggy St. Jacques, a graduate student in the Cabeza laboratory.

Young adults employed more of the brain regions usually involved in emotion and recalling memories.

The emotional centers of the older subjects were as active as those of younger subjects — it was the brain connections that differed.

There are various possibilities as to why there are these differences.

Older people have more visual memories of unpleasant images, such as snakes, than younger ones. This is especially true for the current generations thanks to photography, film and video access that other generations lacked.

“If using the frontal regions to perform a memory task was always beneficial, then the young people would use that strategy, too,” Cabeza said. “Each way of doing a task has some trade-offs. Older people have learned to be less affected by negative information in order to maintain their well being and emotional state – they may have sacrificed more accurate memory for a negative stimulus, so that they won’t be so affected by it.”

Another possibility is that an older person looks at something to decide what to do with or about it; the brain may not remember it as well since keeping the information is irrelevant. What is relevant is the response to it.

Why remember what is already largely remembered in previously stored visual memories that pose no possible current danger?

Young people are still visually (and in other ways) learning about the world. Thus their responses would be different from an older person’s.

Healthy normal brains use visual memories to decode the impressions of light received from the eyes. Only ten percent of the process of visual perception occurs in the eyes, which see impressions of light. The bulk of visual work happens in the brain as it decodes the information received from the eyes by using memories of visual experiences that seem to compare to the current impressions of light.

At some point the brain has enough visual memories of a specific person, place or thing so unless there is a change – an update — it eases off on collecting more. Top brands understand this so the slightly change their packaging, which gets them attention, otherwise a product is actually see, but not “noticed” as no update is needed.

My personal experience with consciously creating new visual memories of energy and helping other do so also come from my work as an artist. As the founder of Post Conceptual UnGraven Image Art Theory, I work to create works that show the energy, the essences that are the building blocks of the physical universe.

When a person has enough visual memories of my art, they begin actually experiencing seeing more of the energy that is everywhere always. Our eyes see this energy, but until now, our brains have had no way to decode these perceptions. This new way of seeing was discovered as the works changed my visual experience, allowing me to see more energy, everywhere, always and now.

Others are benefiting also, and there’s a new Art of Seeing The Divine e book and free e booklet that helps one make easy rapid progress with creating the necessary visual memories.

When older people made more stronger connections with the frontal cortex they were deciding what to do about the visual stimuli rather than what to do with it. Older people also have more experience with seeing photographs and images.

Younger people are still discovering reality and who they are. This is why younger people flock to Horror and Action pictures that can take a hefty amount of suspended belief (or the ability to pretend), while older people enjoy other fare with more emotional and perceptual nuances.

“Perhaps at different stages of life, there are different brain strategies,” Cabeza speculated. “Younger adults might need to keep an accurate memory for both positive and negative information in the world. Older people dwell in a world with a lot of negatives, so perhaps they have learned to reduce the impact of negative information and remember in a different way.” According to Cabeza, the results of the study are consistent with a theory about emotional processes in older adults proposed by Dr. Laura Carstensen at Stanford University , an expert in cognitive processing in old age.

“One thing we might do in the future is to ask subjects to try to actively regulate their emotions as they look at the pictures,” St. Jacques said. “Would there be a shift in the neural networks for processing the negative pictures when we asked younger people to regulate their emotional responses? How would that affect their later recall of the negative pictures?”

The study appears in the January issue of Psychological Science.

Some of the material in this article is adapted from a news release issued by the Duke University Medical Center .

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Understanding Enhanced Vision is a Life Transforming Key to Success

December 11th, 2008 by Admin | No Comments | Filed in Uncategorized

New advances in neuroscience and medicine have discovered and shown that the perception of vision is based in the brain, not they eyes.

One of the implications of this discovery is that a person’s vision and even life can be changed and even transformed by adding new visual information to the brain.

The eyes transmit impressions of light to the brain. That accounts for ten percent (10%) of the vision process. The brain then decodes these received impressions by comparing them to may previously stored visual memories. This occurs so quickly that it seems to be instantaneous.

A person whose life experience has included being visually exposed to many different people, places and things has a larger visual reference, and thus functional visual intelligence. We actually better see, and notice more… and then more when we have prior visual references for a person place or thing.

In the Twentieth Century advertisers learned that a product needed rand recognition to become successful. Many campaigns for new products were and are based on creating this recognition rather than acquiring sales, as sales follow recognition.

Although it was understood that sales follow recognition of a product the fuller recognition of the fact that people are almost blind to new products was not understood. The brain needs visual memories of a people place or thing to decode and actually see more of it. The more memories, the better a person can see a product.

This understanding can also be used to understand social relationships and how they are fostered and maintained. The more a person sees and relates to someone, the closer one feels, even if that person is not actually appreciated or liked! The more an actor or politician is seen the better the chances their films and shows will be watched or that they will be elected.

The brain can also be trained to see more by purposefully looking at new people, places or things. This can be done in person or through images in printed or online media. While viewing the latest toothpaste may not be the most brain enhancing, studies have shown that viewing people from different cultures, who one is not usually exposed to helps one learn to see and actually distinguish their faces more readily. This is looking for the sake of looking, just as one does when one visits and art museum or galleries.

Although art lovers, and certainly patrons and collectors tend to be on a higher economic basis, and are thus thought to be more intelligent, which came first the chicken or egg conundrum begins to apply. Clearly people who regularly visit art museums, galleries and look at people. Places or things are busy increasing their visual intelligence and ability.

Art can also be purposefully used to expand or enhance one’s ability to see more, thus increasing visual and actual intelligence. Actual intelligence is improved as memories, including visual ones are actual things. The more different memories one has the more one actually physically expands one’s brain. The more different kinds of visual memories one has the greater the chance that the brain can decode a new impression of a person, place or thing, making one more functionally intelligent.

The more different kinds of visual memories one has the greater the chance that the brain can decode a new impression of a person, place or thing, making one more functionally intelligent.

Post Conceptual UnGraven Image are is unique as it reveals the energy that the eyes see but the brain has few, if any visual memories of to use. Seeing this art one begins to build visual memories that are eventually used by the brain, creating an enhanced vision.

There is even a book about this, The Art of Seeing The Divine , which includes a series of Exercise/Experiences created to help the reader easily and quickly create more energy seeing visual memories.

Sag Harbor Bridge Sunset

Genesis Sunset Sunrise series

Apparently when one has enough visual memories of energy the brain begins to decode prior memories of emotion, including unwanted or negative emotion that pop up, usually unconsciously, during the ongoing visual decoding process as simply more energy. The viewer experiences fewer feelings of unwanted anger, fear, hurt, etc., which were previously triggered during the visual decoding process, but are now decoded as just more visual energy. This does not mean the feelings are resolved, it means that during the day they are not constantly restimulated.

This new scientific understanding about the brain’s dominant role in vision also explains why people who read more are better readers, and can be applied readily to other aspects of education. A person can apply it when attempting to learn anything new, because knowing that at first one needs to keep looking, building visual memories, means greater tolerance and achievement through the natural learning process. Visual repetition can be a key to success.

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Can Vision Control Feelings?

November 18th, 2008 by Admin | 2 Comments | Filed in Uncategorized

The average person’s perception of sight can possibly be credited or blamed for many of their moods and feelings as they move through their days.

How a person actually sees can help create a happy and fulfilled life – or the opposite.

Recent scientific findings indicate that for the average person ninety(90%) percent of the perception of vision takes place in the brain. Average refers to people who have near normal vision with or without corrective lenses and normally healthy brains.

The remaining ten percent (10 %) of the process of vision occurs through the eyes. happens in the eyes, which receive perceptions of light that they send to the brain.

People have been rendered blind, or blind in specific ways by damage to their brains. For instance, one brain injured man can see, but is not able to recognize any faces.

The majority of the complex processes that we call vision happens as the brain decodes the perceptions of light received from the eyes. It does this by comparing and contrasting the perceptions to visual memories it has of prior perceptions.

The more visual memories a person has of different sights, including people, places and things, the more perceptive a person is, especially in relation to what has been seen previously. These memories are stored variously in a person’s brain and can be interconnected or cross referenced.

Some of this information was discovered when medical breakthroughs for a few conditions allowed surgeons to restore the eyesight of adults who had been blind since birth or early childhood. While the procedures were a success, the patients were completely unable to see how many fingers were held up, recognize faces or see anything more than impressions of light.

The newly “healed” patients were effectively blind as they lacked any visual memories. Newborns lack visual memories, which is why they seem to see, but do not respond to visual information at first. Over time, with increased visual experience, the patients created visual memories. Eventually, much in the way that children do, they learned to see and understand complexities of color, space, form, density, etc.

When an average adult sees something, the brain decodes the impressions of light sent by the eyes to make it usable and relevant. The similar memories that the brain uses may have additional meanings and understandings that are irrelevant decode the impressions of light, but are understood as relevant by the brain.

When the brain decodes impressions of light, it is decoding impressions of energy and pre-matter or basic particles. This is what light is. So, to the brain, data memories that are similar to the impressions received are relevant, and if those memories include more data of energy and basic particles it could be relevant, too.

Actually, the brain is bringing up many, many memories seemingly simultaneously, and even from different areas of the brain to decode a complex image that contains a lot of data that involves unfamiliar people and things. These memories can include emotion, which is energy and basic particles and like all memories is stored as such.

If I person has a history of being upbeat or happy, beginning with a comfortable, supportive and healthy childhood and continuing into adulthood, any emotional energy attached to the visual memories used for decoding are likely to be happy or at least neutral. These emotions may seem relevant to the brain as a part of the visual data since they offer additional information of energy and basic particles. Or, they can simply be brought up as part of the memory package.

However, people who have childhoods and/or adult lives filled with stress, trauma and unwanted emotion are unconsciously reminded of emotions and unresolved memories as the brain decodes current impressions of light of people places and things that should be easy to encounter and non- threatening.

The memories used as the decoding data are not usually brought to consciousness, but emotions, being emotions, can be felt.

People who have a tendency to be sad, angry, fearful, guilty, or any other unwanted emotion, may be experiencing these emotions on an ongoing and constant basis as their brains decode the impressions sent by their eyes. This is why going away, to someplace new and strange can seem so uplifting—no memories to re-stimulate.

Thoughts are things – or more precisely energy and pre-particles (matter). Memories are thoughts that are stored. Emotions, which are usually produced by thought, whether conscious or unconscious, are energy and pre-particles, too. Both can be seen and measured through brain imaging.

If the brain is taught to visually recognize emotional energy as just energy when it decodes perceptual impressions, emotional subconscious re-stimulation would abate for most people.

For example, when decoding a light impression of a cup that is similar to a cup used by an abusive older relative in one’s youth, the brain would select visual memories of the original cup to use in the visual decoding process. Like post it notes attached to a memo, negative and unwanted but experienced energies and pre-particles of the emotions of fear, anger, sadness, etc, would all fleet by unconsciously as attachments to the memory. These could be experienced, and even then misunderstood as a part of the individual’s personality.

Ironically, we refer to people’s positive or negative, glass half-full or half-empty world views as their “outlooks”. This could be literally correct.

If the brain uses the same memories, but learns to “view” the energies of the emotions as just energies and particles (without adding or attaching the significances of fear, anger, sadness, etc.), which are irrelevant to decoding visual information, the emotional information is not felt, even unconsciously.

This may seem impossible but it is already being accomplished by scientists through brain imaging. The brain’s emotional centers, and even specific thoughts are being seen as energy. However the scientists and doctors have lack knowledge of the actual specific content of the thoughts – but they can see the energy of the thoughts in brains.

It is also being accomplished through a new form of art, Post Conceptual UnGraven Image, founded by artist and author Judy Rey Wasserman. The brain can be taught to see more energy through specific visual images that purposefully use strokes to symbolize energy, which form pictures, just as traditional artists form imagery. This gives the brain a way to create and accumulate visual memories with information it previously lacked, but which human eyes are capable of perceiving.

Intense exposure and looking at these works of Post Conceptual UnGraven Image Art and through various Visual Exercises/Techniques that use the images in a new e book, The Art of Seeing The Divine , seem to be able to change the way an individual actually sees the world.

Simply, thanks to the new visual memories more energy is seen everywhere. After this is established the brain seems to understand emotions that are attached to memories it uses for visual decoding as simply energy and particles. The emotional significance of that energy is now irrelevant. Thus, fewer unwanted emotions are experienced.

Since sixty percent (60%) of the average person’s brain is allocated to the perception of sight, lowering the amount of ongoing memories of negative or unwanted emotions offers a great deal of relief!

Ironically, one of the unheralded benefits of most meditative practices happened when the practitioner closes his or her eyes. This effectively ceases any and all visual stimulation or decoding, and therefore no emotional memories are brought into the experience this way. Of course a person may remember images or envision at will, but once a person’s eyes are closed any outside visual stimulation ceases.

Visual perception is a basic and effective way to navigate the world. We rely on our sight so much that it is the only sense that must be “turned off” in order to sleep. It is also the sense we have the most control over, simply because we can and do close our eyes. We cannot as easily shut out any other sense. We are just beginning to discover the benefits of additional conscious control through purposefully adding visual memories.

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Does Your Mind Use You?

November 7th, 2008 by Admin | 1 Comment | Filed in Uncategorized

Many people believe that the thoughts and ideas that come to them are somehow authentic and relevant. Thoughts and ideas kind of pop-up into their minds and are accepted as though they were chosen experiences. Most of the ideas that a person has is relevant to what they are actually experiencing, especially seeing, Yet, there are often tag-along ideas and emotions revived and sent by the brain that are not relevant at that instant. They may even be harmful.

On a moment to moment basis we are flooded (and that is an understatement!) with memories as the brain uses to decode the impressions it receives through the senses of smell, touch, taste, and sight. By far and away, the most important and consequential sense for the average person is the sense of sight.

Sixty percent of the normal person’s brain is dedicated to the perception of sight. This leaves the reaming forty percent (40%) of the brain to the other four senses, running the body and other tasks. Clearly indicates that sight is a normal person’s most important method of perception.

Scientists, including medical doctors have discovered that ninety percent (90%) of the perception of sight happens in the brain as it decodes the impressions of light that is received from the eyes. The brain does this by comparing the impressions of light to memories of previous impressions of light.

A baby’s eyes do perceive after birth, however it takes a couple of weeks of the baby gaining visual memories before the brain begins to have enough memories to decode the impressions . After about two weeks the baby can recognize the basic caregiver visually to a degree.

As the child grows more visual memories are gained. Learning to read means being able to distinguish shapes, so the letters can be discerned. It takes many visual memories of seeing something new before enough memories accumulate that it can always be decoded.

If you can read this text yourself you have many, many visual memories stored that help you to accomplish the task. When you see something new, a new gadget, person, place, etc., you have so many memories of things, people and places that you easily decode much of the image. Yet new images, mean gaining more visual memory.

Gaining visual memory, seeing new things is something that most people enjoy. This is why we watch the special commercials during the super bowl, like to change fashions, want new gadgets – especially those with screens, etc. New visual experiences are usually at least interesting.

When the brain receives impressions of light from the eyes it almost instantaneously calls up previous memories that contain similar data to decode the impressions. However memories that contain visual data can contain more than visual data. Memories can be like holograms of a moment that include perceptions of vision, sound, taste, touch, smell, thoughts and emotions. So as we move through the day, from moment to moment we are constantly reminded of all kinds of memories. Mainly, we are not conscious of this.

However, if you have ever seen a thing, person or place and though or remarked, That reminds me of… you consciously experienced the process.

Usually this occurs as the brain is not too sure if what is being experienced at the moment is the thing, person or place, so it includes a kind of wake up call or question. This kind of “wake up call” is also used when the brain perceives something that could mean danger, such as when the vehicle directly in front of one slams on its brakes.

Tag-along thoughts and emotions can be misunderstood by a person to be relevant or to somehow belong to them at the moment. This is a mistake that can have many repercussions, especially if the thoughts or emotions have negative content.

For example:

On a warm spring day Jane goes for a walk. On the way she passes various stores and shops. One shop has especially interesting objects that draw Jane to its window. In the corner of the display she sees an antique cup that is much like the one often used at the home of a much disliked great aunt who was verbally abusive, telling Jane that she is incompetent, too sensitive and not as pretty as her own granddaughter. This great aunt even cane when no one was looking.

However at the moment that Jane sees the antique cup she is distracted by the loud honk of a car and squealing brakes of a car as it swerves out of the way. Jane turns to look.

As Jane continues to walk down the street she blames her less happy mood on being startled by the honking and squealing brakes. Jane thinks to herself that she is too sensitive. She feels that old sense of worthlessness again, which she knows is untrue, but somehow she feel it. Jane accepts these thoughts as relevant to the moment, rather than recognizing that these thoughts are just memories that were re-stimulated as the brain decoded the vision of the antique cup in the window.

The above example of how thoughts and emotions may just seem to occur is one most everyone can relate to. We have all been reminded of emotions and thoughts that we then experienced and even continued to experience because we assumed they were relevant. Some people continue to experience thoughts and emotions that are unwanted because they do not know how to let go of them.

The primary source of memories, including emotions, is the perception of vision.

To gain more control of visual memory, discover how you can consciously create visual memory. Learn more at: The Art of Seeing The Divine.com

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